The U.S. imposes “fairly strict restrictions on the Internet, and...
The U.S. imposes “fairly strict restrictions on the Internet, and its approach ‘remains full of problems and contradictions,'” the Chinese government said Friday (http://xrl.us/bm9dr6). It quoted its new report responding to a U.S. report earlier last week on China’s human…
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rights practices. The U.S. uses “Internet freedom” as “just an excuse” to “impose diplomatic pressure and seek hegemony,” said the report, “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011” (http://xrl.us/bm9dzj), released by the information office of the State Council of China’s Cabinet. The Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act both have “clauses about monitoring the Internet, giving the government or law enforcement organizations power to monitor and block any Internet content harmful to national security,” it said. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 also stipulates that the federal government has “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under a declared national emergency, the report said. It cited a report by The Guardian “which said that the U.S. military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas.” That project “aims to control and restrict free speech on the Internet,” China’s report said. The State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 said “deterioration in key aspects” of the China’s human rights situation continued during the year (http://xrl.us/bm9dv8). “The authorities increased attempts to limit freedom of speech and to control the press, the Internet, and Internet access,” the U.S. report said.