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I read your article with interest, especially after a day of “incidents” that happened to me on 3/2/06. I was busy reading email that had come in that day, and then started having problems (about 6 times) pulling up articles and even web sites of certain conservative sites (no problem with the other sites I also read - health, etc.). I would get “site not found”, and about three different other messages regarding the article I was trying to access. After having this happen to about 4 different sites (and wishing I had written all this down), I wrote to the last site, NRA and told them what I had experienced. They responded quite timely, stating they were going to check in on it.
Interestingly enough after reading your column,as I was looking through the articles I had saved from NRA in checking to see where I had stuck a copy of my email to them as to what day this happened—I also found an article by Wayne LaPierre, VP of NRA, on “Standing Guard” that he had written on 2-9-06 about the possibility of internet interference. Since I had had thoughts on what else we had to worry about, thinking of how we were “excluded” from normal news access, and then articles starting to come out as to what might happen to the Internet access - selling to a private company, U.N., etc., I saved his article to think on as well, and then forgot it! So when this came up, it was almost like someone tinkering to see how inobtrusively they could interfere - maybe I’m paranoid, but that thought popped into my head, bolstered by the fact that it lasted for about 1/2 hour, and then stopped completely. During that time, after getting the message repeatedly on different “conservative” sites, I began to “refresh”, and would immediately get that site. (NO problem with health sites, etc.) My first thought also was internet provider, as I don’t have a web site, and I have worked for a web hosting service, so I do have some inkling from my son tinkering with his accounts when someone might have a problem getting hung up with their site, to get things going again. I also know how fast things can be shut down or eliminated.
It would surprise you how many Islamic sites we ended up with, primarily because we would NOT host porno or any other sexual, etc., site! One college (U.S.) man told us this. I began to keep tabs on these sites after I received several “newsletters” from a couple of the sites (they may have thought we were Islamic). One was particularly inflammatory, with supposed bodies of children and women blown up by Americans - however, one of the scalps that was shown buried in a blanket, supposely harboring the body of a child, looked very suspiciously like a scalp that had been - just that - scalped!. That’s why I hope you always have a backup copy of all your website (it is surprising how many people - including web managers - who KNOW better, DON’T!) I also believe it is time to be prepared for ANYthing!
I’ve also had a lot of problems with AOL, as have others (first time I heard about it was, I believe, on AGAPE, back in 2000 - election year), a woman and her daughter’s experience with just HOW closely things were watched on AOL. (when a child gets replies from AOL stating Bush is no good, etc., it certainly spooked her mom!) After hearing that, and the problems I had had corresponding with one of my sons as well as his wife (at work had AOL). We experimented with it, finding that anything religious or “right-wing” would be sent back with one of several messages, all meaning “undeliverable”, yet a “clean” message just after that would go through to them. We tried misspelling words, and some of them did go through, though later on even that didn’t work. I find that true today, as I still have a daughter and two cousins who have AOL, but not as extreme as I did right around election time! We’ve worked on having an innocuous subject line, but I’m sure it picks up on certain “dangerous” words in the body, whether religious or political (ONLY “right wing"-type stuff.) Articles on Democrats don’t seem to be bothered.
So I believe we are not only being “censored” (AOL and possibly others), but also different other methods [are] being tested as well. When I send out a particularly vehement political letter to about everyone I know and I get NO reply, then check - there’s something going on! Am I a suspicious person? YES!
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