[x-pubpol] Iran cyber police cite U.S. threat

[Joly MacFie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-cyber-police-cite-us-threat/2011/10/27/gIQA1yruSM_story.html

The “cyber police” force is part of a broad and largely successful
government effort to block foreign Web sites and social networks deemed a
threat to national security.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8911031262

Iranian officials say they must control which sites Iranians are able to
visit, to prevent spying and protect the public from “immoral” material.
The United States, they charge, is waging a “soft war” against Iran by
reaching out to Iranians online and inciting them to overthrow their
leaders.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday played into such
accusations, saying U.S. officials had asked Twitter, the social networking
site, to postpone online maintenance in 2009 so that it would be available
for Iranian anti-government protesters organizing demonstrations against
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory.

<snip>

In interviews this week with the Farsi-language channels of the Voice of
America and theBBC, Clinton announced a U.S. plan to open a “virtual
embassy” for Iran that would provide online information about visas and
student programs.

But the initiative is likely to be thwarted by Iranian authorities, who are
increasingly using filtering software to block access to sites such as CNN
or to Web pages containing sensitive key words and phrases, such as “sex”
and “velvet revolution.” At times, the Google search engine is blocked.
Attempts to open such sites from Iran take the user to a page operated by
the Communication and Information Technology Ministry that reads, “Dear
user, according to the law you are not allowed to visit to this bad Web
site.”

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