CENSORING FREE SPEECH Blogger arrests hit record high

The recent suspension of blogs here in America, the trials and lawsuit against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn and the other bloggers in Canada and  the suppression and arrest of bloggers in totalitarian countries bodes most ill. Once a free country accepts censorship of free speech, nothing can be done or won without violence. We are entering a dark age.

BLOGGER ARRESTS HIT RECORD HIGH BBC

More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.

Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.

In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed.

More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.

UPDATE: More censorship here in the US:

And now the Usenet Website Is Being Attacked By The Government? Astute Bloggers

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced on Tuesday that Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint would "shut down major sources of online child pornography."

What Cuomo didn't say is that his agreement with broadband providers means that they will broadly curb customers' access to Usenet--the venerable pre-Web home of some 100,000 discussion groups, only a handful of which contain illegal material.

Time Warner Cable said it will cease to offer customers access to any Usenet newsgroups, a decision that will affect customers nationwide. Sprint said it would no longer offer any of the tens of thousands of alt.* Usenet newsgroups.

Verizon's plan is to eliminate some "fairly broad newsgroup areas."

It's not quite the death of Usenet (which has been predicted, incorrectly, countless times). But if a politician can pressure three of the largest Internet providers into censorial acquiescence, it may only be a matter of time before smaller ones like Supernews, Giganews, and Usenet.com feel the squeeze

Go read the whole thing at Astute Bloggers.

And don't miss this at the Gathering Storm:

It Begins - The Shutdown of the Free Internet by 2012

 

TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP's all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit.

These 'other' sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet.

From I Power.

Dylan Pattyn, who is currently writing an article for Time Magazine on the issue, has official confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and is interviewing a marketing representative from TELUS who confirms the story and states that TELUS has already started blocking all websites that aren't in the subscription package for mobile Internet access. They could not confirm whether it would happen in 2012 because both stated it may actually happen sooner (as early as 2010). Interviews with these sources, more confirmation from other sources and more in-depth information on the issue is set to be published in Time Magazine soon.

 

Could this be the Net in 2012?

 

Read it all