Good news for the Associated Press! "In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006," an annual report from the University of Washington reveals. The majority of arrests since 2003 have taken place in Iran, China, and Egypt, though the US of A gets a mention: "The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US." Thats fine, fine company we're in, isn't it? Of course, the reported number could be deceptively low.

In some nations, like China, there are restrictions on blogging in general. Burma has arrested hundreds of people who may be bloggers. Sometimes no one knows if someone has been arrested or not. Also the report doesn't even mention Sheila!

We've covered blogger-arrests (despite the total lack of interest from American blog-readers!) rather extensively recently. Be careful where you tumble log, people.