While there is such a thing as a Chinese firewall, even here it is perfectly legal to have a VPN that allows you to browse anything, anytime, anywhere.  

Meaning, it is expresely permitted to mask your online activity. As long as the State does not make any money on getting you that online access.  We even pay for ours with our Chinese credit card...   Interesting, especially when happening the same week that China topped 500 million online users.

But, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, proxy servers, such as those used during the Arab Spring, may also be used to thwart copyright enforcement and therefore may be outlawed by the Stop Online Privacy Act SOPA / H.R. 3261.  Um...?

Maybe I am just too stupid to understand what is going on out there, but this seems a bit backwards to me.  I live over here, in Communist Mainland China and I can do whatever the hell I want.  And many of you live over there in the land of the free and the home of the brave and there are a lot of very smart rich people trying to make sure you can not.

Somebody want to try to explain that to me?