[governance] Tool to facilitate censorship

[Fouad Bajwa]

Tool to facilitate censorship
By Huma Yusuf
Monday, 20 Jul, 2009 | 08:33 AM PST |
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/09-tool-to-facilitate-censorship--szh-01

It seems many Pakistanis have been enjoying forwarding text messages
poking fun at President Asif Zardari because the backlash against the
Cyber Crime Act (CCA) has focused largely on the FIA’s intention to
crack down on indecent SMS.

But a more interesting problem — both for the authorities and the
public — is emerging online thanks to the act. Once again, an official
campaign threatens to undermine civil liberties while failing to
achieve anything productive.

The CCA — under which people who send ‘ill-motivated’ texts and emails
can face up to 14 years in prison — also claims to target
organisations that have been using the Internet to disseminate
propaganda and rally against Pakistan’s security forces. Many in the
blogosphere interpreted this to mean that FIA would target extremist
and terrorist websites, an effort that would be consistent with the
broader fight against militant groups in the northwest.

The government has been gearing for a crackdown against extremism
online. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks last year, when it became
apparent that the terrorists had communicated using Internet phone
calls routed through Houston-based servers, the Pakistan government
asked the United States to shut down terrorist websites hosted by
American companies. US refusal to do so at the time led to a
diplomatic row.

In April, however, the US announced that in addition to jamming
illegal FM radio stations in the Frontier, it would try to block
extremist Pakistani websites and chat rooms, particularly those
containing videos of terrorist attacks and inflammatory material. The
next month, a group known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab claimed
responsibility for a suicide attack in Lahore, on a militant Turkish
website run by Elif Media.

In this context, the CCA’s clause about addressing malicious online
content seemed to be part of a wider effort to clamp down on
terrorism. The fact that the FIA also requested Interpol’s help in
identifying email addresses and websites hosted by foreign servers
indicates that the authorities want to join the ongoing international
drive against online extremism. Unlike the crackdown on SMS text
messaging and emails, the CCA’s effort against websites appeared
rational.

But days after the act came into effect, the FIA blocked a Balochi
website (www.balochunity.org) for containing ‘anti-state’ material.
The website promotes Baloch nationalism and demands Baloch control of
the province’s resources. Although access to the website is now
denied, a snapshot of Baloch Unity from last year can be viewed using
an Internet archive.

While the website calls for a ‘struggle for self-determination’ it
does not explicitly advocate a violent uprising. And while there are
many references to ‘oppressors,’ the Pakistani state is not singled
out. The website’s mission statement states that the site presents the
Baloch agenda before Balochistan’s political parties to save
‘Balochistan and the Baloch nation from … usurpers’.

With this example, the CCA finds itself in murky waters. Since Sept
11, 2001, western governments have blocked innumerable terrorist
websites on the basis that they promote hate speech and incite
violence, which cannot be safeguarded by the democratic right to free
speech. If ever a government has shut down a website that was not
explicitly violent or threatening, it has been accused of censorship.

The FIA’s decision to block Baloch Unity seems more like blatant
censorship than a security measure, particularly given the current
political scenario in Balochistan. As such, the blocking of the
website confirms the Pakistani public’s worst suspicions about the
CCA: it is a tool to facilitate state censorship that will arbitrarily
define ‘anti-state’ content with no transparent definitions or
guidelines in place. If the government continues to block online
content that is not universally perceived as violent or hateful, it
will make a sham of the democratic right to free speech.

Let’s take a couple of steps back and consider the logic of the CCA.
The act has already been slammed for invading citizens’ privacy,
meting out disproportionate punishment, and making it easier for the
state to target or frame individuals. For argument’s sake, let’s
assume that the FIA genuinely intends to block extremist and terrorist
websites alone. Even then, the CCA comes across badly.

A recent study by the International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation and Political Violence — an international coalition of
academic institutions, including the Pakistan Institute for Peace
Studies — claims that net filtering cannot stem online extremism. The
study points out that there is more anxiety about what might be
happening online than actual Internet activity that governments can
pinpoint.

As a result, ineffective or unworkable policies are put in place (case
in point, the CCA). Usually, such government efforts produce a
political backlash since the rhetoric on extremist websites is
protected by free speech clauses (another case in point, this
article).

The study also points out that online content is mobile and elusive:
block a website and it will shortly reappear on a different server
under a new domain name. For example, the FIA closed the website of
the UK-based Hizbut Tahrir last week, but the banned group has already
launched a new URL and initiated an SMS campaign to contact
Pakistanis.

While static websites can be screened for offending keywords, dynamic
chat rooms and forums — which comprise the bulk of extremist activity
online — are nearly impossible to filter. It doesn’t help that
terrorist websites are primarily populated by ‘converts’ who go online
to extend ties and activities that they developed offline. Indeed,
individuals probably cannot find extremist content without contacts
telling them where to look. Shutting down terrorist websites will,
therefore, not be effective until militant networks in the real world
are eliminated.

Given the futility of net filtering, the study recommends that
governments prioritise stemming terrorism in the real, rather than in
the virtual world — there is no more effective use of resources than
deterring the producers of extremist content.

The study also urges governments to promote media literacy and foster
a culture of self-regulation by strengthening reporting mechanisms and
complaint processing. That way, the collective intelligence of the
public can identify ‘malicious’ websites and the legal system can
analyse each example to ensure that free speech is protected without
jeopardising public security. In this scenario, the government cannot
be accused of conducting an online witch-hunt.

This government already has patchy democratic credentials. If it has
no plans of articulating transparent parameters within which the CCA
can be enforced effectively, it should repeal the act as soon as
possible.

huma.yusuf at gmail.com
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