Hillary Clinton Speak Out On Internet Freedoms

When network services first appeared and the internet began to grow, people were certain it would open up the world, both politically and with respect to the spread of information. But in some countries, almost the opposite has happened, where governments have clamped down and imposed heavy censorship. However, in two recent speeches, Hillary Clinton has made it clear that for the Obama administration, internet freedom is now on the diplomatic agenda.

Ms. Clinton began with a response to the 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom. In her remarks, Clinton urges that people remember dual values espoused both by the American Bill of Rights and the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: freedom of religion, and freedom of expression. She recognizes freedom for people to practice their own religion, or not practice any, as being an absolute right.

Yet Hillary Clinton also insists that this means people should be allowed to criticize religions if they wish, and not have their writings banned or censored. People have every right to express their own critiques too, even if they include negative comments. Government involvement should only be in the area of protecting people from discrimination, and reaching out to minority religious groups.

The rights that the Secretary of State talked about extend well beyond religious freedom, however, and into political freedom as well. Hillary Clinton followed her November, 2009 remarks with a speech in January of 2010, regarding internet freedoms in general; political freedoms in particular. In the text of this speech, she envisions the internet as a “great equalizer.” If people can gain access to knowledge, and even access to potential markets, says Clinton, they may discover opportunities that they would never have encountered any other way. But also implicit in her speech is that the American government will stand firmly behind any company that tries to resist or circumvent censorship policies of oppressive governments.

Probably the two main targets of these speeches by Hillary Clinton were Iran and China, yet there are other repressive governments attempting to censor both freedom of religion and freedom of speech on the internet. One only has to remember the calls to ban the Danish illustrator’s cartoons about Mohammed to know that attempts to ban freedom of expression are everywhere. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are demonstrating that this kind of censorship is simply unacceptable.