[Lula] More on Open Source, Google and Freedom on the Internet

[Clay Claiborne]

As I have said in earlier communications, Google is a product of the 
Open Source community and it has proved to be an important tool for 
progressive causes.  I've already given the examples of their "WMD" "Not 
Found" joke and China Proxy that create a way for the Chinese people to 
circumvent their government's blockage of Google.  But their most 
important contribution has obviously been to provide the world with a 
very efficient and through search engine that operates with out 
political bias or censorship. Recently they added the technology to 
translate pages written in Arabic. I believe this will prove to be a 
very useful feature for a world whose people very badly need to 
communicate better. Also the whole problem of the U.S. government 
demanding search engine info only saw light of day because Google 
refused to go along. Microsoft and Yahoo bent over without so much as a 
whimper and if Google had done the same thing no one outside of these 
companies and the government would have been the wiser.

If Google has one black mark in my eyes, it has been their willingness 
to relent and finally allow the Chinese government to censor them. All 
the other American search engines, indeed all the other American 
corporations doing business in China, have shown how willing they are to 
go along with totalitarianism, but people expected more from Google, in 
spite of the fact that it has attained the ranks of the multi-billion 
dollar corporation.

So I am very happy to say that Google is starting to re-think their 
policy on China. This is according Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders. 
He said that after China blocked their service, they decided to 
accommodate the same demands as their rivals and in Brin's words agreed 
to "a set of rules that we weren't comfortable with". He explain "We 
felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide 
ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective 
service and perhaps make more of a difference." Now they are 
re-negotiating their position with China. Google has also pledged not to 
participate in any NSA program to collect Internet communications 
without a warrants. Google mail is among the most popular, and one would 
think, will now become more popular. Sergey Brin, net worth $13 billion, 
made these comments dressed in jeans, sneakers and a black sports 
jackets to reporters after spending Tuesday personally lobbying Congress 
against a bill that has gotten very little attention outside of 
technical circles but is extremely important to the future of all of us.

As soon a this Friday (6/9/06) the House of Representatives may vote on 
a bill that many, including this writer, believe will kill the Internet 
as we know it. According to Common Cause 
<http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1736193&tr=y&auid=1724923> 
"H.R. 5252, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement 
Act of 2006 (COPE Act), contains a flawed approach to net neutrality and 
would allow telephone and cable companies to turn the free and open 
Internet into a toll road where their own economic interests take 
priority over citizen discourse. " Basically it will turn the Internet 
into another cable channel owned by the corporations.

I'm doing to assume here that I don't have to belabor the role that the 
Internet has played in the struggle against the war in Iraq, in exposing 
voter fraud or the lies about 9/11. One need only consider the 
difficulties in organizing Camp Casey, or even Arlington West without 
free and equal access to the Internet. Neither do I have to elaborate on 
its future potential as a tool for human liberation as we determine how 
build our own VFP website nor point to its potency as a tool for 
totalitarian control should the dark side prevail. All this is clear 
after a moments contemplation.

What I do need to do is point out that extremely important moves are 
being made while we sleep and that this is a struggle that we all must 
get involved in. The question is simple: Shall the Internet be a tool 
for liberation or suppression? And that question is being decided now. 
Below are some links with more information and ways to fightback.

**http://www.commoncause.org/OurInternet* 
<http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M717249236033727229390465&af=y>*

 Straight Talk on Net Neutrality 
<http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M717249156033727229390465>

COPE Act (*HR 5252*) Moving Forward without Anti-Discrimination 
<http://www.afcn.org/node/258>

Free Press : Congress : *HR 5252* Information 
<http://www.freepress.net/congress/billinfo.php?id=169>

You may also want to get to know the *Electronic Frontier Foundation* 
(*EFF*) <http://www.eff.org/> and of course you can google a lot more 
info on this. :-)

Thank you Richard Nieto for the heads up.



Clay

http://LinuxBeach.org

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