Posted on 02/17/2011 3:32:32 AM PST by raybbr
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned governments from China to Syria on Tuesday that blocking the Internet ultimately would backfire, damaging their economies and creating pent-up demands that would boil over in demonstrations like those that have swept the Middle East and North Africa.
Clinton's speech, planned weeks ago and billed as a major address on Internet freedom, came against the backdrop of the mass protests that toppled the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia. Aides said Clinton wanted to take advantage of the attention being paid to the protesters' use of Facebook and Twitter in order to highlight broader issues.
"We believe that governments who have erected barriers to Internet freedom . . . will eventually find themselves boxed in. They'll face a dictator's dilemma and have to choose between letting the walls fall or paying the price to keep them standing," Clinton said.
Clinton has been a sometimes breathless champion of technologies such as cellphones and the Internet, urging audiences around the globe to use them to expose government corruption and help the poor.
But her speech Tuesday was sober, noting the challenges of balancing Internet freedom against the threats posed by cybercrime, online hate speech and the disclosure of confidential information.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Gotta laugh! The abject adoration aside I personally can't remember Hillary ever being "breathless" - maybe the lady author knows something we don't.
If there is one thing on the face of the earth worse than ZERO, Hitlery is IT! ! ! !Yes IT, she is not human. . .
What a hyporcit indeed!
Join us, Hillary, in our call to DEFUND THE FCC.
The internet isn’t just blogs and Facebook.
Cut the internet and most of us won’t have any phone service, TV, heat and other things.
Isn’t this the same administration calling for an “kill switch” for the Internet? No hypocrisy there at all!
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