Controlled Surfing

This is the third in a series of posts outlining the Orwellian reality forced upon Cubans. Information is Power. Ignorance is Control. The Country that is always boasting about its World Class Educational system's, real goal is to keep its people ignorant.

In today’s Miami Herald Frances Robles sheds some light on the bandwidth challenged Island’s Web Surfing dilema. It seems that a French Journalist decided to conduct an investigative report and test the censorship of the Cuban access to the Web and found that

Internet cafes at hotels and the post office allowed mostly unfettered access to websites, even those considered ''subversive.'' But prices were excessive and security warnings popped up when the names of well-known Cuban dissidents appeared on the screen.

''But when when I opened an e-mail that had the names of dissidents on it, this pop-up warning came on saying the program would switch off in a few seconds,'' she added. ``I thought, `No way!'

``It was like a spy movie.''

Not like a spy movie more like an Orwellian nightmare, actually.

Internet cafes are run and supplied by the government, obviously, so unless you get a computer with software on the black market and are able to pirate an internet connection, you have to use their machines which run a word recognition program that shuts down the computer for ``national security reasons.''

''I have never heard of that anywhere in the world,'' said Julien Pain, head of Reporters Without Borders' Internet Freedom program. ``I don't even know how they do that. They scare people off the Web.''

The Regime exists to scare its people. Its sole purpose is to control. Everything revolves around that premise. I don’t understand how this comes as a shock to University educated professional journalists, but I’m glad that they’re getting the word out, anyway.

Again, we support an American Government Funded program to spread truth to the Island. “Internet Marti”. The Internet Marti program should also include the distribution of older, recycled PC’s to the Cuban people. We need to allow unfettered access to the Web, to truth and real information. Information is Power.