The Internet: Systems Of Censorship And Control

January 30, 2008 · Filed Under International · Comment 

If you thought the internet was that thing which was all about freedom and liberty for all, think again. Your government, in collusion with business, will change all that, as they seek to control what you are allowed to see.

This from Michael Geist:

As digital technologies and the Internet began to emerge in the mid-1990s, many content companies responded by betting on the ability of technological protection measures to re-assert the control that was rapidly slipping from their grasp.  The vision of control through technology required considerable coordination - the insertion of encryption on content distributed to consumers, cooperation from electronics makers to respect the technological limitations within their products, and new legal provisions to prohibit attempts to pick the new digital locks.

A decade later, the strategy lies in tatters.  Many content owners have dropped digital locks after alienating disgruntled consumers fed up with their inability to freely use their personal property.  Electronics manufacturers have similarly rebelled, frustrated at the imposition of artificial limitations that constrain their products and profitability.  To top it off, the U.S architect of the legal strategy last year acknowledged that the legislative initiatives to support the digital lock approach have failed.

In recent months, a new strategy has begun to emerge.  With the industry gradually admitting that locking down content does not work, it has now dangerously shifted toward locking down the Internet.

The Internet locks approach envisions requiring Internet service providers to install filtering and content monitoring technologies within their networks. ISPs would then become private network police, actively monitoring for content that might infringe copyright and stopping it from reaching subscribers’ computers.

The support for locking down the Internet revives an old debate - the appropriate role and responsibility of ISPs for the activities that take place on their networks.  As the content owners were promoting legal protection for digital locks in the 1990s, the ISPs were supporting legal frameworks that treated them as the equivalent of common carriers that transferred data across their networks without regard for the content itself.

While that approach ensured that ISPs did not take an active role in monitoring or filtering Internet-based activity, the recent move toward a two-tiered Internet - one in which the ISPs themselves dream of distinguishing between different content as a new revenue source - revived the notion that ISPs could be called upon to play a more active role in monitoring and blocking content.

With content owners frustrated at the failure of digital locks, last year they seized on this by renewing their focus on the role of the ISP.  This movement has been most prominent in Europe, where last summer a Belgian court ordered an ISP to block access to a site alleged to contain copyright infringing materials.  

More recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a plan that would mandate country-wide ISP filtering of copyright infringing content.  Although a similar pan-European proposal was defeated earlier this month, few believe that the issue is dead, particularly given the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s claim last Thursday that 2008 will be the year of greater ISP responsibility.

Content filtering plans have also begun to emerge in North America. Large U.S. ISPs such as AT&T have inexplicably promised to develop new content filters on their networks and are discussing an implementation plan with content owners.

Could a similar content blocking approach wind its way north?

Late last week, the Canadian Recording Industry Association stated that it presently is not seeking provisions “related to content filtering or termination of repeat offenders.”  That provides a measure of reassurance, yet some cultural groups are openly eyeing content filters as a mechanism to adapt Canadian content rules to the online environment, while others have expressed strong support for legal rules that force ISPs to accept heightened “responsibility” for the conduct of their subscribers.

In light of this pressure, some fear that mandatory content blocking could sneak into forthcoming legislation, despite the likelihood that such laws would face constitutional challenges and run the risk of tarring Canada as the home of a censored Internet.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at [email protected] or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.

Reproduced under Creative Commons licence:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ca/

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Open Letter To Gordon Brown: The World Is Watching You

September 27, 2007 · Filed Under International, News, Politics, Web Publishing · Comment 

Dear Prime Minister

You have used strong language to express your outrage about what is happening in Burma and you have urged the world to take action in demonstrating their solidarity with both the Buddhist monks and their supporters in the general population.

You said:

The whole world is now watching Burma and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account. The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over.

I think the international pressure that can be made to be felt in the next few days is incredibly important. I want to see the whole of the world getting together on this.

The world is getting together in any way it can, whether it is blogging or signing online petitions or donating money or just offering words of support and encouragement to those who are managing to get information out of Burma to the rest of the world, usually at great risk to themselves.

So, the world is also now watching you and other world leaders to see what you are actually doing, rather than merely saying.

The United Nations seems to have spectacularly failed to do anything. It seems its hands are tied when Burma is not threatening the security of any other country, especially when China and Russia might threaten to use their vetoes. To send a man to talk to the military junta somehow seems a rather lame response.

Of course, you could simply say that there are diplomatic efforts happening in the background which cannot be made public. This will do nothing to make people believe that anything contructive is happening.

You could just sit on your hands and wait for the situation to be resolved, probably with a massacre of the monks and civilian population and afterwards say you did your best, but nothing could really be done to help them. Perhaps events unfolded too fast. Perhaps we have to keep to the rule of established committees and bureaucracies. Perhaps it did not really matter all that much and when you said the world was watching, what you meant was that the world was waiting for a soundbite from you.

The question, however, will forever remain: what did you actually do? We know what you have said. What are you doing?

People have been pleased with the idea that you are guided by a “moral compass”. If at any time you could demonstrate what that means, that time is now.

Your Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said that we need institutions which “redefine the global rules for our shared planet”, so that countries such as Burma are made to feel it is better to play by those rules rather than ignore them. Mr Miliband also said: “I for one thought it was brilliant to see Aung San Suu Kyi alive and well outside her house last week … I think it will be a hundred times better when she takes her rightful place as the elected leader of a free and democratic Burma.”

Fine words indeed, but none the less mere words.

The world is changing. The world is watching and the world is waiting.

It is waiting to see what you and other world leaders actually do when the world is in agreement about the need for action. This time, words alone will not be enough.

The way you are seen to help protect the human rights of those abroad will forever reflect on the way you are perceived to be the custodian of human rights at home, whether in a crisis or just in the day-to-day events which comprise the lives of ordinary people.

So, yes, the eyes of the world are watching Burma. They are also watching you and every other political and business leader who can bring moral outcomes to the situation.

Yours sincerely

John Stevens

PS The blogging world has kept up a momentum of pressure concerning Burma, along with the conventional news media. In the spirit of maintaining that essential pressure, anyone is welcome to copy, post, distribute, translate or otherwise publish this letter in any way they see fit for the purpose of helping to change the world for the better and to assist any and all oppressed people anywhere.

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United Nations Fails Burma Democracy Protesters

September 27, 2007 · Filed Under International, News, Politics · Comment 

Gordon Brown said the world is watching Burma and the outcome of how it deals with the democracy protesters. He said there will be no impunity for the military junta if it uses violence to quell the peaceful protests.

Grand words indeed. Unfortunately, also totally useless and hollow unless they are acted upon.

It is time to watch what your own government is doing in response to the Burma crisis and judge whether it stands by ineffectively or takes decisive action. Words, unfortunately, do not prevent the killing of Buddhist monks and their supporters in Burma.

George Bush, arguably the most powerful man on earth, was able to invade Iraq for some bizarre reasons which only his mind could justify, apart, of course, from the oil. Now we have the whole world in support of Burma and the peaceful pro-democracy protesters, what is he doing, other than talking?

The United Nations has shown that committees and talking shops and those who work in bureaucracies are incapable of actually getting anything done hen it really matters. All the UN has managed to do is to say they will send a man to talk to the military junta. The world could be forgiven for thinking that this hardly the reponse it was expecting.

The National Post of Canada has this:

UNITED NATIONS — Canada and other western powers condemned the use of force by Myanmar’s military junta in suppressing this week’s peaceful protests by Buddhist monks, students and other pro-democracy dissidents, but China and Russia used the shadow of the veto they hold in the United Nations Security Council to blunt the world body’s response.

After meeting behind closed doors Wednesday, the 15-member council issued a statement that made no mention of the violence, but said member states support the decision of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to dispatch his special envoy for Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, to the region. Gambari left New York Wednesday night with no guarantee the junta would grant him an entry visa once he arrives in the region.

China’s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, emerged to say his country hopes Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, would “restore stability,” while Russia’s Vitaly Churkin referred back to the collective council decision.

Amid fears the junta’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters will increase in intensity, the United States and the 27-member European Union asked the Security Council to consider imposing sanctions on the regime.

The U.S.-EU communique also called for the council to demand the government open a dialogue with jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minorities in the country. Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, had not been seen in public for four years until she emerged last Saturday to greet 500 monks and show solidarity with their protests.

But China and Russia, which have friendly relations with Myanmar’s military rulers, said the council is mandated to deal only with matters threatening international peace and security.

The debate at the UN came as military leaders in Myanmar cracked down on mass demonstrations that began as a protest against rising fuel prices but have expanded to express the long-felt dissatisfaction with the rulers of one of Asia’s poorest nations.

On Wednesday, riot police and troops in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, tear-gassed and charged hundreds of monks and students who were defying the junta’s orders to end their peaceful demonstrations.

Witnesses said at least four people, including three Buddhist monks, were killed. Two were beaten to death while another was shot when he tried to wrestle a gun away from a soldier and the weapon discharged, two senior Myanmar officials told AFP.

Meanwhile, in the absence of assertive action at the UN, western powers were left announcing unilateral responses.

President George W. Bush said the United States would tighten economic sanctions on junta leaders and their financial backers, and expand a visa ban “on those most responsible for the egregious violations of human rights.”

In Brussels, the EU said it would “reinforce and strengthen” sanctions that currently include an arms embargo, an assets freeze and a visa ban on junta officials.

You need to check whether your own government is just sitting on its hands and doing nothing when human rights are being violated, as it will give you a measure of how they view such matters.

If they cannot be bothered when the entire world is in agreement, be very worried about how they will treat your own human rights when the world is not watching.

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