While not strictly a “journalism” issue this is easily a freedom of speech and expression issue.
Wired Magazine reports that a hacker — traced back to Iran — obtained legitimate web certificates for some of the top sites on the Internet. What that means is the hacker could set up fake pages for Google and Yahoo. A visitor’s browser would have accepted the certificate, giving the hacker access to the visitor’s information.
Hack Obtains 9 Bogus Certificates for Prominent Websites; Traced to Iran
The government of Iran, like any other dictatorship, is mindful of how the Internet can be used to subvert it. That is why Iran has poured a lot of money and effort into controlling the Internet within its borders and using the Internet to track down Iranian dissidents outside the country.
