Blogging: Is it already being threatened?

As we all know, there are four basic freedoms guaranteed by the United Nations and subscribed upon by the free world countries and societies. These are: 1. Freedom of speech or expression; 2. Freedom of religion; 3. Freedom from want or hunger; and 4. Freedom from fear. The Four Freedoms are goals famously articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the State of the Union Address he delivered to the United States Congress. In an address also known as the Four Freedoms speech, FDR proposed the four points above as fundamental freedoms humans "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy.

I was toying over a foolish idea, after I read some restrictions on blogging in some countries by some governments, that blogging should be the fifth freedom that every citizen of the world should have access to or use at will for purposes of expressing oneself. I know this would fall under the first freedom and I also know that every freedom entails some kind of responsibility. As it has been said, your freedom ends where the freedom of others begins. You are free to swing your arms as wide as you can for as long as it does not hit the other peron's face.

It rocks the senses when you read that countries like Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic, banned the Facebook and Youtube from being accessed and Vietnam restricts her citizens from blogging about the government or state affairs. If they are simple regulations to restrict public and private workers from accessing the internet during official time or while at work, then there is nothing to worry about. The State, as well as private firms, have the right to do that to optimize productivity of the workers.

Vietnam has tightened curbs on bloggers to ban views seen as opposing the state or undermining national security, according to a new edict which asks online service providers to provide data on users.

The Internet has given Vietnamese people a forum to express themselves that cannot be found in the traditional media, which are closely controlled by the communist authorities. It has produced a flourishing blogosphere, but the government said earlier this month it wanted closer regulation.

Paris-based media watchdog 'Reporters Without Borders' lists Vietnam as among the "enemies of the Internet" with censorship practices "almost as thorough as those of its Chinese big sister."

Vietnam courts have already jailed a number of cyber-dissidents and earlier this month upheld a prison sentence of two and a half years on a high-profile blogger.

In the face of these looming threats to the 'Fifth Freedom' we bloggers so loved, it is high time to unite in solidarity. Certainly we cannot sit idly on the wayward and watch this kind of restrictions spread across some continents. I have already joined a group that calls itself "Care2 Causes". This is an advocay group that entice people to join and express whatever critical universal issues one can post on its petition site (www.care2.com/causes). But I think that is not enough. Maybe we need a more focused group whose only concern is to stand on guard against violations or looming violations of our 'Fifth Freedom' and share information among members from across the five continents.

I am contemplating on a one-site blog or website that member-bloggers (with signed-in passwords) can report or share information of this kind. Then a local-based bloggers group, serving as country advocacy group, can lobby upon their respective governments to dramatize the issue and hope that in the short run the issue may reach the level of the UN-based human rights organizations and take appropriate actions.

I am no technical savvy yet, and so maybe someone with the skill of putting up this one blogsite or website, can initiate the building of that technical infrastructure that shall serve as our home-base. I know this is technically feasible.

We shall await for your reactions. Anyone please!