French Add Censuré to "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité"

The Internet filtering agreements New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo inked with Verizon (VZ), Sprint (S) and Time Warner Cable (TWX) today, while certainly groundbreaking, pale a bit in comparison to the ones announced in France.

There, Internet service providers, and we’re talking all of them, have agreed to block access not just to sites and newsgroups alleged to contain child pornography, but to those alleged to feature materials promoting terrorism or racial hatred as well.

“We can no longer tolerate the sexual exploitation of children in the form of child pornography,” Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in a speech today. “We have come to an agreement: access to child pornography sites will be blocked in France. Other democracies have done it. France could wait no longer.” And then, pledging her support for the “fundamental liberty that is Internet access,” she added: “This is not a question of creating a Big Brother on the Internet.”

Well, not yet anyway.