Sanity and Social Justice .net

The Wall Street Journal revealed on 6/22/09, in an article entitled–Iran’s Web Spying Aided By Western Technology: European Gear Used in Vast Effort to Monitor Communications–that Western nations had sold Iran the technology to spy on their own people. The US Congress responded a few days later with a bipartisan bill to reduce the flow of such technologies to autocratic regimes.

Comment: As long as the Internet and phone systems are land-based, autocratic regimes can control the flow of information to a certain extent.   Satellite systems, such as Iridium, can provide a counterbalance.   International law should allow citizens in every nation to own satellite telephones and connect to the Internet via satellite, as something of a universal human right to know and to communicate.

© Copyright 2009, Albert J. Schorsch, III
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