A new bill currently working its way through the U.S. Congress aims to fight online censorship in restrictive regimes around the world. Some anti-censorship activists and those who support journalists working in repressive countries are giving a cautious welcome to the move. Other experts in the freedom-of-speech trenches, however, have serious doubts.

The Global Internet Freedom Act (GIFA) is intended “to develop and deploy technologies to defeat Internet jamming and censorship” in other countries. The bill is a bipartisan effort with high-level backing in both chambers. It was introduced on October 2, 2002 in the U.S. House of Representatives by Christopher Cox (R-CA), House Policy Committee Chairman, and Tom Lantos, (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House International Relations. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) introduced the companion bill in the Senate eight days later.

The eight-page bill opens with a broad affirmation of the right to free speech, followed by an outline of Internet censorship abroad and an admission of the US government’s weak efforts to counter online censorship in the past. The then bill defines several specific objectives. First, the act calls for the establishment of an “Office of Global Internet Freedom” under the government’s International Broadcasting Bureau, the body that currently provides administrative and engineering support for US government-funded international broadcasters, including Voice of America (VOA), Radio and TV Martí (Office of Cuba Broadcasting) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

Passage of GIFA would authorize the appropriation of as much as $50 million dollars per year for two years to the Office of Global Internet Freedom. With that money, the Office would develop a “comprehensive global strategy to combat state-sponsored Internet jamming and persecution of those who use the Internet.” Not only would the new Office monitor online censorship worldwide and publicly condemn states engaged in efforts to block access to online information; the Office would also, as soon as possible, develop and disseminate technologies aimed at thwarting state-directed online censorship and preventing the persecution of Web users.


The bill is filled with spirited rhetoric, fervently supporting free speech with an almost missionary zeal reminiscent of the Cold War battles against censorship in Communist regimes, and some human rights activists and advocates have thrown their weight fully behind GIFA. For example, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR), a group that has been engaged in promoting human rights and the rule of law in the US and abroad for nearly 25 years, has warmly supported the bill. In a recent letter to Congress, LCHR declared, “The Global Internet Freedom Act presents an important opportunity to advance... [the goal of] ... free access to and use of the Internet; and to increase diplomatic efforts, including in international fora, to end governmental restriction on Internet use.”

Others in the human rights field are also positive but more cautiously so. Bobson Wong, executive eirector of the Digital Freedom Network (DFN), a charity that supports human rights education and activism around the world, primarily through the use of Internet technology, is one.


"Many of the tools that protect democracy activists online (such as privacy software or anti-filtering tools) can also be used by people with less honorable intentions." -- Bobson Wong of DFN


“Although I have some concerns about the proposed Global Internet Freedom Act,” Wong told me, “I think that overall it’s a good idea. It’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

Wong sees it as a principled step that deserves the substantial financial backing only few can offer.

“Restrictive governments, particularly China, have been spending a lot of money to filter content they feel is dangerous. Only someone with the resources of the U.S. government can counteract what restrictive governments like China have accomplished.”

Xiao Qiang, executive director of Human Rights in China (HRIC), an international non-governmental organization devoted to the promotion of human rights in that country, agrees and welcomes the funds GIFA would provide, adding that they are necessary for the current imbalance of resources to be addressed:

“When an authoritarian state such as China is determined to control the Internet, it can dedicate unlimited resources to development and deployment of censorship and surveillance technology. It is impossible for netizens in these countries, except a very tiny number of technically savvy users, to defeat the state censorship through grassroots efforts without external help.”

Among those working for non-governmental organisations dealing specifically with journalists in countries where state-sponsored Internet censorship is most active, again, one finds others with the same cautious optimism.


"It is impossible for netizens in countries [like China], except a very tiny number of technically savvy users, to defeat the state censorship through grassroots efforts without external help." -- Xiao Qing, HRIC



Vincent Brossel, head of the Asia-Pacific Desk for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), while admitting we would have to wait to see how GIFA was actually enacted, was enthusiastic: “We can say that the project is very positive and can have a real impact on electronic freedoms in Asia.”

Brossel also echoes Wong’s support for using U.S. money to make the battle between censor and censored a more even fight.

“Obviously, now, some regimes, especially China, have real technological advances -- sometimes with the help of US and European companies -- and dissidents have no possibility to use the last software and technology. At least, this program can help the dissidents fight on the same level.”


Beyond China

China is, of course, not the only offender in Asia -- or the rest of the world for that matter. Although China’s filtering program is the subject of much international discussion and study, state censorship of the Internet is active in many other countries in Asia. Along with China, the bill specifically mentions Asian Web censors Burma, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.

Conspicuous by their absence are other Asian states that actively censor and block online information, notably the post-Soviet Central Asian states. Countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have developed their entire Internet infrastructures to meet the needs of state-directed Internet censorship and blocking.

Presumably the names of these countries that censor the Internet are absent from the bill because they are currently U.S. allies. One wonders what effect such alliances would have on the efforts of the Office of Global Internet Freedom, if and when it is finally established.


"[I]n a totalitarian state like Turkmenistan, where fear is so pervasive, and the press is completely dominated by the ruling authorities, it is hard to imagine such assistance would make much of a difference.” Alex Lupis, CPJ



Those supporting Central Asian media freedom remain hopeful, however, that the Office will look beyond China, into the interior of the continent. After all, allies or no, the U.S. State Department does produce some stinging human rights reports on the countries of Central Asia every year, so perhaps a new Office of Global Internet Freedom would remain similarly independent in its analysis and actions.

Alex Lupis, program coordinator for the Europe & Central Asia program at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent non-profit group founded over 20 years ago to monitor abuses against the press and promote press freedom internationally, has been confronting issues of censorship in Central Asia, online and off, for years, and he is realistically optimistic that GIFA will have a positive impact in the region.

“If the Office [for Global Internet Freedom] can gain an understanding of the political dynamics in the various countries that censor the Internet and then provide assistance in a nuanced manner, it would minimize the probability of a government crackdown and bolster the Internet’s ongoing erosion of government control over the flow of information.”

But Lupis also told this author that local impact from GIFA would likely vary from country to country.

“Passage of the law would probably influence different Central Asia countries in different ways. In countries like Kazakhstan, there is an active independent press and political opposition that would greatly benefit from any US support that reduces the government’s ability to restrict Internet access. But in a totalitarian state like Turkmenistan, where fear is so pervasive, and the press is completely dominated by the ruling authorities, it is hard to imagine such assistance would make much of a difference.”


Deeper doubts

Other experts in the field are even more skeptical of GIFA’s potential. For example, Rohan Jayasekera, web editor for Index on Censorship, a group that has been highlighting violations of free speech and issues of censorship since 1972, told me he doubts the bill would do much good anywhere.

“The U.S. government would be spending 100 million bucks on a service that will only used by office workers sneaking a peek at playboy.com. Nobody else would dare use it.”

Jayasekera sees the core of the problem not in the filtering or censorship per se; rather the key issue lies in the personal risks an individual user takes when requesting forbidden information.

“There’s no point developing a censorship-busting distribution system if the reader’s digital fingerprints are left all over the Web for dictators to find,” Jayasekera told me, adding that previous attempts to set up such a system – Publius, Triangle Boy, SafeWeb – foundered precisely on this issue.


"There’s no point developing a censorship-busting distribution system if the reader’s digital fingerprints are left all over the Web for dictators to find." -- Rohan Jayasekera, Index on Censorship



“The problem is not that the sites themselves are blocked – there are lots of ways round that – but that secret policemen can easily prove that the sites are being accessed simply by taking a close look at the user’s computer, the Web café’s server or the service provider’s logs.”

Any technological fix the Office of Global Internet Freedom were to provide may well allow a user to skirt around a country’s filtering regime to access censored information, but if the authorities can find out where the user had been, they can still go after him or her. So, for any system to work, it must provide complete anonymity to the user.

And that reveals a fundamental problem with the whole GIFA project.


The protection paradox

If the Office of Global Internet Freedom were to get serious about this project, Jayasekera says, they would have to create software that guarantees absolute anonymity to the user: the person at direct risk.

“And I just can’t see them doing this,” he continues, recalling the U.S. government’s early attempts to block the sale of 128-bit encryption technology for fear it would be used by criminals and terrorists. “The stakes are even higher now, now that al-Qaeda is in the queue to scalp whatever software Christopher Cox’s committee comes up with.”

As the tide of rights and freedoms is retreating these days -- note the undermining of basic civil liberties posed by the recently passed Homeland Security Act -- this is no time to expect the U.S. authorities to offer the kind of anonymous-user software that proper implementation of GIFA would really require.

Jayasekera notes that the U.S. -- along with the U.K., Australia and dozens of other countries -- wants to retain the technical power to identify individual users and the Websites they view and e-mails they receive.

“These countries are just as keen to install the same kind of surveillance black boxes in the server rooms of Internet providers as the Chinese are,” Jayasekera feels.

“It would have to be taken as read that the U.S. government would leave a ‘backdoor’ in the programme so the FBI or CIA could check details of Web users denied other countries’ secret services. From their point of view, there are good reasons for this: Osama bin Laden for one.”

And Jayasekera continues: “Could we reasonably trust the FBI or CIA not to abuse this power, or not to give information to countries where freedom of speech is not a realistic right? Or not leak that information to a dictator with a deep pocketbook? Remember Aldrich Ames?”

Proper censor-proof software has to be policeman-proof as well, but in the current climate, can we really expect GIFA and Office of Global Internet Freedom to allow no “backdoor”?

Even those activists fighting censorship who are more optimistic about GIFA can see Jayasekera’s point on this.

Bobson Wong of DFN told me: “Many of the tools that protect democracy activists online (such as privacy software or anti-filtering tools) can also be used by people with less honorable intentions. Terrorists could use privacy software to hide their identity just as easily as democracy activists could.”

But any “back door” or even the suspicion of a “back door” for U.S. security services would ruin the project, Wong says.

“Would users in China trust software developed by the Office, if they feared that the software was secretly monitoring their online activity and reporting it to Washington? I doubt it.”

Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society of Harvard Law School and researcher into Internet filtering worldwide, sees the anonymity paradox inherent in GIFA as part of a wider inconsistency in Internet legislation and regulation in the U.S.

“U.S. government authorities are of two minds about the Internet,” Zittrain told me. “They see it as an instrument of vice and terrorism in need of control and surveillance, and also as an instrument of freedom and subversion of autocratic regimes. Thus, we see the Global Internet Freedom Act introduced at a time when several [U.S.] states have passed or are considering requirements that Internet Service Providers filter out illegal pornography, and the federal government contemplates new methods of Net surveillance.”

Resolving the discord between these two conflicting social and legal trends is a zero-sum game: either the developed software protects user anonymity or it doesn’t. A choice one way or the other has to be made.

Zittrain favors an open society approach, declaring that “an Internet inoculated against ready control is more desirable than its opposite, even when our own legitimate desires for control are thereby made more difficult.”

Wong agrees. “One of the risks of having a free society,” Wong admits, “is that you open yourself up to people who will abuse that freedom.”

Whether the final draft of GIFA and the resulting Office of Global Internet Freedom will adopt such an enlightened view, however, is far from certain. The bill still must pass Congress and be signed by President Bush.

Andrew Stroehlein oversees the training of over 800 journalists in 23 countries for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and frequently writes on issues of international online journalism.