DI NO A LA CENSURA DE INTERNET EN LA INDIA - Por favor, firme la peticiónen línea
We urge the Parliament
TO SAY NO TO
Town Hall, 21st April 2012, Saturday, Evening 5.00 p.m
Students from various Engineering Colleges will participate and talk
It is about our basic democratic right of free speech. It is about police not knocking on our doors for forwarding emails. It is about what you and I can put up on our blogs without worrying whether it hurts the rich and the powerful
We support free speech, free knowledge and free software
http://friendsofinternet.wikispaces.com/
Organised by : Free Software Movement Karnataka, Software Freedom Law Center , Kannada Bloggers, friendsofinternet, Website :
http://www.fsmk.org
contact : raghuram@fsmk.org, 9591042333, Vignesh : 9535321976
Dear All
Government has enacted laws that give it a free pass to censor our Facebook posts, listen to every Skype conversation we have, monitor our tweets or blogs oraccess private photographs and documents we store online, or track our location using our mobile phones or surveil all of your online activity. We want to tell our government that they cannot use vaguely defined laws and loopholes to take away our freedom of speech and expression.
On 11th April 2011, the Government notified the new Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 prescribing various guiding principles to be observed by all internet related companies. These rules will
1. Lead to a clamp down on the freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution of India by providing for a system of censorship / self-censorship by private parties;
2. Adversely affect the right to privacy of citizens by allowing Government agencies to access their information;
3. Will severely hamper the growth of internet penetration in India, and consequently lead to a slowdown of economic growth;
4. Limit the growth of various IT related industries and services (in particular cyber cafes, search engines and bloggers).
In addition, mandatory data retention would force the Internet Service Provider to create vast and expensive new databases of sensitive information about an individual. That information would then be available to the government, in secret and without any court oversight.
Sh. P. Rajeev , Hon’ble Member of the Rajya sabha has moved an annulment motion to get these rules abolished and the motion has been admitted and is expected to come up in this budget session . The Bangalore MP Rajeev Chandrashekar has spoken in Parliament in support , the text of which is available at the end of this note. Its also interesting to note that a professor of chemistry of the Jadavpur University was arrested recently along with his neighbour for allegedly posting a cartoon on a popular social networking site and forwarding emails, cases were booked under the IT ACT as well.
The Government notified this on April 13, 2011 the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011 prescribing guidelines to be observed by the intermediaries. The rules were issued in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (zg) of subsection (2) of section 87 read with sub-section (2) of section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (Act 21 of 2000). The provisions of the new rules are unconstitutional as they affect the right to freedom of speech and expression as well as right to privacy of citizens, are arbitrary being violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution of India and are ultra vires of the parent act.
There is an internet petition you can sign below.
Text of Speech in Parliament by Bangalore MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar
http://www.rajeev.in/blog/?p=234
Don’t police Internet and Blogs
“Indian Bloggers are vibrant stakeholders of democracy, they represent young thoughts and their initiatives play an important role in the Indian political system. Youth rely on the phenomenon called Blogging for news, to exchange ideas, thoughts and there should be no censorship or control of thought on the Internet. The government should not impose any form of control over blogs, bloggers and Internet. It is a matter of serious concern if there is a move on imposition of unnecessary restrictions on bloggers of the Internet in which the government proposes to block or shut down blogs as well as bloggers if the opinions posted in them do not suit the government, institutions or individuals. The Government is going to publish new rules in the Official Gazette under the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2009 without inviting public opinion thereon. The execution of these rules in its existing form will be a blow to the vibrant blogging community and bloggers. It could result in shutting down of the Internet, if the information posted is found inconvenient to the Government, institutions or individuals. This would also take away the Right to Freedom of Expression. “
EBOOK: Legal analysis of the issue
Software freedom law center has come out with an ebook, Legal analysis of
IT(Intermediaries guidelines)Rules 2011 , explaining the impact of the guidelines which the government has come up with. . This is is available in the link below.
http://softwarefreedom.in/attachments/article/125/LegalAnalysis_ItIntermediaryRules.pdf
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