Hilary Clinton says our web regs good, your web regs bad

US SECRETARY OF STATE Hilary Clinton spoke at George Washington University about why it is perfectly fine for the US to exert control over the Internet, but is a terrible thing when any other country does it.

Clinton explained that recent incidents, in particular the shutdown of the Internet in Egypt, means that an Internet freedom debate is due. But she was apparently keen to make sure that no one took too close a look at the US and its methods of policing the Internet.

She said, "A few minutes after midnight on January 28th, the Internet went dark across Egypt.... The government did not want the people to communicate with each other and it did not want the press to communicate with the public. It certainly did not want the world to watch."

Such behaviour is not limited to the Egyptian government. Clinton added that similar behaviour had been seen in Iran, a place that she described as 'awful'.

"The Iranian authorities used technology as well. The Revolutionary Guard stalked members of the Green Movement by tracking their online profiles. And like Egypt, for a time, the government shut down the Internet and mobile networks altogether. After the authorities raided homes, attacked university dorms, made mass arrests, tortured and fired shots into crowds, the protests ended."

Both these states used Internet repression, according to Clinton, to suppress dissidents and quiet troublemakers. She added that was very wrong indeed. As long as it isn't happening in the US, presumably.

"The Internet has become the public space of the 21st century - the world's town square, classroom, marketplace, coffeehouse, and nightclub. We all shape and are shaped by what happens there, all 2 billion of us and counting," she explained. "And that presents a challenge. To maintain an Internet that delivers the greatest possible benefits to the world, we need to have a serious conversation about the principles that will guide us, what rules exist and should not exist and why, what behaviors should be encouraged or discouraged and how."

According to Clinton the Internet needs some sort of consensus on a global committment to freedom that prevents 'awful' places from doing awful things, but permits the US to carry on doing pretty much whatever it fancies.

"The United States supports this freedom for people everywhere, and we have called on other nations to do the same. Because we want people to have the chance to exercise this freedom. We also support expanding the number of people who have access to the Internet."

But, she added that many countries are doing their upmost to stop the hard work carried out by the one-sided freedom fighters in the US, and are continuing to enforce their own rules on what she said should be free and open. Well, you know, within reason.

"The Internet continues to be restrained in a myriad of ways. In China, the government censors content and redirects search requests to error pages. In Burma, independent news sites have been taken down with distributed denial of service attacks," she explained.

"In Cuba, the government is trying to create a national intranet, while not allowing their citizens to access the global Internet. In Vietnam, bloggers who criticize the government are arrested and abused. In Iran, the authorities block opposition and media websites, target social media, and steal identifying information about their own people in order to hunt them down."

The same cannot be said for the US though, despite the fact that it reacted to the Wikileaks cable leaks with all the grace of a farmer who has discovered that someone has run away with his preferred pig.

Pre-empting comparisons, Clinton said, "Fundamentally, the WikiLeaks incident began with an act of theft. Government documents were stolen, just the same as if they had been smuggled out in a briefcase. Some have suggested that this theft was justified because governments have a responsibility to conduct all of our work out in the open in the full view of our citizens. I respectfully disagree...."

According to Clinton, the Wikileaks leaks could put people into harms way and could have sparked off World War III, or something like that.

"Consider our work with former Soviet states to secure loose nuclear material. By keeping the details confidential, we make it less likely that terrorists or criminals will find the nuclear material and steal it for their own purposes," she added. "

"Or consider the content of the documents that WikiLeaks made public.... Our diplomats closely collaborate with activists, journalists, and citizens to challenge the misdeeds of oppressive governments. It is dangerous work. By publishing diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks exposed people to even greater risk." µ