US Products Help Block Mideast Web

As Middle East regimes try to stifle dissent by censoring the Internet, the US faces an uncomfortable reality: American companies provide much of the technology used to block websites.

Web-filtering technology has roots in the 1990s, when U.S. companies, schools and libraries sought to prevent people from surfing porn, among other things. Today, that U.S. technology is now among the tools used in the clampdowns on uprisings across the Middle East. In Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and elsewhere, bloggers have been jailed and even beaten as governments try to repress online expression.