geoswan's Journal: How is China freer than the USA?

The Washington Post is publishing an interesting series of articles on "The Great Firewall of China". The author was online for a discussion at noon today. Here is one of item from the Q&A...

Beijing, China/Canadian citizen: Pornography:

Last year, in the China daily it claimed the government would completely eradicate pornography from the Internet. I viewed this as a means for the Chinese government to gain tighter control of the Internet.

Recently, through the use of the Patriot Act the American government has also claimed it will use the Internet search requests to fight child pornography.

My question is - both governments are censoring information - what differs between the two countries in 1. degree of censorship and 2. methods used?

Phil Pan: I'm not familiar with U.S. efforts to censor pornography on the Internet, but in China, they don't seem to be trying too hard to do it. The vast majority of the government's resources, time and effort is devoted to censoring political material. That is the main difference.

So, is China really freer than the USA -- in the way hardliners at the very top are trying to use National Security concerns as a tool to combat pornographic and erotic sites?

If I were an American I would call the use of the Patriot Act to fight pornographic and erotic sites an extrajudicial abuse of authority. The tools it provides were to be used solely for National Security