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You have reached iGreens.org.uk.  In December 2006 we moved to iGreens.org with faster servers and discussion boards.  Click here to follow us.  

The district government of Dusseldorf county, Northrhine-Westfalia in Germany, is forcing Internet Service Providers to block access to selected foreign Internet sites.

The project started by forbidding access to two right-wing extremist sites hosted in the United States. Fighting right-wing extremist ideologies reaches a broad consensus in Germany; however in this case it is used to gain acceptance for the establishment of a nationwide centralized filtering and blocking system.

Future plans contain blocking of content to protect minors, copyrights and consumer rights, including search engines that fail accordance with corresponding national guidelines and laws.

Together with corporate partners, Northrhine-Westfalia administration is developing a high capacity filtering system that is currently tested at the university of Dortmund. Intention is to create an architecture with centrally controlled blocking mechanisms that should be installed on gateway machines to the "foreign internet".

This is a severe threat to citizens' right to informational freedom. Not to be able to get information about political activity from publicly available sources must be considered a backward step for democracy.

A demonstration against this blocking plans will take place on the 6th of April on the streets of Dsseldorf. More information about this action can be found here.

Sign a declaration for freedom of information here. First signers already include Richard Stallman, Iac Clarke, journalist organizations like the "reporters without borders", scientists and politicians.

POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list. Subscribe here.  You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are here

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Last modified: September 20, 2006