"This is a historic day. Today, the U.S. is taking the first step toward tearing down the great firewall. The repressive regimes and the businesses that enable the censorship, political persecution and stifling of human rights need to understand that there will be more scrutiny to follow and they must change their ways," said Smith -- chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations -- and a driving force behind exposing Internet abuses by dictatorships and U.S. corporations who have been complicit in helping repressive regimes.
The State Department's Global Internet Freedom Task Force (GIFT) strategy announced today is organized around three priorities -- monitoring Internet freedom in countries around the world, responding to challenges to Internet freedom and expanding access to the Internet. The GIFT Strategy aims to achieve these priorities by -- among other things -- spotlighting and protesting abuses of Internet freedom, pressing the message of Internet freedom in official dialogue and promoting innovative approaches to combat Internet censorship.
"The Global Online Freedom Act" seeks to codify the U.S. strategy announced today and go further by prohibiting U.S. Internet companies from cooperating with repressive regimes that restrict information about human rights and democracy on the Internet and use personally identifiable information to track down and punish democracy activists. The bill would make it a crime for Internet companies to turn over personal information to governments who use that information to suppress dissent.
"There are two pillars to every dictatorship -- secret police and propaganda. The Internet companies that comply with these regimes enable dictatorships to impose both pillars by allowing them to spread lies and find people whose only crime is wanting freedom and democracy," said Smith.
Smith, in a release, mentioned several countries that suppress dissent and could be targets of the legislation. A more complete list of such countries and the actions of their leaders can be found at Reporters Without Borders, in an article titled: "Predators of Press Freedom."
