China Leads the Attack on the Internet

The following is a re-posting from Avaaz.org . One of many important petitions that they are sponsoring.

Wow -- the global attack on the free Internet just got a lot worse. A secret UN meeting has approved a new system that will make it way easier for governments and corporations to spy on everything we do online -- and right now in Dubai, they are trying to expand their censorship powers even further. We’ve got only 7 days left to stop them.

What we know about the new regime -- authored by China (yes, one of the worse enemies of a free Internet!), adopted behind closed doors, and still secret -- is that it basically tells Internet companies to use uniform technologies that dramatically increase governments’ ability to monitor our emails, Facebook and Skype calls, wherever we are. We need to stop this now -- and we can! -- by using the same massive public opposition has stopped attacks on the Internet before.

But we’re going to need hundreds and thousands of us to win this battle, and the meeting ends next week -- so sign the petition now and share this with all your friends. When we reach 500,000, let’s take this message to the desert of Dubai to end this madness.

sign the petition

To the ITU and all nations meeting at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai:

As citizens of the world and Internet users, we call on you to reject any changes to current Internet regulations that would weaken or alter the free and open nature of the Internet, or give any government or body the ability to infringe on Internet users’ rights to free speech, free access to information or privacy. We also demand that any proposed changes to current international Internet regulations be publicly debated, and subject to citizen input and approval.