Representatives of the Nuevo Laredo En Vivo forum denied the person was one of their moderators. One of the previous victims was a moderator there.

Sri Lanka targets dissident websites. On Saturday the Sri Lankan government warned websites to register with the authorities as an apparent response to the United States' expression of concern over Colombo's blocking of a popular Internet-based dissident publication.

Popular Egyptian blogger's appeal denied, two 15-day detentions. After denying Alaa Abdel Fattah his freedom, and his demand to be tried in civilian court, the Egyptian military decreed two back-to-back detentions of 15 days each. He remains incarcerated on charges of inciting violence of the military. His mother has started a hunger strike to protest his detainment.

Brazil's "cybercrime" bill will inhibit free expression. This bill, currently in the country's House of Representatives, could make it possible for the courts to "apply criminal penalties to activities like file sharing, peer-to-peer communications, and the fair use of copyrighted works."

Anonymous uses DDoS against El Salvador. The Salvadoran government took its Justice Department website offline in response to an attack by the hacker collective Anonymous

DARPA requests hacker help. The government research agency has issued a call for American hackers to help shore up its cyber-security defenses.

FBI shuts down botnet. With "Operation Ghost Click," the FBI has shut down Esthost, the largest botnet in existence, operating out of Estonia.

Facebook to settle with FTC. The social network is nearing an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission over its misleading shift in privacy settings.

Israeli Knesset bills threaten free speech. The bills defund and otherwise limit the operations of non-governmental organizations in the country, including those that are critical of the government.

Use of Twitter by elite frees foreign reporter in Kyrgizstan. American photographer Nic Tanner was released from detention in Kyrgizstan through a combination of friends, friends of friends and Twitter.

"This is not a story of Twitter's ability to galvanize grassroots protests and marshal ordinary citizens to defend just causes. Kyrgyzstan is a place where high-tech social networks meet old-fashioned patronage networks. All those who got in touch were people we knew personally, and people with some clout. "

U.S. government seizes Twitter info without warrant. Adding to its previous warrantless seizure of Google information on Anonymous volunteer Jacob Appelbaum and others, its latest action did the same to Twitter information.

Salman Rushdie vs. Facebook. Facebook buckled in the face of a high-profile campaign by the Anglo-Indian writer to be allowed to use the name by which he is commonly known on his own Facebook account.

Delhi policy seek preemptive online taps. India, a standout in the crowd of democracies not terribly fond of hearing their own people speak, have come slightly closer to making certain they don't have to. They have proposed setting up a spy agency to eavesdrop on people's Internet and mobile traffic. You know. In case they commit a crime. That should shut 'em up.

U.S. House Judiciary Committee reviews SOPA. The legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is often called the Stop Online Privacy Act by its detractors. A Hollywood-pushed bill, it will make it possible to block whole websites for accidentally hosting copyrighted material. In short, it gives an excess of power to government and law enforcement, which would result in rampant over-reaction and wind up limiting how Americans use the Internet - quite apart from copyright issues. It would also defy precedent and make everyone from ISPs to forum moderators responsible for copyright infringement.

Occupy Wall Street news shared via Storify. Early on in Monday night's raids to shut down the Occupy camp in New York, mainstream media outlets began reporting that the police were barring their reporters from entering the park. Social media, Storify in particular, picked up where the professional media left off.

The use of social media by Syrian protesters. Syria's is among the most violent of the Arab Spring uprisings, the government intractable and the political culture controlled. Syrians are using social media to skirt the suppression of the free flow of information, including mobile.

Overpass photo by Elliot Brown, Colombo photo by Bri

One of the two bloggers murdered earlier, Elizabeth Macias, also wrote on the social media site Nuevo Laredo En Vivo.

(Update at end of story.)

In response to the alleged abduction of an Anonymous-allied Mexican hacker, that group declared war this month on Las Zetas under the code name Opcartel.

Other members of Anonymous denied there was any such action, saying it was much too dangerous and pursuing it would be irresponsible. It seems in retrospect that it was aborted.

One other casualty seems to be Barrett Brown, the representative of Anonymous for Opcartel. He has fled his Dallas home, asking for a ticket to Boston or New York. The ticket was provided by members of #OccupyDC, according to Gawker.

Although there is no evidence that the murder of Rascatripas is related to Opcartel or Anonymous directly, it is certainly a function of the same unchecked murderous strategy the cartels have used to take over significant stretches of Mexico for their own. They have frightened, bribed or otherwise suborned traditional media and law enforcement. (The latter have even arrested Twitter users for tweeting a cartel rumor.) What's left are the bloggers and other users of social media, as Andres Monroy-Hernandez explained here in September.

Despite the vicious tactics of the cartels, Twitter and other social media tools were employed in the aftermath of the murder to communicate the news.

A post on Nuevo Laredo En Vivo after the murder was reported stated defiantly:

"Let's continue denouncing them, now that we've seen it burns them, hurts them... We have to continue. We can't give in."

UPDATE: Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation left a comment on my G+ post.

"The Nuevo Laredo en Vivo twitter account has a tweet in which they deny that the murder victim was one of their moderators. If that is the case, it is no less terrifying, but it does remind us to approach initial reports with skepticism."

"It could also be, that they do not want to be associated with the dead blogger," I noted. "That would be sad, if understandable."

Please note, I have no evidence aside from the Chronicle report attaching the victim to the website.

Nuevo Laredo photo by Eduardo Pavon

In case I haven't made this case lately: These people are you, nerds.

Palestine experiences large-scale hack. The Renesys blog reports "significant but sporadic Internet outages in the Palestinian Territories today. As many as half of the routed networks of the Palestinian Territories were unreachable (withdrawn from the global routing table)." Both the Washington Post and the BBC have reported a possible hack on the Palestinian communications sector.

Egypt throws another blogger in the clink - and the revolution in the toilet. Prominent Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah has been arrested by the Egyptian military. He was summoned for questioning on Sunday. His last tweet says starkly, "Going in." He has since been remanded for further questioning for 15 days. During his initial appearance he refused to answer questions, declaring the military court that held him, and sentenced fellow blogger Maikel Nabil to three years in prison, was illegitimate.

Kuwait arrests five Twitter users in six months. Kuwait has been arresting Twitterers based on a law - all too common - that makes it a crime to criticize the country's leaders. On the positive side, Kuwaitis in general and opposition politicians in particular, have been calling bullshit on the arrests at the top of their lungs.

Hacktivist group Anonymous threatens drug cartel. Anonymous has targeted a Mexican drug cartel after that group, Los Zetas, allegedly kidnapped one of its members in Veracruz. In a video released on October 6, the group "claimed that they would release the names of journalists, taxi drivers and others who have worked with Los Zetas in the past" according to Foreign Policy. They also threatened to include the addresses of the collaborators on November 5.

According to the Mexican newspaper Milenio (via Talking Points Memo), some alleged members of Anonymous, including Skill3r and Glyniss Paroubek, are disavowing this operation. Others, including @AnonymouSabu, insist it is still on. We'll find out tomorrow.

Google hands over Wikileaks volunteer's info to U.S. government. Google handed over the contacts list and IP address data of Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks volunteer and developer for Tor, without a warrant. The government requested the information via a secret court order enabled by a controversial 1986 law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Abul had issued "insulting tweets of the Sunni sect and severe criticism and insults to the Saudi and Bahraini regimes for their stand against the Bahraini protests." Al-Bathali "has been previously linked with Al-Qaeda and of fundraising money and recruiting men for them through his speeches and visits to different mosques years ago." Al-Rishidi "insulting the Kuwaiti Amir (ruler) in a Youtube video, which has disappeared." Not everyone arrested for social media use is made of sugar cubes and rosebuds.

Activists met at Internet Governance Forum. An international group of activists concerned with keeping the same Internet that acted as a bullhorn for the Arab Spring free of government control met in Nairobi. Transcripts of the meetings, which took place at the United Nations building in Nairobi, Kenya, from September 27 through September 30 are available on the IGF's website.

Pro-Chavez hackers silence critics. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has a long history of silencing opponents, including online. The latest move to shut Chavez critics up are the actions of a pro-government hacker or hacker group called N33. Leonardo Padron, a writer for a Venezuelan soap opera, and a Twitter user with a quarter-million followers, has been a vocal critic of the demagogic president. His account was hijacked, marked with "N33" and made to tweet posts critical of the writer and others who oppose the autocratic administration.

Others whose Twitter accounts have been subverted include "an activist, a humorist, three journalists, a TV show host, an ex-diplomat and a former Chavez supporter, all of them openly critical of Chavez."

Indonesia to block 300 more websites. "(T)he Indonesian government...plans to take down 300 sites believed to host radical activity or views." The country's biggest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, is supporting the move.

Indonesian flag photo by Mr. T in DC

Burma unblocks websites. The Burmese government unblocked international media sites as well as websites run by Burmese exiles.

Malaysia repealing censorship law. Prime Minister Najib Razak announced on Thursday that the Malaysian government plans to repeal the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows the authorities to detain people indefinitely without charge or trial.

Hong Kong bans online sharing of election information. Facebook, Twitter and other social media is now considered "political advertising" in Hong Kong, and therefore limited.

Syria blocks WordPress. In the midst of the protests in Syria, the government has blocked the blog host.

Cuban blogger arrested after Twittering. Luis Felipe Rojas was arrested in the town of Duaba after announcing his intent to take part in a protest for dead hunger strike activists.

Pakistan plans to block Google and YouTube. Pakistan has threatened Google and YouTube with blocking if they do not "help" the government with its alleged terrorism concerns.

Morocco arrests online activists. Blogger Mohamed Douas and others have been arrested in the midst of that country's pro-democracy protests.

International Code of Conduct for Information Security presented to the U.N. by cohort of anti-freedom governments. In a move of operatic Andy Kaufmanesque absurdity, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan created and submitted a hilarious "code" for information security. (It's an anti-free speech, pro-tyranny document.)

Another lèse-majesté arrest in Thailand. Surapak Phuchaisaeng was arrested for posting pictures that were allegedly insulting to the monarchy. In reality, they were probably insulting to the ruling party.

South Korea censors Internet secretly. In Korea, even the censors are being censored.

Google re-licenses in China. So much for Google's brave stand against Chinese interference.

China fights cyberwar against exiled Tibetans. China's cyberwarfare soldiers are directing a constant stream of attacks against exiled Tibetans to keep them from speaking to each others, the public and coreligionists in Tibet.

Facebook to work with German government on code of conduct. Facebook has agreed to work with Germany on a "voluntary code of conduct" to protect the privacy of social network users.

Hourglass photo by William Andrus, Malaysia photo by Eric Teoh,

Bloomberg reports that Siemens AG and its joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, has made it possible for Bahraini secret police to intercept and generate transcripts of text messages and other mobile communications made by protesters in that country's troubled version of the Arab Spring.

Mexico arrests two for Twittering narco rumor. Twitter has taken the place of the news media in an environment of narcotics-inspired self-censorship in Mexico. Hashtags have become the red lights that signal incursions of narco-violence in Mexico's cities. The government has taken it hard - a combination of genuine, if misguided, desire to not see panic flare up with a widespread narco-money corruption. Two Twitterers who retweeted a rumor of narcoterrorist murder of children have been arrested for their posts.

South Africa plans Blackberry eavesdropping. The South African government is talking about giving police access to Blackberry's encrypted messaging (BBM). AFP reported that Deputy Communications Minister Obed Bapela called the BBM a security risk, quoting the Sapa News Agency: "There is evidence that criminals are now using BBM to plan and execute crime. We want to review BBM like in the UK and Saudi Arabia."

UK PM's plan to ban social media dropped. Prime Minister David Cameron's knuckleheaded attempt to place the onus for last month's riots on social media has died the death it deserved. Our contention that the leadership of Cameron's government was walleyed about social media was something they wound up admitting.

WikiLeaks may be petering out. Peter Dorling, of the Sydney Morning Herald, who has followed the news surrounding Wikileaks and its Australian founder from the beginning, has published a fascinating, fair-minded story that theorizes an end to Wikileaks.

After accidentally allowing the publication of their remaining diplomatic cables - which, along with the publication of the password to those cables in a book by two Guardian reporters made them public - Dorling believes there is not much left for WikiLeaks to do. Their leak-submission function has not in fact functioned for a year and there does not seem to be another Bradley Manning hidden in the wings.

Fight over Libya's Internet. Six months after going dark, Libya's Internet connection to the world came back on briefly during the rebel surge that resulted in their control of most of the country. It's largely dark again and it may take a definitive end to hostilities before it is up to stay.

China tightens restrictions on microblogging, citizens react. "Chinese netizens are in an uproar," NTD reported. "Recent indications from the Chinese regime seem to point to tougher controls on popular mircroblogging services, such as Sina Weibo." State-run Xinhua News Agency, which acts as a mouthpiece for the rulers, criticized the site for its role in spreading what it calls false information. The "toxic rumors" Xinhua attacked included a train crash in Wenzhou. The outraged citizen response on microblogging sites, including Sina Weibo, forced corrupt and lazy authorities to act.

Uzbekistan creates a national Internet. The Central Asian tyranny has created its own version of a "halal Internet." Muloqot is intended "for the formation of high morals." In reality, it is about control of access to information and the means to disseminate argument and to cancel out the effects of social networks like Odnoklassniki and Facebook, where dissidents gather.

Kazakhastan bans Livejournal. After ordering all Kazakhstani websites use the .kz domain to be hosted on local servers, where they can be controlled by the government, the country's authorities have begun banning sites. The latest is early blog platform Livejournal. The excuse given was that the social network's "promote(s) terriorism and religious extremism and (contained) calls to acts of terrorism and the manufacture of explosive devices."

Egyptian blogger moved to prison hospital. Blogger and critic of the military, Maikel Nabil was the first Egyptian to be arrested by the military in post-Mubarak Egypt.

He declared a hunger strike to protest the injustice of his military trial and imprisonment and the continued meddling by the Egyptian armed forces into civilian life. Now, he has grown sick enough that he has been relocated to the prison's infirmary. He sickened "two days after he stopped drinking liquids on the eighth day of his hunger strike."

His supporters have started a Facebook page to publicize his situation. A blog, Free Anas, has also been started, as well as a hashtag, #freeanas. Get on it, nerdlingers.

British Prime Minister threatens social media ban. In the wake of the London riots, British PM David Cameron has threatened to ban people convicted of rioting from social networks. Banning those convicted of crimes from accessing social networks (the idea being that they used such access to organize criminal activities) is no different than banning the same criminals from accessing goose quills and ink pots! It will have zero effect on crime, aside from criminalizing social media itself.

Libyan Internet starts to fail. Renesys reported that, after a long, stable summer of nothing much to report, Libya's Internet has now started to fail, probably as a result of infrastructure degradation due to war and neglect. The effects of this failure will be largely negative for the government, as they are the only ones who currently have access.

Egyptian blogger arrested for "defaming the military." In what looks like a frantic race back to the bottom, the Egyptian military, the erstwhile saviors of the people during the revolution, have added another notch to their billyclub with the arrest and probable prosecution in a military court of 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz. Admittedly, a statement on one of her social media accounts muddies the waters.

"If the judiciary doesn't give us our rights, nobody should be surprised if militant groups appear and conduct a series of assassinations because there is no law and there is no judiciary."

Egypt seems to have moved on from the confident non-violence of the Arab Spring.

Iranian blogger freed. After a hunger strike that lasted 25 days, the Iranian government released Dr. Mehdi Khazali. He was released on bail. Khazali, son of a conservative cleric, has been arrested three times.

Al Jazeera journalist arrested in Israel. Last week, Samer Allawi, a Palestinian and the Kabul bureau chief for the Qatari news agency, was arrested while journeying from the West Bank to Jordan. He was brought before an Israeli military court Tuesday and charged with belonging to the outlawed terrorist group Hamas. Allawi denies he is a member of the group.

Tunisia upholds filtering decision. According to Reporters Without Borders, "A Tunis appeal court yesterday upheld a 27 May court decision requiring the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) to block access to pornographic websites. ATI said it would refer the case to the country's highest appeal court because it did not have the 'financial and technical resources' to create the filtering and censorship system needed to implement the ruling."

Filtering regimes start, with few exceptions, with the "protection" of innocent eyes against the scourge of pornography. It never, ever stops there. (There is, after all, so much to protect you from.)

Iranian blogger beaten in prison. Hossein Maleki Ronaghi was beaten by a guard "after writing a letter to Iran's judicary authorities." He required hospitalization afterward. He is serving a 15-year sentence.

International investigation panel closes up shop in Bahrain. The international Bahrain Commission of Inquiry, an international group investigating the violence during Bahrain's protests, has shuttered its offices and hit the road "after angry crowds scuffled with staff members following reports that government officials would be cleared of committing abuses against protesters seeking greater rights."

Argentina blocks websites. The country's judiciary blocked leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com, sites which "linked to allegedly leaked emails from members of the Argentine government." The effect was to inspire the creation of myriad mirror sites to distribute the material.

Anonymous, Telecomix take on Syrian Cyber Army. Declaring an #OpSyria, the groups are targeting the official pro-government computer hackers as well as the suppliers of censorship equipment to the country's violent ruling clique.

Attention has also been focused on Blackberry's private messaging service, known as BBM. London tech and media specialist Jonathan Akwue wrote a post on his blog outlining the case for Blackberry as the messaging vector of choice for the rioters.

Two Scottish teenagers are due to appear in court over messages posted to their Facebook accounts allegedly encouraging rioting.

Our community manager Robyn Tippins has posted the first in a series called "The Big Question." She asked, "What effect does social media on the Web have on social unrest in the real world?" And you answered.

Blackberry hacked for allegedly cooperating with London police. Research in Motion's Inside Blackberry blog was hacked on Tuesday by a group calling itself TeaMp0isoN_. They left a message behind, saying, in part, "You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all."

Anonymous vs. Facebook. Claiming that "Facebook has been selling information to governments agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms," the hacktivist collective has threatened to "destroy Facebook" on November 5th. So, there's that. As Dan Rowinski points out in his article, that's easier said than done. The Syrian Ministry of Defense is one thing, but Facebook quite another entirely.

Turkey backs away from online censorship plans. "A plan to require Turkish Internet users to choose one of four state-mandated browsing filters starting this month has been scrapped," according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead, the government will offer two filters (Child and Family) on an opt-in basis. Otherwise, the Internet is to remain free. A cause for celebration.

Anonymous hacks the Syrian Defense Ministry Website. The Ministry of Defense, which oversees many of the personnel who have contributed to 1,700 civilian deaths during Syria's five month-long Arab Spring protests, was hacked. Anonymous left behind their logo and a note. The note said, among other things, "The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side - tyrants use violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the more fragile they become."

7% of Arab bloggers arrested. Berkman Center and Global Voices released a study asserting that 7% of Arab bloggers have been detained by police and security forces within the last year and 30% threatened. The sample was admittedly small, however, consisting of the approximately 100 Arab bloggers aggregated by Global Voices, 80% of whom blog in English.

Moroccan activist blog attacked. Mamfakinch was the victim of a DDoS attack. It appears back up at this point. Mamfakinch's co-founder, Lbadikho, contributed to our status report on the Arab Spring.

Hungary passes religious-based censorship law. Hungary has passed a law that is a kind of de facto ban on many religious denominations. Under the law, only 14 of the nearly 400 formerly-recognized religious groups retain official status. The rest must apply for reinstatement. Budgetary funds for charitable work are now withheld from those groups.

Trial of Zimbabwean Facebook user delayed. Vikas Mavhudzi was arrested arrested in March for commenting on opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Facebook page, saying Egypt, in revolt at the time, was "sending shockwaves to dictators around the world." One of those dictators, the tinhorn president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabi, made Mavhudzi the first Facebook user to be arrested in the southern African country.

His trial, which was supposed to begin last Friday, was delayed until August 25th, when it was discovered that "the State failed to access the message after it apparently appeared Mavhudzi's Internet account expired after the cellphone was confiscated by police in February. Jamela and Chanayiwa also notified the State that their client would not help the State in any way to access the message arguing it would be tantamount to Mavhudzi incriminating himself."

Clapham photo by George Rex, Esna photo by Ed Yourdon

This bill was opposed by politicians from both parties, as well as 30 privacy groups. That didn't stop the Judiciary committee from voting for it, 19 to 10. See ReadWriteWeb's coverage of the bill in terms of its possible violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

China monitors Wi-Fi connections. According to Global Voices:

"Beijing Police has issued a notice to all the cafes and bars which provide Wi-Fi access to their customers to install a RMB20,000 monitoring system. Upon installation, users have to register their ID in the counter before logging in the Wi-Fi network. The notice was issued by the Beijing police around end of June, 2011 to cafe, bookstore, and bar which provide free Wi-Fi access to their customers. If they reject, they will no longer be allowed to provide free Wi-Fi service."

U.S. government indicts Twitter user for stalking. William Cassidy criticized a public official on Twitter and now faces jail time for it under a stalking law. Opponents argue that the law in question was designed to prohibit the use of tech to locate stalking victims, not to criticize public figures.

In June, Figuiera became the first blogger to be assassinated. Figueira, who was also a newspaper editor and the president of the local branch of the Workers Party, used his blog to discuss drug-related corruption in his home state of Rio Grande do Norte.

Syrian blogger arrested. Blogger and Web developer Anas Maarawi was arrested at the first of the month. His supporters have started a Facebook page to publicize his situation. A blog has also been started, as well as a hashtag, #freeanas. Anas is just the latest in a series of arrests in the troubled country.

Iranian actress and blogger missing. Iranian actress and blogger Pegah Ahangarani, who was scheduled to travel to the Women's World Cup in Germany on July 4, is missing. Many are concerned that she was arrested in Iran prior to her departure. She had a contract to blog about the championship for the German news organization, Deutsche Welle. According to a friend, she was summoned to the Iranian intelligence ministry the day before she was scheduled to leave and told that she would be arrested if she showed up at the airport.

Iranian blogger and publisher arrested. Iran cannot arrest too many bloggers. Mehdi Khazali was a publisher and the son of a prominent leading cleric, Ayatollah Khazali.

Egyptian military cements rule. The military in Egypt was considered a friend of the people during the protests. After Mubarak stepped down, however, the Egyptian military took over a harsher role, imprisoning a blogger, among others, and inspiring a movement against its continued role. The movement, which uses the hashtag #noscaf. Now, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is setting up rules that will influence any new constitution to allow an outsized role for the military.

Nothing good will come of this.

CrowdVoice launches with new design, more content. CrowdVoice, a user-generated platform for reporting on, and dialoguing about, freedom and civil society, has relaunched. Users now have the ability not just to add content (photos, posts, videos) to an existing page, but to add new pages, or "voices," themselves.

New pages include Malaysia and Malawi, where there have been protests, the Gaza flotilla and a page for gay American issues. The service is still blocked by the government of Bahrain, where it is located.

Like most of Mideast Youth's undertakings, CrowdVoice is well-built, attractive and easy to use. It's easy already to see the effect the freer approach will have on the platform's reach; it will be interesting to see how that freedom will affect the overall quality.

Alleged members of Anonymous arrested. In December of last year, three Dutch teenagers were arrested; in January of this year, British police arrested five alleged members of the hacking collective; another British teen was arrested in June; and now, in the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested 16 people across the country and served 35 search warrants in the course of a series of raids.

Those arrested have been charged with conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and with intentional damage to a protected computer, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Egypt army photo by Al Jazeera

Given how deeply social media is twined into contemporary political action, this makes certain types of online actions as illegal in Israel as they are in non-democratic countries.

Here's how Roi Maor explains it on +972 magazine.

"Simply put, the law seeks to penalize those who call for boycotting Israel, the settlements, or anyone related to the occupation. If a person, for example, calls for a boycott of academic institutions that participate in the occupation, he could be sued in civil court, and ordered to pay compensation. If a company agrees not to purchase products manufactured in the settlements, it could be barred from government contracts. If an NGO joins the global BDS call, it could be stripped of its non-profit status, and compelled to pay taxes as if it was a commercial firm."

Although boycotts may be conceived of as a tool of those outside Israel to force a change in the country's actions regarding Palestinians, it is, internally, considered a huge obstacle to freedom of speech. Given the increasing movement toward domestic protests against Palestinian policy in Israel, it seems much more likely to effect Israelis than anyone else. It is a huge wrong turn for Israel.

Belarus protestors arrested due to social media. Last week, Belorussian police arrested 200 people in the capital alone for protesting the neo-Stalinist regime. They were able to arrest so many so quickly because this protest is known as "Revolution Through Social Networks." For five weeks, organizers have arranged flash mobs via social networking sites.

Now, those same organizers are faced with the challenge of a police force watching, and sometimes shutting down, the popular sites they have been using. The police have also engaged in disinformation on sites like Twitter, a common tactic of repressive regimes who've woken up to the use of social media by political opponents. They are hoping a combination of more distributed calls for physical protests, along with "older" tech (filming police brutality and distributing it via DVD) will help continue the momentum and attract less techie dissidents to the cause.

Egypt resurrects Information Ministry. In a scene from a mummy movie, Egypt, largely controlled by the military in the wake of Mubarak's departure, has brought the notorious Information Ministry back to life. Though considered a force for change during the protests which chased the long-term president and his clique from power, the military is now regarded by many to be the primary obstacle to reform in the country. It has taken on a rigid and repressive posture it did not seem to have before. The military courts have sentenced a blogger to prison time and remanded many others for interrogation.

The Information Ministry was abolished in February. Now, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has brought it back and appointed Osama Heikal, former editor-in-chief of the Al-Wafd newspaper, as its minister. Tantawi asked Heikal to "reorganize the Egyptian media and draw up a plan that addresses all the shortcomings that came from abolishing the post of minister of information."

Another blow to the possibilities of change in Egypt. Not a terminal one, but far from trivial.

U.A.E. blogger's trial to resume next week. Ahmed Mansour, a blogger who was arrested in April, went to his initial trial session on June 14. He returns next week. Mansour had created a petition calling for democratic reform in the autocratic emirates.

Tel Aviv photo by ZeHawk, Israel protest photo by Neta

Is China's interest in Facebook a simply a government-sponsored group of venture capitalists looking to get a piece of the upcoming Facebook IPO or is there something more complicated at work behind the scenes?

Italian telecom agency to review Internet filtering proposal. Italy's telecommunications agency has decided to review its filtering regime with an eye toward possibly impinging on fewer individual liberties.

Australia, on the other hand, has no such compunction. They've implemented their filtering system - oh, it's for child porn, so don't worry. One of the parties to this agreement, the Australian ISP Telestra, almost backed out, because of LulzSec. But now that all hackers have gone away for ever, they're in like Flynn!

Cisco to build China's surveillance system. Cisco and other Western companies are gleefully serving China's new program to put up half a million 24-hour video cameras in public places around the southern city of Chongqing. In addition to being a major industrial and military hub, Chongqing is also a center for Chinese cyberattacks and the first of the country's "cloud cities."

Maybe I'll print up some t-shirts. "Don't tell my mom I work for Cisco. I told her I was playing piano in a whorehouse."

Taiwan fines blogger $7K for restaurant reviews. Here's my favorite part: "The court in Taichung city stated that her comment was not based upon objective fact and hence defamatory." Let's translate. In Taiwan, an opinion is a lie. Also, freedom is slavery.

China confiscates Swedish student's passport for blog post. Look at you, China. It's really your week. Sven Englund posted an open letter to China's president Hu Jintao on his blog. He had planned to return to Sweden this month. But now he's stranded in China indefinitely.

Tunisia blog sued. Nawaat.org, a blog that covered the Jasmine Revolution in great detail, is being sued in French court. The blog is being "threatened with legal action by Antoine Sfeir, a journalist and academic with dual French and Lebanese nationality, over a 20 March article by Lebanese journalist René Naba about the 'Ben Ali dictatorship's Lebanese sycophants.'" Another knock against a post-revolution Tunisia that seems to be slowly but surely returning to Internet censorship.

Apple blocks outgoing emails. Apple loves to censor things, up to and including Ulysses and the ThirdIntifada app. Apple refuses to say what exactly it is filtering in terms of email. The Cult of Mac tested a number of messages, including one which wished for more freedom for those in the Arab Uprising. It was blocked on the Apple servers.

U.S. intelligence officials recommend separate Internet. Well, it may not be a "halal" Internet, but it looks like the separate structure recommended by a bunch of American intelligence folks will be about as free.

As PopSci reports, "Several lawmakers and the current Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander are toying with the notion of creating a 'secure' domain where Fourth Amendment rights to privacy are voluntarily foregone in order to keep that corner of the Internet free of cyber criminals." What was that one thing that one guy said? "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." He was probably a hippy.

Pantheon photo by Ville Miettinen, mission accomplished photo via Wikimedia Commons

After receiving death threats, Figueira was shot six times on June 15 by gunmen on motorcycles outside his workplace. In addition to being a blogger, he was a newspaper editor and an official in a trade union. This is the second time a blogger has been murdered by his government or, in Figueira's case most likely organized crime figures attached to the government.

Bahraini blogger gets life sentence. One blogger in the Gulf country of Bahrain has been sentenced to life in prison while another has received 15 yearsThe life sentence is the longest sentence a blogger has ever received. Blogger Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace was one of eight imprisoned Bahrainis to receive life sentences. Al-Singace. Another blogger, Ali Abdulemam, was given 15 years after being tried in absentia.

Chinese artist and digital native released but muzzled. China's best known artist, Ai Weiwei, has been stuck away in a Chinese jail since his arrest in early April. He was released last Friday but has remained completely silent regarding his detention, no doubt a result of the terms of his release.

But why arrest Ai in the first place? He is an artist, free speech advocate and architect of global standing. Although he had never had a solo show in China, he designed the celebrated "Birds Nest" stadium that was the center of the Beijing Olympics. He allegedly had plans to relocate to Germany, where he had set up a studio. So, he is high-profile and has a big mouth, which he knows how to use. But his arrest was hardly the exception to the rule. At least 129 more people remain locked up in the latest spate of government detentions.

Chinese blogger harassed in advance of her husband's release. Zeng Jinyang has been bothered by Chinese security, and possibly placed under house arrest, in advance of her husband's release after a three-and-a-half year prison term. Her husband, Hu Jia, is also a well-known blogger and environmental and AIDS activist.

Zeng tweeted about being harassed by eight men when she disembarked in Beijing, where her husband will be released. "As I was getting off the plane, eight people came and took me away, they even took my luggage." and "I think this is how life is going to be after [Hu Jia is released]."A third tweet, hours later, was so different in tone it made some suspicious. "I have just got home. I am going to cook tofu and tomatoes. I don't know if it will be good. I saw Hu Jia today. I asked him if he was taking care of himself. There is still time for that. Media friends, my apologies and thank you for your concern."

Chile monitoring social networks. It's not unusual to use "open source" methods for intelligence gathering. But doing so against the Chilean people itself has proven wildly unpopular for the users of social networks. Brand Metrics, a social media measuring company, "will be responsible for alerting authorities when there are 'significant changes' in people's views on a topic, according to the government bid."

Apple removes ThirdIntifada app from store. Apple doesn't exactly have a high bar to removal of apps from its store, as their (temporary) ban of Ulysses proves tidily. Whether this was warranted or not I'll leave to you. It breached their TOS, according to Apple, by allegedly promoting violence.

LulzSec disbands, rebands. LulzSec, the attention-grabbing hacking collective announced its end, or perhaps a transmogrification. AntiSec, which seems to be the successor group, in conjunction with Anonymous, is already hacking away.

WordPress Blocked in Central Asia. WordPress' Matt Mullenweg said on his blog, "As far as I know we've had no contact with KazakhTelecom. Typically this happens when they don't like something a blog is saying, so they block or degrade service for everybody." This is a common reaction to "offensive material" by many countries, who will wind up blocking the whole of, say, Facebook out of fear of one account, as happened last year in Saudi Arabia and as Pakistan is currently in the process of doing.

China's cloud districts censorship-free, for foreigners.The city of Chongqing will be the first in China to see the debut of a "cloud district." Users within the district can access the Internet outside of the traditional Chinese censorship regime. This has upset many Chinese.

Malaysia trying blogger for defamation. According to Article 19's Dr Agnes Callamard, "Charles Hector is being sued for defamation at the High Court of Malaya in Shah Alam by the Malaysian subsidiary of Asahi Kosei Japan Co. Ltd, a Japanese electronics company. The defamation case centres around articles Hector posted on his blog in which he raises his concerns about the companies' treatment of 31 Myanmar migrant workers. His findings were based on research he carried out." How the laws in questions are interpreted by the court could deal a serious blow to bloggers' free speech.

Pakistan increases filtering. According to OpenNet Initiative, "Mobilink, one of the leading telecommunications companies in Pakistan, is now requiring that all users add proxy 10.215.2.32 port 3128 in order to browse the Internet. As a result of this development, Mobilink users are unable to search for several politically sensitive keywords, including the name of the country's president, Asif Ali Zardari."

Zeng photo via Wikipedia