A report issued this week by Freedom House, a New York-based human rights group, uncovers evidence that governments around the world are censoring or restricting online speech.

Leonard R. Sussman -- a senior scholar at Freedom House and author of "Censor Dot Gov: The Internet and Press Freedom 2000" -- said all kinds of information is being banned: political dissent messages, expression against religious or ethnic values, even random topics popping up in chat rooms.

"In China, for example, many government offices and institutes are wired, but the official ISP limits content, particularly incoming news from abroad," Sussman wrote.

Saudi Arabia and Iran also block Internet sites considered to be offensive. And in a story reported by the Christian Science Monitor, British intelligence will begin monitoring all online activity from a $39 million Internet spy center. The government is requiring Internet service providers (ISPs), including America Online Inc., to "hardwire links directly to it."

"With this facility, the government can track every Web site that a person visits, without warrant, giving rise to a culture of suspicion by association," Casper Bowden, director of London-based Foundation for Information Policy Research, told the newspaper.

Media reports indicate many people compare England to Russia, where the KGB's successor is forcing ISPs to install surveillance equipment.

Freedom House also published the results of a poll conducted among the world's press corps. The survey, "News of the Century: Press Freedom 1999," finds an estimated 80 percent of the world's countries are restricting press freedom.

Sussman said he finds the results "particularly disturbing because it reverses, even if temporarily, the 20th century's movement toward the enlargement of press freedom."

"While physical attacks, even murder and arrest, of journalists have not ended, regimes increasingly use subtle legislation, such as 'insult laws,' to restrict criticism," Sussman said.

The issue of freedom of the press may be a first cousin to Internet censorship, but controlling the content of the Web, including a third party who is routinely viewing personal e-mail messages, has many privacy and freedom groups speaking out against cyber-oppression.

"In a country like Vietnam...which is a developing country, they can monitor your e-mail," Kristina Stockwood of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange told the New York Times. "Say anything that threatens national security and you can be in trouble. And 'national security' is a broad phrase that is used to cover just about anything the government disagrees with."

The Freedom House report also uncovers a hidden threat to Internet freedom. There are groups being led by businesses in the United States and Europe that are developing voluntary rating systems for online content, which would allow users to block content themselves. That may sound like a good idea, but creating tools for voluntary purposes would likely be mandated by more repressive governments, the Times reports.

There are a few small victories over government oppression. Newspapers that are censored in Jordan, Algeria and Egypt have placed banned articles online, where they can be viewed by emigrants and foreigners, the newspaper reports.

Full text of the article is currently found at:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/news/pr041700.html
and
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/
05/cyber/cyberlaw/05law.html