Tell me if you’ve heard this all before. I’d imagine online life was simple back then, back when the The Mentor and his kind discovered the computer, then travelled the electron, and the switch and started to marvel at the beauty of the baud. It was a simpler time because it was a world without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias. It was a world where people judge others for what they say and think, not what they look like. It was a realm where information was sacrosanct, meaning access to computers or anything that may teach something about how the world works should be unlimited and total. It was a universe that allowed for art to be created on a computer and consented to this firm belief that Cyberspace can change your life for the better. If you believe that Cyberspace exists without governance, regulation or rules of any sort, you cannot be more wrong. This is its ethos, its core philosophy, its manifesto. This is the Tao: “We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code“.

This is the Internet.

Was Cerf aware of the world he would usher by unifying the network?

Like the Great Digital Divide that separates the connected and not connected, there is a great gulf between the real world and the Internet. As the Internet ever so increasingly become part of the real world, governments, and people naturally want to impose their own order. There is a huge disconnect between the ethos of the Internet and the real world.

There is a clear and present danger to the Filipino’s digital life. There are pending bills in Congress on anti-cybercrime (SB 3213 Trillanes version, SB 3117 Enrile version, and House Bill 6794 by Singson, Angara, del mar, Nicolas, Teodoro, Joson, Villar, et. al.) that seek to make some online activity into criminal acts. Then, there are unanswered questions on network neutrality and Internet rights.

How do we stand on common ground that we may reject the false choice between safety and ethos?

Anti-Cybercrime

Yes, the Internet is a place where you can play Farm Town. A nice and simple game on Facebook that a lot of people I know, are addicted to. It is a place where you can chat with your friends without cussing.

I will not lie to you. There are perverts on the Internet. Those seedier places on the Internet are a google away.

In spite of all this, our laws must protect Children from being abused, as much as we must protect women from illegal trafficking. What about identity theft, or hacker break in or how about spam? Then again, is this what the Philippine Cybercrime is all about?

I first heard about House Bill 6794 from Tony Cruz in a tweet. Joey Alarilla fired the first salvo urging this: “Scrutinize Philippine cybercrime bill, Filipino Netizens urged.” @buwayahman from twitter threw in his own opinion with regard to “The Cybercrime Act of 2009“, asking what constitutes cybersex, private acts, and what is indecent or not. Then there is @jesterinexile in a plurk weighing in the violation of our civil liberties if this bill ever sees the light of day.

I have to agree with @buwayahman on this:

(d) Exhibiting live or recorded shows depicting sexual or other obscene or indecent acts;
(e) Posting of pictures depicting sexual or other obscene or indecent acts;

What is obscene and indecent and even sexual is as subjective as what beauty is. If a woman without soliciting favors and who just wanted to share a public snap of herself showing ample cleavage that makes her feel good but would obviously affect every warm blooded human male (and some women), is that indecent? What if in a conversation, a friend of mine started telling a story about observing two turtles in the beach which she would describe to me as “making love” and showing me a video of it, which she took, is that indecent or obscene?

The definition of what is obscene and indecent must be clarified. It also raises the issue, is this enforceable? See, we go back to the ethos of the Internet where free access to information is sacrosanct. Even if this information isn’t for everyone. The whole point is that it should not fall to any government to decide what should and should not be permissible online. It falls on the user, or owner of the network.

Content is king, is it not?

This is the part where the wisdom of rough consensus and running code works.

I’ve no problem for instance in barring dating sites or sexually explicit, not safe for work content on a business network. I even block it on my home network to avoid kids from stumbling upon it. It is a quick fix. For example, simply log on to OpenDNS and set it to block content you don’t want published to your network.

Not everyone may share that opinion and their rights must be respected too, as much as my own, correct?

(a) Establishing, maintaining or controlling, directly or indirectly, any operation for sexual activity or arousal with the aid of or through the use of a computer system, for a favor or consideration;

That last phrase is obviously a shot against prostitution. It does not bar consenting adults, married or otherwise to do the same for each other.

(b) Recording private acts, including but not limited to sexual acts, without the consent of all parties to the said acts or disseminating any such recording by any electronic means with or without the consent of all parties to the said acts

This portion is obviously to prevent another Hayden Kho from every happening. My problem with this is the matter of “disseminating any such recording by any electronic means with or without the consent of all parties to the said acts”. I’ve no problem if the bill wrote “disseminating any such recording by any electronic means without the consent of all parties to the said acts”. Obviously, the victims of the Kho case were not just the women involved, but Kho himself. It shouldn’t have gone public with someone actively trying to do so. Now this law, prevents people though from giving consent, which is against the very ethos of the Internet because online, there is a place for that sort of thing, and people who like it have the same right to that spot online as much as Google or Yahoo are, or you and I for that matter.

Now comes the part that’s really scary. This is the part where I disagree with the most. It opens a can of worms that goes against civil liberties. It is draconian.

On HB 6794, it says:

SEC. 10. Real-time Collection of Computer Data. – Law enforcement authorities shall be authorized to collect or record by technical or electronic means, and service providers are required to collect or record by technical or electronic means, and/or to cooperate and assist law enforcement authorities in the collection or recording of, traffic data, in real-time, associated with the specified communications transmitted by means of a computer system, subject to existing laws and procedures.

Trillanes’ version has it at Chapter 5, Section 13. Enrile’s version (Chapter 4, Sec. 9) goes like this:

SEC. 9. Real-time collection of Computer Data. – Law enforcement authorities shall be authorized to collect or record by technical or electronic means, and service providers are required to collect or record by technical or electronic means, and/or to cooperate or assist law enforcement authorities in the collection or recording of, traffic data, in real-time, associated with specified communications transmitted by means of a computer system.

This is how I read it.

This is Big Brother. Law enforcement, meaning, government is allowed to to collect information on the network without, a court order. It authorizes government to put packet sniffers on anyone. It deputizes (forcefully) service providers to keep such transactions, just in case government fails to do so for itself.

Every email you send, is now open for the government to read. Every “I love you” sent to your friend over chat or text message is open for interception. Where you’ve been, what you’ve done online is right there for the picking. Uploaded a twitpic about your dog? Government’s got to know about that. Remember, Iran Election? That’s what will happen, every single day.

It seems to me that this is a surrender of our liberty in exchange for a perception of safety.

If our privacy is sacrosanct, where then does the government come in?

Take this issue with between Belo Medical Group and lawyer Argee Guevarra. The latter is being sued for libel because of Argee Guevarra’s status message on facebook regarding Belo Medical. The situation is that Guevarra had his settings, private, meaning only “friends” he has agreed to share his information gets his status. Belo is not one of those friends. Isn’t this an assault on Guevarra’s protected right to free speech and free expression? Isn’t this a violation of his right to privacy? Lawyer Guevarra was quoted by GMA7 saying:

“It’s a first insofar as I’m [being] sued by someone who [was not] added as a friend and is filing the case by proxy,” Guevarra explained. “Friends say that I should look at the invasion of privacy angle but I just told them that I will—if and when I decide to take those who sued me to court for malicious prosecution and perjury.”

This becomes another reason in a long line of grievances that defamation law in the Philippines should be decriminalized.

At the end of the day, an anti-cybercrime bill is less about protecting citizen’s rights and more about breaking it. It becomes more about safety than protecting liberty. It is less about Justice and more about Censorship and Regulation.

The Case for Network Neutrality and Internet Rights

As increasingly Filipinos go online and participate with the larger Network, whether through a computer or through mobile phone, the evidence with the anti-cybercrime law is that our government is more interested in punishing, than encouraging the Filipino’s right to Free Speech and Free Expression are trampled.

We have a law on what’s illegal on the Internet, but there is no law that tells the Filipino, what are his rights online? There are no laws in the Philippines that guarantee that the Filipino ought to be in control of what he sees, and the applications online that he can use. Where then is that law that guarantees that the end user get the right amount of bandwidth that he paid for? Where then is the law that guarantees Network Neutrality?

The commercial aspect of those who are against network neutrality is like this: telecom companies seek to impose tiered service model to control the flow of information. That’s one aspect. A very important aspect because Telecoms and by extension media companies would wish to transform the Internet from what it is today, to a model similar to television. That is a mistake.

Proponents of Network Neutrality argue that Internet users ought to be in control of what content they view, what applications they use because this is how the Internet has operated since its inception. The father of the World Wide Web, is also for Network Neutrality. On February 7, 2006, the co-author of the Internet protocol, Vinton Cerf testified before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Hearing on “Network Neutrality” and he said: “Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success.” This is no different from allowing governments to do so. The Internet must be independent of both corporations and government regulation.

The Philippine government must legislate the principle of network neutrality to safeguard Filipino users’ Internet rights. It means that the Internet in the Philippines must not have restriction on content, site or platform, on kind of equipment attached or the modes of communication allowed on said network and communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams. Users themselves must be allowed to decide what they want to get from the Internet.

Italy and Brazil had this to say about an internet bill of rights:

“Privacy, data protection, freedom of expression, universal accessibility, network neutrability, interoperability, use of format and open standards, free access to information and knowledge, right to innovation and a fair and competitive market and consumers safeguard.”

A worthy read too is this Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society: “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs:”

We envision societies where human knowledge, creativity, cooperation and solidarity are considered core elements; where not only individual creativity, but also collective innovation, based on cooperative work are promoted. Societies where knowledge, information and communication resources are recognised and protected as the common heritage of humankind; societies that guarantee and foster cultural and linguistic diversity and intercultural dialogue, in environments that are free from discrimination, violence and hatred.

We are conscious that information, knowledge and the means of communication are available on a magnitude that humankind has never dreamt of in the past; but we are also aware that exclusion from access to the means of communication, from information and from the skills that are needed to participate in the public sphere, is still a major constraint, especially in developing countries. At the same time information and knowledge are increasingly being transformed into private resources which can be controlled, sold and bought, as if they were simple commodities and not the founding elements of social organisation and development. Thus, as one of the main challenges of information and communication societies, we recognise the urgency of seeking solutions to these contradictions.

It becomes a matter of ensuring that future innovation and creativity continue unrestricted and that that core ethos of what the Internet is, not be trampled by governments and corporations seeking to control the Internet. The governing body of the Internet, the Internet Engineering Task Force is well aware of this.

Guaranteeing Network Neutrality and Internet rights must be an Imperative of the next government of the Philippines.

Conclusion

There remain open questions on digital rights, not just in the Philippines, but around the world.

Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address wrote:

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

Is our government wise and frugal then? Perhaps, the key is for a government that balances public responsibility with private enterprise.

However it goes, I am certain that these issues of privacy, these questions on justice for victims of cybercrime, this unanswered need for Internet rights is all about responsibility. The trouble is, it is the Filipino government itself that wishes to break what the ethos of the Internet is. We’ve let our fears and uncertainties wrapped around a perception of safety and morality to overshadow our ideals. We must reject this.

The Filipino Digital Citizen faces a Clear and Present Danger. This is the Challenge. This is a case for Network Neutrality. It is all about guaranteeing the core ethos of what the internet is. Free access to Information and knowledge is sacrosanct. That our privacy and our data are guaranteed and protected as much as our Constitutional right to free speech and free expression and that all devices must be interoperable through open standards; that our government guarantees the right to innovation in a fair and competitive market.

There is a whole universe as you can see. And for many years, it has been the playground of early adopters, of people who think different. It has created its own culture, with lolcatz and meme, a different universe entire. As Glee Willis once told Time, “it’s a family place. It’s a place for perverts. It’s everything rolled into one”.

Why can’t government understand this?

Why can’t people grasp this?

Why can’t it be included in Plans Within Plans on the Road to 2010?

Our questions in 1993 are still questions in 2009. I say this with a degree of confidence because Time Magazine in 1993 had an article which was written by Philip Elmer-Dewitt titled, “First Nation in Cyberspace“. Dewitt mentioned crackdowns on raunchier discussion groups on the Internet. You can draw parallel threads with that and our discussion on anti-cybercrime law (which is really a form of censorship), as well as our discussion on Intellectual Property, which, as Lee put it, to solve we must “change the law to bring it back into line with peoples’ moral intuitions”.

At the end of the day, this quote from John Gilmore of the Electronic Frontier Foundation is an axiom that also holds true: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

This is the challenge and opportunity that we face. Let us join our running code with the rest of the world, and let us lead by example, nations of the world who largely remain clueless as we are now. Let us declare that the Filipino is for rough consensus and running code.

This is the Conscience of the Digital Citizen.
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*images are used under creative commons and are properly linked.

*this is a re-write of The Conscience of the Digital Citizen.

The Conscience of the Digital Filipino by Cocoy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.
Based on a work at www.filipinovoices.com.

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