this rule include the Voice of America news site at www.voanews.com. It was blocked in both
Iran and China, and China also blocks the entire BBC news site.) In fact, not only was CNN’s
international news site at edition.cnn.com generally accessible in our China testing, a page
within that domain dedicated to the massacre in Tiananmen Square was also not filtered. Several factors might be at work here—the sheer volume of news stories produced by major outlets may make thorough review impossible, or the speed at which new stories are posted may
simply be too quick for an update across all the necessary filtering technology.
One instance where such URL-specific blocking had been applied in the past was Saudi
Arabia’s treatment of Amnesty International’s Web site. In 2002, we tested twenty-five hundred
pages within the amnesty.org domain and found nineteen blocked; all were within the directory www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi, corresponding to a report entitled ‘‘Saudi Arabia: A
Secret State of Suffering.’’ However, these same pages were tested in 2003, 2004, and 2006
and were accessible in each instance.
Human Rights Concerns Related to Internet Filtering
Internet censorship and surveillance prompt legitimate legal and normative concerns. Some
state-mandated acts of online control are not straightforward acts of local law enforcement.
As the practice of Internet filtering—and its close cousin, Internet surveillance—become
more commonplace and more sophisticated, human rights activists and academics tracking
this activity have begun to question whether some regimes of this sort violate international
laws or norms. Quite often, the states that carry out online censorship and surveillance are
signatories to international human rights convenants or have their own rules that preserve certain civil liberties for their citizens. The United States is home to a controversy of this sort as
well, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have filed a class-action lawsuit against
telecommunications giant AT&T for collaborating with the National Security Agency in a wiretapping program.
The most straightforward of the critiques of Internet filtering and surveillance are grounded
in concerns for individual civil liberties against the encroachment of overbearing states. The
online environment is increasingly a venue in which personal data is stored. Personal communications increasingly flow across the wires and airwaves that compose the Internet. The basic
rights of freedom of expression and individual privacy are threatened by the extension of state
power, aided by private actors, into cyberspace. When public and private actors combine to
restrict the publication of and access to online content, or to listen in on online conversations,
the hackles of human rights activists are understandably raised. As Mary Rundle and Malcolm
Birdling argue in chapter 4 of this book, one might contend that the right of free association
is likewise violated by certain Internet-censorship and surveillance regimes that are emerging around the world. Most complaints cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as grounding ideals—if not binding
commitments—to which many states have agreed to hold themselves.
Internet Filtering: The Politics and Mechanisms of Control
49
Iran and China, and China also blocks the entire BBC news site.) In fact, not only was CNN’s
international news site at edition.cnn.com generally accessible in our China testing, a page
within that domain dedicated to the massacre in Tiananmen Square was also not filtered. Several factors might be at work here—the sheer volume of news stories produced by major outlets may make thorough review impossible, or the speed at which new stories are posted may
simply be too quick for an update across all the necessary filtering technology.
One instance where such URL-specific blocking had been applied in the past was Saudi
Arabia’s treatment of Amnesty International’s Web site. In 2002, we tested twenty-five hundred
pages within the amnesty.org domain and found nineteen blocked; all were within the directory www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi, corresponding to a report entitled ‘‘Saudi Arabia: A
Secret State of Suffering.’’ However, these same pages were tested in 2003, 2004, and 2006
and were accessible in each instance.
Human Rights Concerns Related to Internet Filtering
Internet censorship and surveillance prompt legitimate legal and normative concerns. Some
state-mandated acts of online control are not straightforward acts of local law enforcement.
As the practice of Internet filtering—and its close cousin, Internet surveillance—become
more commonplace and more sophisticated, human rights activists and academics tracking
this activity have begun to question whether some regimes of this sort violate international
laws or norms. Quite often, the states that carry out online censorship and surveillance are
signatories to international human rights convenants or have their own rules that preserve certain civil liberties for their citizens. The United States is home to a controversy of this sort as
well, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have filed a class-action lawsuit against
telecommunications giant AT&T for collaborating with the National Security Agency in a wiretapping program.
The most straightforward of the critiques of Internet filtering and surveillance are grounded
in concerns for individual civil liberties against the encroachment of overbearing states. The
online environment is increasingly a venue in which personal data is stored. Personal communications increasingly flow across the wires and airwaves that compose the Internet. The basic
rights of freedom of expression and individual privacy are threatened by the extension of state
power, aided by private actors, into cyberspace. When public and private actors combine to
restrict the publication of and access to online content, or to listen in on online conversations,
the hackles of human rights activists are understandably raised. As Mary Rundle and Malcolm
Birdling argue in chapter 4 of this book, one might contend that the right of free association
is likewise violated by certain Internet-censorship and surveillance regimes that are emerging around the world. Most complaints cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as grounding ideals—if not binding
commitments—to which many states have agreed to hold themselves.
Internet Filtering: The Politics and Mechanisms of Control
49