What Cuomo didn’t say is that his agreement with broadband providers means that they will broadly curb customers’ access to Usenet–the venerable pre-Web home of some 100,000 discussion groups, only a handful of which contain illegal material.
…
SarkozyÂ’s government is inviting people to send in huge long lists of sites which offend their delicate sensibilities. The French government, which will purportedly be able to receive complaints from Internet users in real time, will be able to add sites to a so called “black list”, which it will then force national ISPs to block….
The minister vehemently denied that the French government was turning itself into “a Big Brother of the Internet” and promised that the “fundamental liberty that is Internet access” would continue to thrive. As long as people only see the sites the government allows them to see, of course.

The Midnight Sun

Be afraid, be very afraid.