Should We Export the First Amendment?

The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

A recent Reuters story highlighted a State Department task force created to help U.S. technology companies that are asked to restrict freedom of expression in China and other places that place strict limits on online content. This task force is welcomed by companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft which find themselves caught between their own inclinations toward freedom of expression and the very different attitudes of the governments in some of the places where they do business.

Among the questions asked to the MC101s was, "Is this something the U.S. should get involved with, or should our government leave well enough alone?" One student commented that if a country practices censorship within its borders, it's largely their business. However, if a country begins to export censorship then it's everybody's business.

***RIGHT AFTER I POSTED this MediaNote, I ran across an entry in the MediaShift blog that discusses a similarly worrysome trend toward online censorship in Singapore.