The Big Brothers of Blogging

An alarming article from the New York Times tells the shocking story of police officers hunting down French citizen Dominique Broueilh for commenting on a video clip of a French cabinet official with the simple words, "Oh, the liar."

It's a classic case of censorship and overwhelming government control, but its a paragraph that appears further into the story that really caught my attention:

Politicians here have filed lawsuits like Ms. Morano’s, organized in-house Internet surveillance teams — Mr. Sarkozy receives a nightly report detailing the day’s online chatter — and roundly denounced the Web as a breeding ground for disinformation.

Internet surveillance teams? Nightly reports of online chatter? While the Web seems to be, at least for now, the French government's only target, it's terrifying to think about where these beginnings of government surveillance could lead to in the coming years. I can only hope that bloggers stay brave to keep it from further spiraling out of control.