Government-Sponsored Censorship

It has recently been discovered that "Popline" a database that is run by Johns Hopkins and funded by USAID, has blocked all search results prompted by the keyword "abortion." Regardless of ideology, this site limits access to important information needed in developing countries. The article mentions that some of the articles were very pro-choice, and that upset the Bush administration. Instead of eliminating all information about abortion, Johns Hopkins should have focused on creating a more balanced catalog of information.

I think that factual, unbiased information (emphasis on the factual and unbiased) is not only powerful, but necessary in this situation. I think only good can come from making the information is available to developing countries. Without this data, fatal consequences may occur. For example, Google cooperates with the Communist Party of China to limit Chinese citizens search access, leaving the Chinese utterly ignorant of the freedom and opportunity that lies outside their country. The only acceptable barriers that I can conceive of are ones of decency, such as blocking pornographic images from search results, but even that initiative should be made personally, not by a search engine itself.