That's a very alarming number. The situation is very comparable to Colombia in terms of self-censorship and the level of violence.

Instead we wanted to show how deeply entrenched self-censorship has already become.

This is a classic example of a censorship crusade by local government bureaucrats who are relying on their own subjective definition of obscenity to arrest someone even before any court has found that this Web site is illegal. What right do Polk County officials have to decide what people who live in Berlin and London and Hong Kong and New York access in the privacy of their own homes?

At CBS, I’m in your house. I’m mindful of that. When I do standup, you’re in my home and I can say what I want to.

This process of self-censorship is ubiquitous and that those who do it believe that they are doing the right thing. That they call it "sensitivity" and "fairness" review without realizing that they are censoring to placate pressure groups, or in anticipation of protests.

Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman's letter needed to include the usual complaints -- that we were pathetic, powerless, worked to the bone, homesick, and sad. We were supposed to speak directly about our feelings without appearing ungrateful, no-account, or unfilial.