Political Censorship of net services or not?

This is what can be found over at Drudge at the moment. It's one of those moments where the listing of headlines just highlights the kind of insanity the political headlines consist of these days.



Now I think it's fair to ask here, since Hillary was Secretary of State then and she is Secretary of State now, just which is it? Is the United States for open and free use of the internet without political control or aren't they? We aren't at war with Somalia, and if we ARE....well, we have a very different and serious national discussion to have about what is happening out there in our name yet without our knowledge. I'll assume we aren't though.

These come from the Somali story specifically:

Over the past two weeks, the Shabab, brutal Islamists known for chopping off hands and starving the famine-stricken populace, have been firing off pithy Twitter messages referring to their attacks and taunting the Kenyan military, which sent troops into Somalia in October to battle the Shabab.

Most of the Shabab’s Twitter messages are in English, not Somali, and are clearly meant for an outside audience. American officials said they were worried that the Shabab might be using Twitter to reach potential recruits in the West.

Source

Now I know who Shabab is and I understand they are not nice people with a very strong connection to a community in the United States. Recruits back and forth, as a matter of fact. I'll say it wouldn't bother me in the least to learn down the line that they had come to watch tweet streams like this and record everything.

What really bothers me here is the United States Government suddenly deciding it's well within it's range of options to shut down entire channels of communication for groups we aren't at war with ourselves. Any circumstance outside of open war shouldn't have us shutting down anyone's ability to communicate across the net.

Watch? Sure...Authorities have been doing that since the telephone was invented. However, it's Shabab today. What group will be considered an enemy tomorrow or under the next administration? This definitely isn't a path I want to see my nation traveling down. Censorship of any kind tends to lead to censorship of all kinds.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Is the United States for open and free use of the internet without political control or aren't they?

Good question.

Just remember - Internet controls have to start somewhere.


S&F& Good catch.

Everything is possible under the war on terror umbrella , has to start somewhere, internet censorship .

Hilary R Clinton , ahh yes the woman said “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
–Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

Hillary Clinton, in attempting to build a trumped up foreign policy resume’ unfortunately told a blatant lie about being greeted in Bosnia by “sniper fire” when in fact, she was greeted by a child bearing nothing more dangerous than a poem.

Hilary spinning the truth upon landing at Bosnian airport.


THEY LIE / ALL OF THEM ..............PERIOD .

Things like this do make me wonder though...If I shake my head as an American, what does the world think? Hillary isn't an average citizen with an opinion. She's the Secretary Of State and in many ways, MORE important to foreign relations than Obama himself. After all, 90% of foreign government officials will never get closer than a passing glimpse of Obama, if that. Hillary controls the department and staff those officials will meet any time they want something from the United States though.

I'd be happy if we could just get to the point that we had a debate to hash out over censorship. By what my example above shows though, it would seem we need to get consensus between our national case of split personality before even getting to that debate phase though.

The scary part? The lack of debate isn't stopping anyone from running off with this version or that version of any given policy..and no apparent awareness or concern for how the versions don't agree and even contradict. Secretary of State eh? Yikes.....