The World Information Access Project reports that 64 citizen around the world unaffiliated with major media companies have been arrested for their blogging activities. Average jail time is 15 months. Some bloggers were jailed for as little as a few hours, while others were jailed for as long as eight years.

According to the report, the Middle East and Asia are the two areas with the most arrests. Egypt arrested 14 bloggers since 2003, China arrested 12 bloggers, and Iran arrested eight bloggers.

Most of the bloggers arrested are young-ish, varying in age from 21 to 45.

WIA used Lexis Nexis and Google News to accumulate their research. They only recorded stories reported in online media, which means that countless other arrested bloggers are not included in their research. This invisible group is, perhaps, the one that matters most — untrackable but sitting behind bars somewhere for the crime of posting something online.

Check out the analysis and charts and graphs.

PublicWorldOpinion.org just released its report on international public opinion, internet censorship, and media freedom.

They polled 18,122 people in 20 nations: China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Britain, Egypt, France, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, South Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, and the Palestinian Territories.

Some of the findings:

• 81% of people surveyed around the world say the media freedom is important.
• Around 51% of those surveyed worldwide prefer media freedom without government control – even if government controlled will prevent the media from publishing politically destabilizing information. This includes, interestingly enough, 96% of those surveyed in Peru.
• 71% of those polled in China say that “people should have the right to read whatever is on the Internet. Only about 21% agree with the government’s limitation on access to information online.
• 63% percent of those surveyed in Jordan and 44% of those surveyed in Iran do not endorse full access to the Internet.

It’s 2008. We call this the digital era. Yet, in the United States we seem to lack political leaders with a vision for technology, much less an interest in the ways technology can make all levels of government services more efficient, effective, and accessible to regular voters.

Yes, indeed, the rumblings are starting to get a little louder – snuggled, as they currently are, within our niche community of tech-savvy politicos and politics-friendly techies. Is a technology transformation upon us?

For some, the transformation begins when elected officials use technology to listen. There’s a word – listening. In the middle of an election season that has seen a glut of staged conversations, online and offline. Andrew Feinberg rants about some of these so-called listening exercises today at Capitol Valley. There’s a difference between talker at voters and listening to them.

Talkers get headlines. Listeners get things done.

Like fixing potholes and handling case work, increasing the efficiency and efficacy of government programs. A year ago, IPDI published Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics, which looks how political campaigns and elected office can use online and offline feedback loops to run case management and constituent communications. Many elected officials and political candidates already use database platforms to help this process.

The next step? Government institutions that employ tech-enabled feedback loops to deliver better goods and services.

In their Politico column, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry write about some of the ways in which foreign citizens and governments are using technology to listen and act, including e-petitions in the United Kingdom and the government of New Zealand’s wiki for a new Policing Act. As Rasiej and Sifry put it, you can use the Internet to file your taxes, but you can’t use it to make suggestions on how your tax dollars ought to be spent:

Imagine then, that the next time you file your taxes online, your government asks for your feedback on how those tax dollars are being spent. Or it takes your suggestions on how to make a law more understandable. Or it helps you find groups near you that are doing things that benefit your community. It may sound mundane, but today in America, it would be the equivalent of a revolution. How much longer do we have to wait to bridge yet another digital divide?

What about tech policy?

At the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Robert D. Atkinson writes,

we need a debate in America that focuses on the most important issues like to get fast broadband networks to all Americans; how to use IT to transform our health care system, transportation system, education system, and government; and how to encourage all organizations to become digital, thereby driving productivity and income growth and a better quality of life.

Atkinson thinks that better private-public partnerships can help create an environment of “digital transformation.”

Over at Open Left, Matt Stoller blogs about the successful efforts of blogger and member of the California Democratic Party platform committee, Dante Atkins, to get Net Neutrality in the party platform:

California Democrats, in order to promote vigorous free speech, a vibrant business community, and unfettered access to all information on the Internet, support policies to preserve an open, neutral and interconnected Internet. California Democrats strongly agree with recent rulings by the Federal Election Commission that political communications, including blogging, which take place independent of a political party, committee or candidate, receive a media exemption from campaign finance regulations. California Democrats further reaffirm their support of the right to free speech as expressed in the First Amendment, including the right to critique any elected official or comment on any and all public policy, whether during war or peace, without fear of reprisal.

 Perhaps it is time that we — voters that we are — begin to expect more from our elected officials and encourage digital leadership on our blogs as well as in our voting booths.

Two of the latest attempts to block dissenting political dialogue and multimedia:

China

The AP reports that China blocked access to YouTube this weekend, after videos began appearing late Saturday night about Tibet protests in Lhasa and around the world.

Iran

NewScientistTech reports that the Iranian government began blocking four sites of political insiders and conservatives critical of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the two weeks leading up to Parliamentary elections on Friday.

Chris Dodd trekked to Google earlier this week to continue the Candidates@Google series. Perhaps overlooked by the coverage was that his speech was not just the fawning praise we usually see at Mountain View:

“No one doubts the principled work you do…But while every American struggles to find the strength to keep faith with our values in the Internet age, I think you also understand that you have a special obligation as part of this remarkable idea called Google.”

He continued:

Google’s unofficial motto is “Don’t Be Evil.” But in the face of fear and uncertainty, it’s not enough to not be “evil.” You need to do good…By telling the Chinese government that Google.cn will no longer censor information with Google’s consent. And should the Chinese government not find that acceptable, Google.cn will be shut down.

I know you have already moved all of your search records out of China to prevent them from being turned over to the Chinese government.

But what better way to affirm Google’s commitment to democracy and the free flow of information as a human right than to send this message to the country with the largest population in the world?

And because I know your commitment to standing up for democracy abroad also extends to our shores, I am asking today for another pledge:

Should this or any Administration seek the personal or private records you hold on anyone in our country, you will not simply ask to be presented with a warrant - you will insist on one. And if the Administration cannot produce a warrant, you will show them the door. I am asking you to uphold your most fundamental commitment to the public - that you not produce those records outside of the law.

A Google spokesman said the company respected Dodd’s views, but that the company preferred “engagement over estrangement.”

Otherwise, Dodd reiterated that he will not vote for FISA reauthorization that grants retroactive immunity to telecom providers.

Yesterday, Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang appeared in front of the House Foreign Relations Committee to take a beating for giving the Chinese government information about Shi Tao, a Chinese newspaper report who sent over his Yahoo email address about his government’s plan to censor attempts to honor the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Incident. Committee Chairman Tom Lantos called the Internet giant “pygmies”for giving into the Chinese government’s orders however Yang said that “”I deeply regret the consequences of what the Chinese government has done to the dissidents. My heart goes out to the families.”

What’s happening to Yahoo will likely be a trend as more and more Internet companies continue to operate in less democratic countries. IPDI will be looking at issues of China and the Internet next spring in our IPDI Ideas Series.

Thinking about blogging from the ’08 Olympics next year? Watch out – you could be putting yourself at risk. That’s what the Committee to Protect Journalists warns online and offline journalists as many media outlets and individual bloggers prepare for the summer games.

According to a report released by CPJ in August, nineteen domestic online writers are now imprisoned by the Chinese government. That report, Falling Short, largely looks at domestic accounts of press censorship – emphasis on the term “domestic.” In fact the Chinese government appears to have more of an interest in controlling domestic online and offline media than controlling messages in foreign press.

What’s startling about the report isn’t necessarily its depictions of censorship, jailings of journalists, or harassment from local political leaders (although they do provide a sharp contrast to what we tend to expect in our own country). Rather, what strikes one the most is the report’s list of suggestions for foreigners covering the Olympics, including recommendations of topics to avoid and a list of tips for detained writers.

The publication includes the following dialogue, taken from an English phrasebook for police. The handbook uses a scenario of a police officer trying to stop a reporter for covering the Falun Gong:

Chinese Police Officer: “Excuse me, sir. Stop, please. It’s beyond the limit of your coverage and illegal. As a foreign reporter in China you should obey China law and do nothing against your status.”

Foreign Reporter: “Oh, I see. May I go now?”

Chinese Police Officer: “No. Come with us.”

Foreign Reporter: “What for?”

Chinese Police Officer: “To clear up this matter.”

Reporters representing major media outlets are one thing. After all, they are often backed by large, prestigious corporations. What might happen if an individual online journalist replaces the reporter in the scenario?

To view CPJ’s list of tips and to read more about the media in China, visit http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2007/Falling_Short/China/.

There’s a creepy scene at the beginning of the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in which Charlie and a strange man stand outside the gates of the chocolate factory. The man, referring to the factory, says “nobody ever goes in; nobody ever comes out.”

This is all well and good in factories. But what’s a government to do when information about the goings-on instead its borders appear to threaten state security? The same thing: shut down the gates.

That’s what the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) did in Burma a few weeks ago when the less than 1 percent of its citizens who do have Internet access used it to post camera phone pictures and blogs about protests in Rangoon. The power of citizen media, the stirring images it produced, and the growing support for the protestors within the global community, led the government to shut down the country’s two ISPs, Myanmar Posts and Telecom (MPT) and Bagan/Myanmar Teleport (BaganNet) sporadically, then completely, then sporadically between September 29 and October 16. The idea was to prevent citizen coverage of the protests from reaching outsiders and outside signs of support and solidarity from reaching its citizens.

Now, the OpenNet Initiative tells you how the government did it in its latest report, Pulling the Plug. Author Stephanie Wang writes,

Burma provides a rare example of a government also taking extreme measures to keep information from escaping its borders. In pulling the plug on the Internet Burma became only the second country to resort to such drastic action; in 2005 King Gyanendra of Nepal declared martial law and briefly shut down the Internet, along with international telephone lines and cellular communications networks.

Like any factory with a security threat, the government didn’t stop at shutting the gates. It also started identifying protestors using protest footage. Wang reports that security forces in Mandalay checked motorcycle registrations against footage of the protests, pinpointing and cracking down on protestors using the same medium as the citizen journalists.

The point of the crackdown might have been to prevent nothing from coming in and nothing from going out, but that doesn’t mean that something wasn’t circulating from within. Wang alludes to the incident as an illustration of the power of citizen journalism to share up a nation and a global community.

But there is something else, something just beneath the surface, something about a government watching and adopting the tactics of a dissident citizen force. If a government wants to keep up with techno-powered dissidents (even in a country with one of the smallest Internet populations in the world), it behooves the government to quickly, nimbly and quietly (or not so quietly) think and even act like a dissident.

Yesterday evening, we emailed the members of our community about an upcoming event in our IPDI Ideas Series. Next Friday, we are hosting Verizon for a discussion about broadband deployment.

Over the course of the past few hours, we have received many emails from the community. Along with the numerous RSVPs are a number of angry, outraged writers, some of whom question the integrity of IPDI for hosting a big, bad company like Verizon for a discussion about broadband.

We’re answering those emails individually. At the same time, I want to address the collective concerns of those emails: people are mad at IPDI for inviting Verizon into the conversation.

Allow me to defend our decision.

1. As part of the academy, IPDI fulfills an important purpose that often cannot be fulfilled in the private sector – the purpose of functioning as a forum, open to everyone, regardless of his or her political beliefs, religion, nationality, ethnicity, actions or employer. Last month, we hosted Google, one of Verizon’s chief rivals, to converse with attendees of our IPDI Ideas Series. This month, we allow Verizon a chance to address the audience. Future events will look at the role of censorship and ways in which the technology community can engage citizens in policy discussions. I firmly believe that the exclusion of Verizon’s voice in this discussion is anti-intellectual, as is the exclusion of dissenting voices. I hope all will attend the event, and I hope some of those dissenting voices will approach us with ideas for future events. Send your questions and ideas to ipdi@ipdi.org.
2. Verizon is not paying IPDI to address its audience. Nor did Google pay IPDI to address our audience last month. We invited each company to participate because of their unique and sometimes conflicting perspectives.
3. We like good, hard conversations. We think that ideas – and solutions – arise from conversations that look under the surface. We hope that you will bring your questions – however controversial – to the event. Dissenters are welcome. We simply ask that our audience treat our discussants politely and respectfully as members of the community.

At the end of the day, I cannot apologize for asking a controversial organization to participate in our IPDI Ideas Series. Without controversy, without someone playing the role of the villain and someone else the role of the gallant hero, without disagreements and without difficult conversations, the IPDI Ideas Series could not exist. I will, however, state firmly that all are welcome – defenders of free speech, defenders of big business, advocates, techies, students and professors alike – as valued members of our community.

The junta regime in Burma is facing massive protests again, this time led by the country’s monks. Unlike the last major protests, people around the world are paying attention this time. The Burmese government tries to be secretive and control communications, but with the spread of blogs and other new media, it is proving too difficult.

This Guardian Unlimited piece details some of the blogging going on in Burma. A search on Facebook for “Burma monks” shows 40 groups wanting to support these protesters. Over on the BBC website, some news pieces are using video footage that has been sent to them from inside Burma. Some people inside Burma were saying the government has decreased internet bandwidth and cut phone lines to slow down and prevent communications with the outside world. A lot of the footage and reporting coming from Burma is done through networks of underground individuals who risk being arrested on the spot. They believe the story must be told, and the rest of the world is watching.

Images and blogging are here.

Minute-by-minute accounts here.