Well at least you guys can share a couple of torrents without the POLICE breaking the door and confiscating your PC... ! Cutting regular people off internet access for sharing, and adding them to a "black list" of individuals who are banned from using the internet. This has started happening in Europe.

The situation with the letters in Russia sounds bad... But really -- would you seriously consider sending secret sensitive material in the post? I sure wouldn't (and I don't live in Russia). Isn't this just the "normal" "anti-terrorism" monitoring that's happening everywhere? Perhaps you are more sensitive to this because of your history. Remember also that all international correspondence can be opened in customs.

Ever since 9 / 11 attacks in New York "Anti-Terrorsim" legislation can be used in the EU and US for spying on people in every possible way: Reading their letters, monitoring their internet traffic and listening to their phone calls. This has been abused a lot - used against people who were definitely not terrorists, but for example economical criminals and drug dealers. Nobody seems to care about this abuse of the anti-terrorism laws.

The US is creating a service which will monitor the entire internet for "anti-american" activities and they will try to keep track of people and groups with such opinions. People who visit sites that the US doesn't like will be registered. Likewise if they join such groups on Facebook and similar.

According to Network News Asia: In China, there are 30,000 policemen employed just to read peoples emails (spy on them!) In addition they have several massive automated systems scanning for banned words...

If anybody has seriously sensitive and secret material they should send it with "I2P" email or access anonymous webmail via "TOR"... These services are virtually untraceable. (Nobody should not be so stupid as to use regular mail for sensitive information -- whether they live in Russia or anywhere else...)
Canadian fear of monitoring - Very funny parody
[videovial3f2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcP3V9bgUoI[/videovial3f2]

How 'Terrorism is the new Communism' and thereby gives
the American gov't an excuse to spy on its' own citizens and others....
[videovial3f2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPx8nomoYTk[/videovial3f2]

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