standing guard By Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President
Suppose some day that you are sitting at your computer, ready to take action against a repressive gun ban pending before
Congress, a ban the media says is a benefit to society. They are lying. And you want access to the truth so you can
convince your friends and neighbors to contact their senators and congressmen. You type in the URL for the National Rifle
Association--www.nra.org--and you get an error message: "Host not found." You type in www.nraila.org. This time you
get the message "site unavailable." When you type the Web address of a civil liberties think tank--a known, proven source
for accurate information and analysis--you find yourself looking at a screen saying "content blocked." You can access the
Violence Policy Center and the Brady Campaign. But every pro-gun site is filtered. Nothing is coming into your inbox from
any of the pro-Second Amendment online newsletters you always get. Their sites are blocked as well. So you send an
e-mail to your congressman and U.S. senators telling them about the Internet blackout and urging them to vote against the
gun-ban legislation, and you CC your e-mail to friends and family and co-workers. Your e-mails are blocked, while the
voices of those hyping the bans on speech and gun ownership sail through. Your inbox fills with returned mail with cover
messages saying "action failed." As a hedge, you send your congressional letters through the U.S. Postal Service--but the
bill is up for floor action in three days--and you know your message in opposition won't arrive in time because of federal
mail screening. You go to another pro-gun site, and it is there, but wait a minute--the headline on the main page says they
support the gun ban. The site has been hacked, the original content dumped and fraudulent material added. You try again
to reach the site of your activist state association and you get a new error message: "ACCESS FORBIDDEN BY THE
UNITED NATIONS INTERNET GOVERNANCE AUTHORITY. Your attempted access has been recorded." All of
these things--all of this censorship, including replacing site content--are already a worldwide reality for millions of people
today. A chilling account of Internet repression--including some of the error messages I cite--was published in the
November 16, 2005 edition of The (London) Independent. Author Daniel Howden writes, ". . . China remains the
benchmark in censorship. Beijing has cajoled major U.S. players such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo into adapting their
sites and services to suit the censors. A Chinese Web surfer typing the word 'democracy' or 'freedom' or 'human rights'
into their server will probably receive an error message announcing: 'This item contains forbidden speech.'" The Internet
reflects America's unique First Amendment, and it serves to protect our equally unique Second Amendment. For news
about legislation, and your NRA, visit: www.nraila.org, www.nranews.com and www.nra.org. If you have friends who
might scoff at this scenario playing out here in America, let me lay out some recent headlines: "China Again Tightens
Control of Online News and Information . . ." or "China shuts down 47,000 'harmful' Internet cafes." Then add to that
frightening mix these headlines: "China charges U.S. monopolizes the Internet, seeks global control" and "EU Wants Shared
Control of Internet." Global Internet control. Think global gun control. They are the same thing. An Associated Press
business dispatch--written before the November 2005 World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia--predicted, "A
stalemate over who should serve as the principal traffic cops for Internet routing and addressing could derail the summit,
which aims to ensure a fair sharing of the Internet for the benefit of the whole world." "Benefit of the whole world?" That's
U.N. speak for what Howden concludes is a battle where "the world's rich and powerful will join battle for control of what
they see as a gold mine." In opposition to a U.N. takeover of the Internet, the Bush administration has held its ground.
After all, we invented the Internet. It was the sole creation of remarkable American genius. It was and is an integral part of
our national defense. And--as an American entity--is shared with the world as the most open avenue for free expression
and the exchange of ideas ever created. It reflects America's unique First Amendment, and it serves to protect our equally
unique Second Amendment. "Benefit of the whole world?" The United Nations? We've heard those words before--again
and again--in reference to worldwide civil disarmament. Were the U.N. to control the most important means of
communications in history, you can bet globalist billionaire George Soros and Rebecca Peters would be silencing all
Internet access by those who oppose their world vision of a global gun ban. The Internet is still safely in American
hands--for now--but this fight, like the global efforts to disarm Americans, will never go away. And neither will our duty to
protect the sanctity of the First Amendment with the vigor equal to our defense of the Second Amendment. Posted:
2/8/2006