via Dmitry Burkov. We are following the current events in Egypt with concern as it appears that all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic has been disrupted. The Internet Society believes that the Internet is a global medium that fundamentally supports opportunity, empowerment, knowledge, growth, and freedom and that these values should never be taken away from individuals. The Internet Society considers this recent action by the Egyptian government to block Internet traffic to be an inappropriate response to a political crisis. It is a very serious decision for a government to block all Internet access in its country, and a serious intrusion into its citizens’ basic rights to communicate. If the blockage continues, it will have a very detrimental impact on Egypt’s economy and society. Ultimately, the Egyptian people and nation are the ones that will suffer, while the rest of the world will be worse off with the loss of Egyptian voices on the net. However we are most concerned about the safety and security of the Egyptian people. Alongside the rest of the world, we share the hope for a positive and lasting solution to the problems that have risen to the surface there. In the longer term, we are sure that the world will learn a lesson from this very unfortunate example, and come to understand that cutting off a nation’s access to the Internet only serves to fuel dissent and does not address the underlying causes of dissatisfaction. Text Ends. This is something that matters. The government of Nepal shut down network access in 2005. The government of Burma significantly reduced network access in 2005, and again in 2007. I attended the November 2008 ICANN meeting in Cairo, as did some other participants in NARALO. About 25 million people live in Cairo alone. When we were there two years ago a plurality, if not a majority of people I observed in domestic class hotels and malls had cell phones. WiFi hot spots were available all around the ICANN venue area, and more importantly, in central Cairo, the area that is shown on CNN and Al Jazeera today. Internet access is a big part of Egyptian urban society. As my friend Barry Shein, who also attended the Cairo meeting, writes: "I was curious about [Press Secretary Robert Gibb's characterization of the demonstrators as having middle class aspirations] having wandered around Cairo. The protesters looked to me like middle-class Egyptians as opposed to galabeah (sp?) wearing working class." I suggest that the NARALO leadership draft a statement on the public interest value of public network access, free of interruption, and also free of deep packet inspection, by governments. Eric