

Internet, Facebook blackout hits Algeria as protests gain strength - alphadoggs
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/021211-algeria-facebook-internet.html

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SoftwareMaven
"The protests and Internet crackdowns in these countries have revived talk in
the United States of giving the president an Internet kill switch."

I would hope that these events would be useful in convincing the people of the
US that it is a bad idea to give the president a kill switch. The internet
wasn't turned off in Egypt to help the Egyptian people, after all, and, if it
is going down in Algeria, it isn't for their benefit, either.

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mdemare
By the time the situation in the U.S. deteriorates to that point, the
president won't care about having legal authority to do something.

It's as pointless as outlawing military coups.

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Joakal
You mean when the USA enters a state of emergency. Like they are currently in
since 1995?
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/State_of_emer...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/State_of_emergency#United_States)

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cristoperb
That articles is light on details. Renesys, who did a great job reporting on
what was happening with Egypt's networks, is keeping an eye on the situation.
Hopefully they'll have some details tomorrow:

<http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/02/watching-algeria.shtml>

It sounds to me like Bouteflika might be volunteering to be next.

edit: I should note, as the renesys link above, that all of Algeria's prefixes
are still being advertised publicly, so if they are blocking the internet at
this point it is some kind of internal filter and not an Egypt-style total
cutoff.

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nano81
I'm visiting Morocco in about 10 days. They seem relatively stable compared to
Algeria, but I've seen reports of marches being organized there as well. It
will be interesting.

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abraham
Google has not taken a hit so the internet as a whole does not seem to be
blocked.

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=US&l...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=US&l=WEBSEARCH&csd=1296977159770&ced=1297581959770)

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redouane
lies, im algerian and there is no blackout here

