[pHaestus]

Well I think that, as this discussion quickly shows, the censorship issue is pretty closely tied to digital rights/copyright issues. And there are a lot more issues than "I don't want to pay for software" at work here. I like to rip the children's dvds I buy to xvid, put them on my HTPC, and allow them to watch them that way rather than end up with scratched up dvds. That's technically illegal because the software to break dvd encryption is against DMCA. I've bought a music cd that won't play in my car or in my PC because of copy protection; only in an ancient walkman. I had to pull it off the newsgroups to even listen to it! I later learned that you could defeat the copy protection with a black Sharpie pen and I could listen then.

Who gets to decide what to censor though? US religious groups might be able to get popular support for making information on abortion/birth control, evolution, availability of pornography, and many other "controversial" topics blocked at the ISP level for people who live in their cities. Would this be ok? Governments in other parts of the world restrict availability of world news, politics, editorials, all kinds of stuff. Is that ok?

How many of your rights will you cede to a government for safety/public good? The answer to that question will differ for everyone.