Material Submitted for the Record

Abstract

Written testimony for the Helsinki Commission's briefing on new media in authoritarian regimes. The statement describes a series of cases in the winter and spring of 2009 in which pro-democracy activists lost access to online services. Pro-democracy websites in Zimbabwe (Kubatana) and Belarus were threatened with shutdown. Iranian bloggers were told their blogs would be suspended. Aid workers in Sudan could not download Google Earth and its "Crisis in Darfur" map. Users in Syria were temporarily blocked from LinkedIn. The statement traces these cases to US embargo policies and to American firms such as the web host Bluehost, which cut off all users in sanctioned countries rather than check them against the Specially Designated Nationals lists. It argues that sanctions designed for physical goods are not smart enough for software, which can be delivered anywhere with a click. By blocking access to new media, embargo policies harm democracy activists while leaving authoritarian governments free to spread propaganda through state-controlled media. The Working Group on Sanction Reform for the Digital Age recommends three steps. First, merge the rules on software embargoes, including the Commerce Department's Export Administration Regulations and the Treasury Department's OFAC sanctions programs, into a single body of regulation. Second, hold a stakeholder review of that body with government agencies, American firms and experts on digital activism. Third, issue new regulations that recognize that software embargoes work differently from embargoes on physical goods, are easy to circumvent, and deny activists tools that are of little use to authoritarian regimes.