More than 90% of public Internet access in Syria was abruptly shut down today according to a report from Internet monitoring group Renesys. That’s a very bad thing given that it wasn’t an accident. Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, is clearly using this as a means of fighting back against the rebel forces that have been trying to overthrow him for months.

I wonder if al-Assad realizes how profoundly bad this move was. You can torture people. You can kill innocent civilians. You can kick puppies. But shut down the Internet? Suicide.