U.S. bankrolls "shadow internets for dissidents" abroad

The US government is financing the development of "shadow" Internet systems 

to enable dissidents abroad to get around government censors.

The newspaper said the covert effort also includes attempts to create independent cellphone networks 

inside foreign countries.

The operation involves a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, 

where a group of young entrepreneurs are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware 

into a prototype "Internet in a suitcase," the report said.

Financed with a $2.0 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border 

and quickly set up to allow wireless communications over a wide area with a link to the global Internet, 

the paper noted.