One of the issues at the forefront today (seems to be a different one every day) is censorship. There are some countries who consistently get a bad rap for censoring radio, TV and internet access and others, like the one I live in, who wave the freedom flag with pride claiming 'freedom of speech', 'freedom of the press' and so on and so forth.
In light of all of this free information posturing I find it interesting that so many news stories are circulating about the large number of government requests to remove information from the internet. Could this be true? Would my government really do this? I ask these questions partly with a hint of sarcasm and partly with a nervous intuition that I may already know the answer and won't like it.
Quote:"The number of “Items requested to be removed” by US authorities was almost seven-fold the number requested to be removed by Chinese authorities, a country much maligned for its Internet censorship policies.
As we have previously documented, Google-owned You Tube has complied with thousands of requests worldwide to remove political protest videos that are clearly not in violation of any copyright or national security interests and do not constitute defamation."
http://infowars.net/
http://current.com/technology/93513009_feds-order-you-tube-to-remove-video-for-containing-government-criticism-article.htm
So what do we do about this? I don't know. I think the best approach is to keep talking to each other. Refuse to be divided by the two major political parties and the two major news networks; that is their purpose - to keep us divided. Open your eyes and ears and listen to people that you don't think you have anything in common with. Read news feeds that are off the beaten track, go to the local city and county board meetings.
Many years ago when I was hired onto a new job that I knew nothing about I would make a list of questions every day and at the end of each day I would ask my supervisor these questions to help me to become more proficient and knowledgeable. One day, exasperated by all of my questions he said "What are we - six years old?". Yes, we are six years old and we want answers to our questions. We need to remember that, even though we have given our government away to the corporations, it was ours first. We the people can take it back. And we can start with insisting on freedom of information.
