Clinton urged to influence on countries restricting Internet use

Five United States senators are urging US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take more proactive steps in supporting organisations that promote 'Internet freedom' in countries such as Iran and China, where severe Internet restrictions are enforced.

Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas wrote a letter to Ms Clinton on behalf of the five senators, asking Ms Clinton to quickly spend the US$45 million (NZ$63 million) budgeted to support Internet freedom but has not been spent, reports New York Times.

The senators are also unhappy that restrictions on who can apply for the money seems to exclude organisations that they believe create the best ways to circumvent restrictions on Internet use.

Programmes such as Psiphon and Freegate allow people to bounce their Internet traffic off servers in other parts of the worked but organisations who developed these programmes say they are constrained by resource and need government support to remain ahead of governments censor technology.

They too are frustrated with their inability to meet increasing global demand for their services, and with their lack of success in getting United States government support.

China and Iran often prevent access to web news outlets, search engines such as Google and social forum sites like Facebook and Twitter.

People in China and Iran have also been subjected to having their online activities scrutinized, says New York Times.

Michael Posner, the State Department's assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labour, denied that the allocated money was not being spent appropriately or that companies best able to promote Internet freedom were being overlooked.

Every organization was considered "on the strength of whether they have a tool that will help advance the effort," said Mr Posner.

- NZ HERALD STAFF