Bush administration and Microsoft victorious over information

In an obvious payback to would be theocrats, the United States Agency for International Development, convinced administrators at Johns Hopkins University to modify the search software at the largest index of population information - "Popline" - to censor searches on the keyword "abortion". They succeeded.

I visited Popline today - http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/ - and type in a few terms related to but not using the forbidden word "abortion".

Evacuation  is one method of abortion in which the fetus is literally sucked out of the womb. Dilation and curettage is a mechanical method where the cervix is dilated and the womb is scraped. Mefepristone is a drug which induces premature delivery.

This is a grizzly subject whether you support a women's right to choose or oppose abortion. It is a subject of which women of child bearing age should have some understanding and the rest of us who propose to pontificate on the matter should not be ignorant.

I am using Firefox and a relatively recent version of Sun Java. When I press "Go to" I get a popup which only a programmer could love.

There are a few errors in the html and java script code as well. One in the handling of cookies (oops, they may be tracking your searches) and a reference to a non-existent function.

Of course, I am not going to get any information at all. My innocence is preserved but temptation lurks. What is "Inmagic"? Inmagic is proprietary search software developed by a Massachusetts company by two competent librarians with help from MIT. Inmagic is a Microsoft Certified Partner and is built on Microsoft ".NET" and Microsoft SQL server. "Where did you want to go today?" Several open source (free) scalable well written search engines exist but our government prefers  to spend tax-payer money on buggy crap that only runs on Windows.

This Administration's dedication to the free flow of information is exemplified by their defense of our safety by lobbying against "Media Shield" legislation - http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/media-shield.htm.

Microsoft has not been idle in the fight to enclose information by rigging ISO voting on OOXML in Norway, Germany, Croatia and other countries. In the spirit of "free and fair elections", members of some International Standards Organization committees were allowed to either vote "Yes" or "Abstain" - http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080328090328998 and others.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Winston Smith - 1984