Dangerous times for free speech

Two disturbing articles on the future of freedom of expression.  First, the Saudi government is proposing an international body for network censorship.   

The Washington Post has an OpEd on this topic with the following quote:

Our entire society is being treated as a crowded theater, and talking about whole subjects is now akin to shouting “fire!”

Countries which we have assumed to be historically free either are not free, or are curtailing that freedom.  According to the Post piece, Ireland finds it self in good company with Russia in criminalizing speech that offends the religious.  

Controlling the Internet

The folks over at Harvard have analyzed routing data to determine how easy or hard it is for a country to control internet traffic.

Mapping local control of the Internet

Has it come to this?

German hackerspace shack (Stutgart Hackerspace) has proposed putting its own satellites in space in order to maintain a free an open internet. 

Think it's crazy?  Spain just passed the Sinde Law, an onerous attempt to protect private IP rights holders.  Luckily, the tide seems to be turning on the US's similar effort, SOPA.

With western countries following China's lead on restricting the open internet, it's no wonder individuals will need to launch private satellites.

EFF's response to .secure

The EFF has a response to the proposal for a new .secure TLD. 

.secure domain...first thoughts

Some in the federal government are talking about creating a new top level domain: .secure

Access to this domain might require validated digital credentials and provide services for banking and critical infrastructure, but might also require voluntarily giving up Fourth Amendment rights (read: deep packet inspection, lack of anonymity).

Perhaps this is a better options than the Internet Kill Switch?