The U.S. State Department has been given $15 Million by Congress to develop anti-censorship tools and services which could help Internet users breach electronic firewalls set up by China, Iran and other ?closed societies.? Defense News reports that the budget is to be “awarded competitively to software developers to produce internet technology programs and protocols that enable widespread and secure internet use in countries where the Internet is now heavily censored.”

Our American Allies are taking a stand against net censorship and here we are trying to implement it. I don’t agree with every action the U.S. has taken over the last couple of years, but I think we can all agree that this is one we should actually be assisting with.

President of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Leslie Harris, welcomed the United States’ efforts.

Here’s what she told Defense News:

Protecting the Internet from abusive governments is important to supporting democracy, she said. But accomplishing that ?will require the free world to take much harder positions? against abuses such as censorship. Ultimately, the odds may favor technology.

?No matter how many restrictions are written in China, the Internet is a very hard technology to control,? Harris said. ?The number of users is growing exponentially ? blogs, e-mail accounts, the magnitude is extraordinary. At the end of the day, governments trying to control the Internet are going to have a very difficult time.?

You can read the entire article here.