Thursday, July 20, 2006

The way of weasel - II

Previous Post

Although the order to block blogspot has been rescinded, there is no need to feel very happy.
Why is that? Consider how the event unfolded.

Apparently some officer in DOT (allegedly on advice of intelligence agencies) sent a list to block some sites, ISPs in zeal to comply blocked the complete domain. When bloggers noticed that the platforms were blocked they raised hue and cry, persistent effort by bloggers and media ensured that the ban was lifted (in a way)

But what is disconcerting that some unaccountable bureaucrats holds power to restrict speech. What is even more a matter of concern that these powers are exercised in a very arbitrary manned. To make matters worse there is no transparency or accountability, that is there is no obligation on government to explain or even inform about its actions & decision to citizens.
In a way it was forunate that ISPs blocked the whole domain if instead of few sites (as was ordered by the GOI order), it was this blatant attempt at censoring which made everyone realize with a start the extent of bureaucratic stranglehold on our freedom.

Our constitution hands over discretionary (and arbitrary ) power to government to limit our freedom of expression, the result is that there is every potential that government can (and does) attempt to limit our freedom (economic or political) . It can be in name of national security or social justice, but the end result is same increase of government control.

This attempt is continuous and the censorship is creeping. If the media and bloggers had not shown such activism, I am reasonably sure that this ban would have stayed in place.
Since the bureaucracy doesn't want to be accountable to public, especially when it is wrong, it is guaranteed that all attempts to prevent the truth from coming out would have been attempted.

5 comments:

froginthewell said...

I wonder if it would be too difficult/infeasible for the government to log every one of its moves on the web in some public domain - say the order to these bureaucrats etc.

doubtinggaurav said...

Frog,

I don't think it should be that difficult

Regards

Twisted DNA said...

If the ISP's didn't make the mistake of blocking entire blogspot, this ban would've gone unnoticed. Kind of scary to think! One good thing that came out of this is, it proves once agiain how strong the blogger community is! I think blogging is going to do graet things in India.

doubtinggaurav said...

Twisted,

You are right

Regards

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