Censoring the Internet: the International Herald Tribune runs an Op Ed about the number of American High Tech companies who are helping. This is not only troubling because, hey, it's kind of wrong to make the internet into an arm of the police state -- even if you're doing it in China -- but also because it begs some rather troubling questions:

[S]hould we care what Chinese are reading on the Internet? John Palfrey of Harvard is blunt: "The ramifications of this censorship regime should be of concern to anyone who believes in participatory democracy. How the Chinese government restricts its citizens' online interactions is significantly altering the global Internet landscape."

Americans who think that in any event China is far away may be jolted by this suggestion from Rebecca MacKinnon, a former foreign correspondent in China now specializing in Internet censorship: "If these American technology companies have so few moral qualms about giving in to Chinese government demands to hand over Chinese user data or censor Chinese people's content, can we be sure they won't do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an over-zealous government agency in our own country? Or will we all sit there like frogs in water being brought very slowly to a boil?"

This is a theme that's only going to become more prominant. It's a moral issue.