Double standard spreads to cyber world
- Source: Global Times
- [00:51 January 25 2010]
- Comments
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The golden rule should apply even online.
When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday made a bold speech on Internet freedom, criticizing China's policies on Internet administration, she made it sound as if people in the US enjoy unlimited Internet freedom and freedom of speech.
The plain fact is that even after Clinton compared in her speech the freedom of online connections to the freedom of assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment, there are still people in the US who question as to how far the US is willing to bind itself to the standard of Internet freedom.
A close look at the PATRIOT Act can help answer that question.
Regardless of continuing opposition from civil liberties groups, the law, enacted in the aftermath of 9/11, empowers law enforcement agencies to search phone and e-mail communications as well as other personal recorders, in the name of anti-terrorism. And, keeping digital records of about 1.5 billion Americans and foreigners in the FBI database has been widely criticized as invasive and ineffective. These are undoubtedly an infringement upon Internet freedom and freedom of the speech.
When it comes to cyber attack, Clinton's point – that "countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation" – is inconsistent with what the US has done. The US is the first country to launch cyber warfare. According to a US defense expert Joel Harker, it has a cyber army of nearly 80,000 people equipped with over 2,000 computer viruses.
Washington's continuous resort to double standards goes far beyond these.
As a core holder of cyber technology, the US controls on its territory the world's master terminal server and nine of the 12 secondary terminal servers, which keep the Internet running.
