Article 40 of the People's Republic of China's Constitution guarantees "freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens". The written views closely resemble those of the Constitution of the U.S. Therefore, the citizens are supposed to be free to correspond with anyone and should be allowed to access to the Internet. Correspondence is defined as conversation, thoughts, speech, telephone, and e-mail that are used to transfer ideas from one place to another. The only exception to the correspondence rule is for criminal investigations and in the interest of public safety.

Unfortunately, the actions of China's governing body do not follow the written guidelines. According to the article, "Move to put blinkers on 22 million Web users" by John Schauble, Authorities began to crack down on unregistered web sites. This is their way of controlling what their population can view. On-line gambling, pornography, and content that encourages crime or ethnic hatred are also banned. There is only one gateway to the Internet, managed by the Ministry of Information Industry. Chinese Internet surfers are quite limited in what they are allowed to view. They cannot view any material that could potentially enlighten them to the ways of the outside world; they block the BBC and all American news organization sites. Web sites such as these are regarded as being threats to China's internal security. Also mentioned in the article is the "country's only openly pro-democracy web site…was closed in August."

Singapore is following in the same manner with respect to insulating its users from viewing material deemed inappropriate. The provisions of the Information Technology 2000 master plan are designed to enhance the usage of the networks in Singapore, but in doing so, it places "proxy servers" between the users and the outside world. Such a move entitles the government to keep a close eye on what sites their citizens are visiting.

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