Promoting the Freedom to Connect

In a much-anticipated speech on Internet freedom Thursday morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that the spread of information networks is forming a new "nervous system for our planet" providing "more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moment in history."

"On their own," she said, "new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world's information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic. The words of the First Amendment to our Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building. And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone."

Noting other networks that facilitate the exchanges between individuals, Sec Clinton stressed the importance of the Internet: "a network that magnifies the power and potential of all others. And that's why we believe it's critical that its users are assured certain basic freedoms," including the freedom to connect ­ the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the Internet, to websites, or to each other.