Slashdot Mirror
Orkut In Pact With Indian Law Enforcement
food4thought writes "The Economic Times reports that Orkut has signed a pact with Indian Cyber Crime Cell. They have now pledged to block any 'defamatory or inflammatory content', or hand over IP address information to police if asked.' Deputy Commissioner of Police (enforcement) Sanjay Mohite said the pact means they do not have to go through the lengthy process of asking the Central government to communicate with Orkut. The practice so far has been to first send a request to the Centre's computer emergency response team in New Delhi. This team processes the request through its channels and even if a forum is finally blocked, the "culprits" still remain untraceable as no IP addresses can be obtained ... "Now we can do away with the process and not just directly ban content but also obtain details of IP addresses and service providers quickly," Mohite said.' How long before we see these 'informal arrangements' elsewhere?"
...and I'm fucking pissed.
This is the worst sort of intimidation. Bal Thackeray is a politician. If content against him can be censored, we've reached the limit. The government already blocks websites it deems "hateful". Unfortunately, the definition of hateful includes anyone who dares to criticise the communists, or Islam. The current government stays in power because of the support provided by the communist parties, so they can get ridiculous things like this passed.
Simply put, this is the first step in an exercise which promises to put an end to freedom of information on the internet in India as we know it. There was an incident where, some time back, the whole of blogspot was blocked. The government doesn't run a firewall a la China, they just ask ISPs to do it. Because there exists no independent ISP (all private players have to lease bandwidth themselves from the government - it's a state monopoly), they have no choice but to comply.
I am so completely pissed.
India has a strong and independent judiciary, democracy, human rights law (unlike Britain). It is more democratic and free than any other country at its economic level.