Moving forward with Internet freedom

[Commentary] In the past 16 months, the Internet landscape has shifted dramatically. Sixteen months ago, there were no iPads. The number of Twitter users was orders of magnitude smaller. And scarcely 10 percent of phone users had smartphones. Yet 16 months have passed since the State Department was allotted $30 million in funding for Internet freedom - and not a dollar of it has been spent.

During that time Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has delivered two speeches stressing the importance of the issue and committing the department to an aggressive strategy. But while her State Department painstakingly hammers out its approach, oppressive regimes the world over are acting in real time to stifle dissent, strengthen firewalls and threaten online activists - most recently in the Middle East. Facing a threat from Congress to take away some of the money, State now insists it is finally ready to implement a policy. It aims to provide seed money to a range of initiatives, from software to circumvent the Internet firewalls of dictatorships to the training of dissident bloggers. In the next few weeks, officials say, they will solicit proposals from applicants and will allocate the $30 million within the next few months. If State fails to live up to its promises, a solution like the one proposed by the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard G. Lugar (R-IN), would be appropriate. Sen Lugar would divert at least $8 million of the funds from the State Department to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which has already spent $1.5 million to expand firewall circumvention capacity. State's policy is more balanced - but with democratic revolutions spreading and the Internet fast changing, Congress should not tolerate any more delays.