On the weaponization of information technology: a great paragraph

From Milton Mueller, amidst a controversial pair of blog posts on activism directed toward blocking the diffusion of information and communication technology that can be used for surveillance, a great paragraph:

For the past five years, some of us have been challenging the rampant securitization of the Internet by a cyber-military-industrial complex still looking for a replacement for the Cold War. The key rhetorical and political ploy used by these forces is to equate the diffusion and ubiquity of information technologies with weapons proliferation, and thus to equate an open and free information infrastructure with national weakness. The implication is that empowering civil society with access to information technology is dangerous, and needs to be checked and regulated by the state. Such an approach is routinely used by cyber-nationalists to limit and block access, and to justify surveillance and interception of communications. Indeed, if the metaphor is accepted it can only lead in that direction.

That was from the second post.