We've discussed how the State Department, and Hillary Clinton in particular, have been spending a lot of time talking up the importance of internet freedom, and speaking out against countries that censor the internet. That even resulted in Joe Biden's unintentionally hilarious explanation of why internet censorship is horrible... while he supports internet censorship at home.
It seems like there's a real disconnect in our government, however, when the censorship is couched in the word "copyright." We just wrote about how Spain adopted its SOPA-like law this week, despite widespread public outrage. We had noted that the US State Department was a major force behind the bill, and (no surprise) more news has leaked that there was more of the same behind this new decision to adopt the Sinde Law. It's been leaked that, just last month, State Department officials threatened the Spanish government that if it didn't pass the law, there would be repercussions. This was a letter from US ambassador Alan Solomont to the outgoing Spanish government, sent December 12th, in which he talked about "promises" made to the US government:
"The government has unfortunately failed to finish the job for political reasons, to the detriment of the reputation and economy of Spain... The government of Spain made commitments to the rights owners and to the US government. Spain can not afford to see their credibility questioned on this issue."
Stunning. Because, in actuality, the commitment the Spanish government has is to its own citizens -- who are very much against the bill. The only thing that raises questions about Spain's "credibility" is caving to US diplomatic pressure to censor the internet.
Meanwhile, if we want to talk "credibility," the US State Department is increasingly losing its credibility on this issue. How can any diplomat, with a straight face, go public talking about internet freedom and being against censorship, when the State Department demanded Spain pass a law that allows for censoring the internet?
One of the more interesting things that I've seen over the last few months as the SOPA/PIPA fight has become more involved, is that people I respect in the entertainment industry itself have been speaking out against the bill, and talking about how horrible it would be -- even though they work "in the industry." The latest is famed MythBuster's host Adam Savage, who recently admitted that he's a "serious copyright law geek" (in linking to Bill Patry's excellent new book, which I'll have a writeup on relatively soon). Savage is using his column space at Popular Mechanics to rip apart PIPA and SOPA, urging people to call their elected officials in protest of the bills, and noting that they "would be laughable if they weren't in fact real."
Think of all the stories you've read over the past 14 years of people slapping DMCA takedowns of content that they didn't own, just because they didn't like what it had to say. One that comes to mind is Uri Gellar, the popular psychic who performed spoon bending and other tricks on TV in the 1970s. Using a DMCA claim, he had YouTube pull videos of him being humiliated during a 1973 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, when he had no copyright claim to them at all.
This is exactly what will happen with Protect IP and SOPA. We've seen it again and again. Give people a club like this and you can kiss the Internet as you know it goodbye. It's really that bad. And it's a clear violation of our First Amendment right to free speech.
The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard. Like the printing press before it (which states also tried to regulate, for centuries), it democratizes information, and thus it democratizes power. If we allow Congress to pass these draconian laws, we'll be joining nations like China and Iran in filtering what we allow people to see, do, and say on the Web.
Again, Savage is the kind of person that the industry is claiming needs this law -- and yet he's clearly vehemently against it. When you see the US Chamber of Commerce dump out their bogus line about "19 million jobs in IP-intensive industries," that includes Savage and all of his colleagues at MythBusters. How much longer will we let Tepp, the US Chamber of Commerce and the MPAA pretend that they represent the will of people who are actually very much against these bills and everything they represent?
At nearly the exact time that Dajaz1 was getting its domain back, after the US government wrongly censored its domain for over a year with absolutely nothing resembling due process (and actively stifling attempts by the site to get its day in court and get its domain back), US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was giving a speech in Europe about the evils of internet censorship.
Let's take a look at some of the quotes, and remember that she's saying this just as Dajaz1 was coming back online after a year.
This is an urgent task. It is most urgent, of course, for those around the world whose words are now censored, who are imprisoned because of what they or others have written online, who are blocked from accessing entire categories of internet content, or who are being tracked by governments seeking to keep them from connecting with one another.
Of course, we don't even have to look "around the world." We can just look right here at home in the US, where ICE and the Justice Department seem to have no problem doing the same thing. Or we can look to SOPA and PIPA and their plan to expand the ability to censor the web in the US.
In Syria, a blogger named Anas Maarawi was arrested on July 1st after demanding that President Asad leave. He’s not been charged with anything, but he remains in detention. In both Syria and Iran, many other online activists – actually too many to name – have been detained, imprisoned, beaten, and even killed for expressing their views and organizing their fellow citizens. And perhaps the most well known blogger in Russia, Alexei Navalny, was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 days in jail after he took part in protests over the Russian elections.
In America, a blog named Dajaz1, was seized last November after posting music sent to it by various copyright holders for the purpose of promotion. It was never brought up under forfeiture rules, but the domain remained in detention... Now, clearly, having a site seized is not in the same category as being "detained, imprisoned, beaten or even killed" but if we're against censorship abroad, it seems pretty crazy to be ignoring it when it happens at home.
It seems like the State Department should issue a message calling out ICE and DOJ for doing the exact same thing Clinton is complaining about in other countries.
But when ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled, and people constrained in their choices, the internet is diminished for all of us. What we do today to preserve fundamental freedoms online will have a profound effect on the next generation of users. More than two billion people are now connected to the internet, but in the next 20 years, that number will more than double. And we are quickly approaching the day when more than a billion people are using the internet in repressive countries. The pledges we make and the actions we take today can help us determine whether that number grows or shrinks, or whether the meaning of being on the internet is totally distorted.
Well, given the blatant wrongful censorship of Dajaz1, do we include the 245 million or so online Americans in the count of the number of people using the internet in repressive countries? I certainly want to believe that we're not a repressive country, but with a story that horrifying...
So right now, in various international forums, some countries are working to change how the internet is governed. They want to replace the current multi-stakeholder approach, which includes governments, the private sector, and citizens, and supports the free flow of information, in a single global network.
Not just in international forums....
The United States wants the internet to remain a space where economic, political, and social exchanges flourish. To do that, we need to protect people who exercise their rights online...
Unless you promote hip hop music. Then, too bad.
... and we also need to protect the internet itself from plans that would undermine its fundamental characteristics.
Unless it means protecting campaign donations from Hollywood. Then we can change the fundamental characteristics of the internet with a snap.
Our government (inaudible) will continue to work very hard to get around every barrier that repressive governments put up.
But will it still censor at will at home?
Honestly, it's tough to see how Hillary and the State Department can legitimately support SOPA and PIPA after that speech and the evidence of direct US censorship.
We keep pointing out just how disastrous SOPA and PIPA look from a diplomatic perspective. Just as the US is going around talking about the importance of internet freedom, to start pushing a bill that involves censorship (and yes, it is censorship) looks really bad. SOPA supporters like to point to Hillary Clinton's letter that said there's no conflict between internet freedom and copyright enforcement. But she did not comment specifically on the bills at issue -- and furthermore her statement is wrong. There doesn't have to be conflict between the two, but you can't say there's never conflict between the two, because you could easily design a rule that proves otherwise (e.g., "we shut down the entire internet to prevent infringement.") The State Department, frankly, is having a really tough time straddling both sides of this debate, because everything they say about the importance of internet freedom acts as the perfect arguments against SOPA.
But, really, the true test of the diplomatic impact of SOPA on the international community is not what the State Department says... it's what those other countries say. And they seem pretty shocked that this is the path the US is going down. Here are two examples. First up, we have the Voice of Russia, noting that the US is joining China in censoring the internet:
The US and the West have long criticized China for stifling dissent and for censorship but now they are not only joining China but they are taking censorship even further and attempting to censor the whole world.
The international implications of SOPA are worrying for as experts claim: it appears that the US is taking control of the entire world. The definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US user who uses a website overseas immediately gives the US the power to potentially take action against it and enable them to force ISPs to DNS-block any foreign site.
On a global scale it grants the U.S. Government far-reaching powers to go after Web sites which it claims are hosting copyrighted content.... Not long ago the U.S. admitted that it was in a state of information warfare and that it was losing the war. So what do you do if you are losing the information war? You muzzle the messenger.
Considering Russia has a bit of a history using copyright law to stifle political critics... folks there certainly know exactly how censorship via copyright can lead to much more than just protecting a few companies.
Now, let's jump over to the Middle East, where Al Jazeera is pointing out the State Department's rank hypocrisy on this subject, assuming that Clinton's letter was, in fact, in support of SOPA, and showing how that seems to undermine the rest of the State Department's arguments for internet freedom around the globe -- especially when it comes to circumvention tools:
In the year and a half since, the State Department has had limited success promoting online awareness and circumvention tools in foreign countries. But given SOPA's incredibly broad definitions of which sites are liable under its censorship provisions - merely claiming the site "engages in, enables or facilitates" infringement is enough - it won't be long until the bill destroys social networks that spread news of protests and the anonymity software that keep activists protected.
Many tech groups worry social networks such as Facebook - which were instrumental in organising protests in Egypt - would be at risk under SOPA. Brooklyn Law School professor Derek Bambauer also argues YouTube, which hosts countless human rights videos, would be "clearly unlawful", since it allows users to upload videos that may contain copyrighted content. While Google and Facebook may have enough money and lawyers to fend off lawsuits and court orders without being shut down completely, emerging social networks in foreign countries would not. Any site hosting videos, even if they are used to draw attention to human rights abuses, will be easily derailed if an overzealous copyright holder decides to use one alleged violation to strangle the whole site.
But circumvention tools - which allow activists to foil internet censors and evade government surveillance - would be the bill's greatest casualties. While many are developed explicitly for human rights advocates, they can also be used to download copyrighted content. Tor, the anonymising software that masks users' IP addresses that was instrumental during Egypt protests, would be a prime target of copyright holders, despite being funded by the US government.
In fact, most of internet freedom programmes currently funded by State Department are in danger. Hillary has pledged millions of dollars to various companies to create a "shadow" internet "that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments", according to the New York Times. But by endorsing SOPA, Hillary is giving the green light to copyright holders to destroy it. Virtual Private Networks, proxies, privacy or anonymisation software could all potentially be deemed illegal if they can also help get around SOPA's censorship mechanisms.
Even if Clinton truly believes that SOPA doesn't harm the US's diplomatic position on internet freedom around the world, it sure looks like large parts of the rest of the world disagree. The site TorrentFreak recently had a caption contest about a photo showing MPAA boss Chris Dodd sharing a hearty laugh with Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui. Perhaps they were laughing about how the bill that Dodd is pushing is the perfect cover for the Chinese the next time the State Department asks them to stop censoring the internet.
A couple of weeks ago, Joe Biden gave a perfect, if unintended, explanation for why SOPA and PROTECT IP are such terrible ideas. Since his speech included a bunch of other things, we thought it would be good to highlight Biden's specific arguments that explain why SOPA and PROTECT IP are bad, and to give him kudos for making such statements, since they contradict the statements from Hollywood on this bill.
Unfortunately, even with Biden's clear and incontestable statements that show the massive harm that SOPA and PROTECT IP would cause for innovation in the US, this bill still has tremendous momentum in DC, thanks to a strong lobbying push from the legacy entertainment industry. In fact, don't be surprised if Biden totally contradicts himself in a few weeks and pretends that he's all for censoring the internet, harming innovation, and "fixing" what isn't broken on the internet. That's why we're urging folks to support American Censorship Day tomorrow, as the House holds its first hearings ever on how best to censor the internet. Biden's clear explanation of why SOPA & PROTECT IP are so bad should give pause to anyone supporting it -- and will certainly raise serious eyebrows if/when Biden (and the White House) later change positions on these bills. Oh, and if Biden does change positions, let's hold him to it, and make it clear that the American public doesn't appreciate flip flopping politicians, who completely contradict themselves, based on who's supporting what legislation.
This following story would be pretty funny if it didn't have such a wide impact. It's pretty much assured that VP Joe Biden is in favor of PROTECT IP/E-PARASITE/SOPA. Since the start of this administration, President Obama has delegated most copyright issues to Biden, and Biden's general view on copyright seems to be "whatever makes Hollywood happier must be fantastic." How else do you describe his continued support of ever more draconian copyright law, contrary to the evidence suggesting that it only makes things worse? How else do you explain his claim that he got "all the stakeholders" concerning copyright into a summit meeting, when it only involved government officials and the big labels and studios (no consumer advocates, no artists, no technologists, no entrepreneurs, etc.)?
At the same time, issues of "internet freedom" have been handed off to the State Department, where Hillary Clinton and her team have actually been doing a pretty good job. The Wikilkeaks response was a bit of a hiccup, but on the whole... they've taken a really strong position on the importance of internet freedom, and they deserve kudos for that. Of course, as we've noted, these two issues appear to come into conflict over copyright policy, and bills like PROTECT IP/SOPA/E-PARASITE. Those kinds of bills make Biden happy, clearly, but seriously upset people in the State Department, who recognize that it completely undermines their message on internet freedom, being against censorship and allowing the free flow of information online.
So, at the very least, keep an eye out for the growing conflict between Biden and Clinton on this particular issue. What it'll come down to is whether or not Obama recognizes that PROTECT IP/SOPA/E-PARASITE isn't just a copyright issue, but one of regulating the internet.
Either way, use that as background to understand the awkwardness of what follows. Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak earlier this week at the London Conference on Cyberspace (LCC), in which she was expected to give a speech on the importance of freedom in cyberspace. At the last minute, however, she had to pull out due to her mother falling ill. So, Joe Biden stepped in instead, and gave what looks like a variation on what Clinton's speech was supposed to be... talking up the importance of freedom on the internet and not regulating the internet:
You could take a lot of what he says as a clear argument against PROTECT IP/SOPA/E-PARASITE:
We know that it will take many years and patient and persistent engagement with people around the world to build a consensus around cyberspace, but there are no shortcuts because what citizens do online should not, as some have suggested, be decreed solely by groups of governments making decisions for them somewhere on high. No citizen of any country should be subject to a repressive global code when they send an email or post a comment to a news article. They should not be prevented from sharing their innovations with global consumers simply because they live across a national frontier. That's not how the Internet should ever work in our view -- not if we want it to remain the space where economic, political and social exchanges can flourish.
Indeed. So can we chalk up Biden's support for getting rid of the Great Firewall of America approach found in SOPA? Can we chalk up Biden's support for not doing DNS (and more!) blocking so that people in the US cannot reach certain websites that the rest of the world can reach, based solely on a repressive government code? And, under SOPA, innovators would clearly be hindered from sharing their innovations with global consumers, due to massive liabilities put on them under the law.
Now, there are some who have a different view, as you all know. They seek an international legal instrument that would lead to exclusive government control over Internet resources, institutions and content and national barriers on the free flow of information online. But this, in our view, would lead to a fragmented Internet, one that does not connect people but divides them; a stagnant cyberspace, not an innovative one, and ultimately a less secure cyberspace with less trust among nations.
Again, can we now assume that Biden is coming out against DNS/IP blocking, as found in SOPA? After all, it has been widely established that that, too, would "lead to a fragmented Internet, one that does not connect people but divides them; a stagnant cyberspace, not an innovative one, and ultimately a less secure cyberspace with less trust." Nice to see him say that, though I wonder if he'll ignore all of that when the same arguments are put forth over SOPA.
We have an expression in our country: If it ain’t broke, don't fix it. It would be misguided, in our view, to break with the system that has worked so well for so long.
Indeed. And yet, SOPA clearly tries to break a regulatory and technical framework for the internet that has been in existence for quite some time, and which is likely responsible for the amazing growth and success of the internet industry within the US.
Those countries that try to have it both ways by making the Internet closed to free expression but open for business will find that this is no easy task. They may try to build walls between these different activities, but there isn’t a separate economic Internet, political Internet and social Internet. They are all one. It’s simply the Internet.
The same search engines that help customers find local businesses also point them to websites of bloggers and civil society groups. Social networking sites allow friends to share not only home videos, but also views about the political and social issues within their country.
Trying to build and maintain barriers in cyberspace entails a variety of cost, not just the cost of paying thousands of censors and Internet police to work around the clock, but also the opportunity costs to a nation’s future. And I believe all nations will ultimately determine this. The digital marketplace of ideas that welcomes every blog and tweet is the same one that inspires the next generation of innovators to fuel our economies. And when businesses consider investing in a country with a poor record on Internet freedom, and they know that their website could be shut down suddenly, their transactions monitored, their staffs harassed, they’ll look for opportunities elsewhere.
Yes, yes and yes again. These are wonderful statements, and every one of them -- direct from Biden's mouth -- are clear arguments against SOPA. Last week, when we met with folks in DC about this issue, the fear of many of the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in our group was that if we put up the Great Firewall of America, as designated in SOPA, leading companies to recognize "that their website could be shut down suddenly, their transactions monitored, their staffs harassed," that they will most certainly "look for opportunities elsewhere." Or, worse yet, they wouldn't start at all.
Honestly, Biden's speech really was an excellent one, and I applaud it. I am just wondering if everything he claimed in that speech will be ignored when it comes to SOPA, which seems to go against nearly every point he made in that speech. And to come out in favor of supporting the Great Firewall of America soon after making a speech like that one... well, that's going to certainly undermine a tremendous amount of credibility on the part of the vice president, while equally making life hard on Secretary Clinton in actually going out to these other countries and pressuring them to keep their internet open, while we lock it up at home.
Last week, as part of our trip of startup entrepreneurs, innovators, artists and venture captialists, we were able to meet with senior White House staff about our concerns over the E-PARASITE/SOPA bill that would fundamentally change the regulatory and policy framework of the internet, seriously hindering the ability to create new startups, new jobs and new platforms to help everyone. The White House has not officially taken a position on the bill, but one thing was made clear from the very start of the meeting: the legacy players in Hollywood and at the US Chamber of Commerce were putting a ton of pressure on the White House to support E-PARASITE, despite the fact that the State Department itself is quite worried about the bill, as it would almost entirely undermine all of its efforts to promote internet freedom around the globe.
I'm usually not one to believe in the power of various "online petitions," but since the White House has set up its own petition system, in which 25,000 signatures will guarantee a response, this actually seems like a case where just such a petition would work well. So it's great to see that someone has created just such a petition against E-PARASITE. Of course, technically it should be against SOPA, since the framers of the bill recognized just how silly E-PARASITE sounds, and removed that from the bill after everyone started making fun of them. Still, it's important to push this point home and let the White House know, in no uncertain terms, that the public is against this bill.
And it should be clear, by the way, that it's not just the public. Many people within the federal government are equally worried about this bill, which appears to serve no other purpose than to keep a few legacy players in Hollywood fat and happy, and keep them from having to actually innovate for a short while longer.
The real question, however, is whether or not the Obama White House wants to directly contradict Hillary Clinton and the State Department. Remember, Clinton has become a staunch defender of internet freedom against attempts to censor the internet worldwide. In her speech earlier this year, she noted:
So this is a critical moment. The choices we make today will determine what the Internet looks like in the future.... For the United States, the choice is clear. On the spectrum of Internet freedom, we place ourselves on the side of openness. We recognize that an open
Internet comes with challenges. It calls for ground-rules to protect against wrongdoing and harm. And Internet freedom raises tensions, like all freedoms do. But its benefits are worth it.
And that's exactly the opposite of the approach being taken by Congress, which aims to put forth a top-down policy of censorship. A top down policy that nearly perfectly mimics the functional nature of the Great Firewall of China. Should the Obama administration go against its own State Department, it will serve to undermine Clinton's long term efforts in pushing internet freedom around the globe. That would be quite a legacy to leave: to contradict one's own Secretary of State who is pushing for greater internet freedom, and impose a system of censorship on the US. Please tell the White House not to take such a drastic measure.
Senator Wyden continues to be one of the few politicians actually concerned about the impact of the government's expansive view towards seizing domain names and stifling speech online. His latest is to point out that Homeland Security's strategy with these domain seizures appears to be completely in conflict with the State Department's position on internet freedom, as laid out by Hillary Clinton.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Wyden said he sees a tension in the government between the aggressive ICE crackdown and the work of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to promote Internet freedom. The State Department funds technology aimed at derailing Web censorship by foreign regimes.
Wyden, who commended Clinton for her efforts and said he has spoken with her on the initiative, said domain-name seizures in the U.S. could be a setback to Clinton's Internet freedom work.
"Hopefully, her views will prevail, and not the views of ICE," he said.
Wyden said foreign governments might look at the domain seizures and say, "We've seen it done in the U.S. We have the green light to do it here in our country."
He's absolutely correct, of course, but I'm not sure this line of argument will really work. That's because supporters of domain seizures in the US seem to have a complete mental block on this issue. They claim that such seizures are okay in the US because it's about "stopping people from breaking the law." What they don't realize is that's the identical reason given for seizing domains and websites elsewhere: it's just that the laws are different. In China, the argument for blocking speech has always been to stop people from breaking laws. So I wouldn't be surprised to see the State Department and Hillary Clinton claim they're fine with domain seizures and try to distinguish them from censorship in other countries through a massive level of cognitive dissonance.
I think this is a real problem, honestly. The supporters of domain seizures and laws like COICA simply refuse to recognize how much harm this does to the US's arguments abroad concerning censorship. They have a block, because they think this kind of censorship is "good" so it's either not really censorship, or it's okay. It's this blind spot that will really harm the US's ability to have any real moral leadership on censorship issues in other countries.
A year ago, Hillary Clinton gave a speech about the importance of "internet freedom" that many of us later pointed out appeared to be in stark contrast with the federal government's (including Secretary of State Clinton's) reaction to the publishing of various State Department cables. So a lot of folks were interested in what Clinton had planned for her followup speech on internet freedoms, which she gave yesterday. I've embedded the full speech below, but you can also read a summary of the speech at Wired.
On the whole, the speech is surprisingly good in many places. It's upfront and doesn't beat around the bush on issues that I expected she would gloss over (if she mentioned at all). It lays out some specific principles, noting that the idea that to have more security you need to sacrifice liberty is a false dilemma. It also notes that transparency and confidentiality need not be in conflict. These are a bit surprising in that the easy political win would have been to just position those as scales that need "balance." But she didn't do that, which I appreciate.
On top of that, she did not ignore or run away from the whole Wikileaks thing, but did actually address the issue head on, noting that the federal government has not officially opposed Wikileaks or put pressure on companies not to work with Wikileaks. Also, she claims that their only main concern was with the initial copying of the documents and the impact it may have on certain people's security, rather than the bigger issue of publishing the documents.
Of course, the obvious response is that these are just words, and the reality of the situation isn't quite as clear. Why the administration may not have officially put pressure on companies, many companies have said that they felt pressure from the federal government, and such pressure can be just as bad, if not worse. On top of that, as a bunch of folks at the Berkman Center laid out, it appears that the the government's actions do not live up to Secretary Clinton's words in many cases. Furthermore, there's clearly an awful lot of rationalization on the part of Clinton in trying to explain how Wikileaks is different, even though she fails to explain how it really is any different.
So, while it's nice to hear her actually take on some of these issues with forthright statements that we agree with, rather than the easy political platitudes, there remains serious problems in how the federal government fails to actually live up to what Secretary Clinton claims the US supports.
Also, as noted by Ethan Zuckerman, one major factor missing from her speech is the high level of involvement by US companies in the tools that can help censor the internet. While the speech talks about encouraging more companies to create tools for freedom, even funding companies that help create anti-censorship tools, this falls far short of making sure that US companies also are not acting as chokepoints and bottlenecks where anyone, even the US government, can seek to censor content online.
We've discussed how US political attacks on Julian Assange and Wikileaks have really hurt the US's supposed moral high ground on internet freedom -- something our leaders have long insisted they're in favor of. Yet, with the recent events in Egypt and the attempts to shut down internet communications there, Tim Wu is noting that the federal government should drop the attempt to charge Julian Assange with anything, or else risk looking like total hypocrites:
It is time for the United States to drop the case against WikiLeaks. Pressing forward with efforts to prosecute an Internet publisher at home while standing up for an open Internet in Egypt and the world at large is an increasingly tenuous position. The WikiLeaks case endangers the reputation of the United States as a defender of free speech and an open Internet globally, while forcing the Obama administration to take uncomfortable constitutional positions better suited to the Nixon administration. The importance of this issue is hard to overstate: At a time when the Internet is increasingly recognized as a medium of global resistance to authoritarian rule and when protestors in Tahrir square are holding up signs that say "Thank you, Facebook!", the Obama administration and the United States must make sure that they stand on the right side.
Of course, it seems unlikely that this will actually happen, but I think that US officials significantly underestimate the ammo they're about to hand critics around the world, and what the resulting backlash will create. This one issue will be thrown up in our faces any time the US steps in or complains about a lack of internet freedom elsewhere. It will make pretty much all statements about the importance of internet freedom around the world a punchline rather than an issue worth taking seriously.
