By Jon Lebkowsky; September 21, 2005

Reporters Without Borders has produced an excellent Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents (pdf), reviewed at Global Voices Online by Rebecca MacKinnon, who says it "is the first truly useful book I've seen aimed at the kinds of bloggers featured here at Global Voices every day: People who have views and information that they want to share with the world beyond their own national borders." Rebecca and her Global Voices colleague Ethan Zuckerman, who is also - full disclosure - President of Worldchanging's Board of Directors, are aggregating content from the growing numbers of bloggers worldwide who will welcome this book as a helpful guide and a support for bringing others into the "second superpower."

The handbook includes a piece by Ethan on anonymous blogging, which he discusses on his blog today. He explores whether concern that terrorists will benefit from the guide to anonymity and, if so, is there an argument for suppressing the information? Ethan says

...obscuring these techniques in the hopes that the dumber terrorists don't find them means that they're difficult to find for the people who need them: independent journalists, human rights activists and dissidents in nations that restrict speech....predict that more than a few readers of RSF's guide will disagree and I'm preparing for articles and blogposts that question whether RSF made the right move in publishing this guide. They did, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

We're proud you're a part of it, too.

(Posted by WorldChanging Team in WorldChanging Retro at 12:43 PM)