A friend of mine is in Iran for the holidays. It’s what he does. He has also made three trips to North Korea, and just returned from Turkmenistan. Anyway, he issues the following report about what websites he can and can’t access from Tehran:

I can access the Mercatus website from Iran.
I can access Marginal Revolution.
I can access the New York Times and WaPo.
I can access Cato.
I can access Fred’s blog.
I cannot access The Agitator blog.
I cannot access You Tube.

Here is the message you get with a little box where you can plead your case to see the blocked material:

“Access Denied!

This page will not be accessible for the reason that in our database it has been assigned to the category of “blocked contents”.

In the event the URL does not contain materials that are forbidden by laws, please fill this [not copied] form out then hit send.”

It’s a badge of honor! Not sure if it’s still the case, but there was also a time when the site you’re reading couldn’t be accessed on a Virginia government computer.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 8:24 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.