Events Detail

Tearing Down the Firewalls of Internet Censorship

Tuesday, February 23

10:00 AM

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WAS HELD IN

Room 1629 Longworth House Office Building

  Honorable Mark Palmer

              Yang Jianli

As Google and the web community struggle to deal with the rising tide of international Internet censorship, a coalition of pro-democracy leaders are calling for a serious U.S. commitment to dismantle the Internet firewalls of the world's closed societies. They ask: Was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's January 21st speech on the subject an exercise in political rhetoric or a serious call for action?

The concerns of the pro-democracy groups were addressed in letters to Secretary Clinton, released at the event, urging the Department of State to provide immediate support for the anti-firewall systems of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium ["GIF"] with monies presently appropriated to the Department; or offer a full explanation of why, in its view, the GIF systems will not work.

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Michael Horowitz, former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Mark Palmer, Iranian human right activist Mariam Memarsadeghi, Initiatives for China founder Yang Jianli, and other pro-democracy leaders from Vietnam, Cuba, Burma, Laos, North Korea, and Syria expressed their deep concerns with the administration's Internet freedom policies.