August 25, 2003

A Whole New World

Iraqi's get their first taste of unfiltered access to the web, thanks to an internet cafe set up with $24,000 from the 4th Infantry Division's budget. Despite the potential risks of working or cooperating with Americans in the somewhat Saddam friendly Tikrit, they are happily plunking down $1 an hour for the privilege.

The first words Ahmed Abdullah typed in the Google search engine were "George Bush."

The 19-year-old wanted to access the president's website, something he couldn't do under restricted and tightly controlled Internet service during Saddam Hussein's rule.

Posted by Vox at August 25, 2003 11:38 AM | politics
Comments

i don't think he was looking for "george bush" per se.

Posted by: ryan at August 31, 2003 09:08 PM

I wonder if they put filters on to stop that kind of searching?

You know even if the Iraqi's weren't lookin' for it, some of the soldiers were ;-)

Posted by: Vox at August 31, 2003 09:22 PM