[ NNSquad ] Re: Google and India Test the Limits of Liberty

[Rahul Tongia <tongia@cmu.edu>]

Thanks for the link.  India is tricky, to say the least.

There are laws on the books against "hurting the sentiments of
minorities" and one reading [section 509 of the Penal Code] "Whoever,
intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes
any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such word
or sound shall be heard, of that such gesture or object shall be seen,
by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman, shall be
punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one
year, or with fine, or with both."

As you state, one-size doesn't fit all.  My practical Qs and issues include:
1) How do you handle jurisdiction?  Say someone sitting in California
posts something on orkut? Google *might* take it down when contacted
to take it down but would/could/should they hand over information
about that user?
2) In India's case, one has to check if online vs. "real-world" laws
differ - I have written against draft laws that gave enormous powers
to enforce digital laws, more so than for analogous real-world
offences.
3) There, IMHO, needs to be much more education regarding the value,
truth, trust, etc. of online material.  This isn't just about free
speech but also about general internet-savviness.

A case I have used in a class at CMU was re. a website (orkut) posting
against Shivaji which caused riots (rather, vigilante action by
hooligans). The ISP handed over the name of the user to the police. He
was arrested for ~22 days (a reasonable IT professional). Turns out
they had the wrong IP address!  Will this lead to attempts to
authenticate/monitor all internet activity? Difficult, not to mention
easily bypassed by those who especially want to avoid being tracked.

There is also the broader issue of MANY Indian laws either actually
still in place from the British Raj or being updated only partially
instead of being re-written sensibly.

Rahul

     [ Any time that anyone tells you that there are simple, "little
       thought or discussion required" solutions to these kinds of
       situations, alarm flags should go up.  While the Internet is
       definitely changing the world in significant ways, it is not
       sweeping away national governments in a supposedly glorious
       burst of one-world comradery -- the impacts that existing
       governments have on the Internet are at least as strong.  The
       result is a continuing back and forth dynamic that we can only
       really feel our way through one step at a time, trying to
       create a balance between the many conflicting forces.  This
       will never be easy, and we will sometimes make mistakes.
       But it's largely through those mistakes that we'll improve
       the fastest over time.  Improvement often entails risks.

       An example is that IP address issue above.  Gradually, I think
       it's getting through to law enforcement that IP addresses in
       and of themselves are not unique and reliable identifiers of
       individuals.  But this education process has been taking quite
       a bit of time, and there have been (and still are) some awful
       mistakes made, both in the release of IP address data
       inappropropriately by some organizations, and in the
       misinterpretation of that data by law enforcement and other
       government agencies.

       No Simple Answers.

       -- Lauren Weinstein
          NNSquad Moderator ]



On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> wrote:
>
> Google and India Test the Limits of Liberty
>
> http://bit.ly/8Wc8jC  (Wall Street Journal)
>
> This is a fairly lengthy article including considerable interesting
> details, particularly for persons unfamiliar with the complexities of
> the situation in India.
>
> Arguably, these questions of local laws and censorship (and demands
> for user data by governments) are among the very thorniest of Internet
> issues.
>
> The more that I've looked at these matters over the years, the more
> I've become convinced that there's no "one size fits all" solution or
> generally applicable decision matrix that can be easily applied.
>
> In contrast with some Internet sites who seem willing to hand over
> user data and censor data on the flimsiest of requests, my overall
> impression is that Google encourages energetic discussion internally
> of how to deal with these sorts of issues (though this is not
> necessarily obvious to the casual observer who only sees the end
> results of such deliberations).
>
> While I do not always agree with Google's specific decisions in this
> realm (and I am particularly uninspired by the continuing lack of
> routinely effective mechanisms for individuals to obtain help with
> Google-related issues that affect them personally), I would definitely
> not categorize Google's actions in any of these spheres as being
> knee-jerk in nature.
>
> --Lauren--
> NNSquad Moderator
>