India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society

An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid has a fascinating roundup of news stories surrounding the latest surveillance laws passed in India, including a first-hand account of someone writing from inside India. The legislation in question is the Information Technology Act's amendment bill 2006, which was recently passed in the Indian parliament. Things you can't do with the new legislation include surfing for news in Bollywood and looking up porn on the internet. The legislation also allows all transmissions over the internet to be monitored for any form of lawbreaking and permits a sub-inspector to break into your house to make sure you aren't browsing porn on your computer."

Comments

Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

A government wanting to decrease people's access to information, bit by bit. What a surprising turn of events.
Seems that a good government ass-kicking is may be in order. Course, that seems to be the case in several places.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this mod'd insightful/interesting? What's interesting is that many 'governments' are made up of people - like you and me. What's interesting is that as soon as you and me take on this civic duty, we somehow morph into some sub-lifeform who are automatically declared corrupt and tossed into the gutter by every half-wit with an internet connection.

Same with police officers etc. Hint: they may actually live and have a family right in your neighborhood -- they're not bred in some mill by the 'government' and 'grown' specifically to prevent you from doing whatever you feel like.

The statement above is no better than a hardcoded MOTD -- it does nothing constructive to address the matter at hand.

Re:Shocking

[knutkracker]

What's interesting is that many 'governments' are made up of people - like you and me

Er... no.

'You and me' are not currently in political office or trying to be. This is for a reason, i.e. we don't care enough about getting power to make a serious attempt. Those who do, are by definition different to the rest of us.

This gets interesting when you realise that there is a stable prevalence of about 1% for clinical psychopaths in any population and that being able to not give a shit about [torture/mass unemployment/civillian casualties/back stabbing your colleagues/puppies dying] (delete as applicable) is pretty much a job requirement for many political figures. Put simply, you will likely find a larger proportion of psychopathic individuals as you move higher up any command heirarchy. This why surveillance society is a bad idea - the people in charge are less likely to have a moral conscience than the rest of us.

See this film if you need further information/spine chills.

Re:Shocking

[dryeo]

Power attracts the corruptible.

Re:Shocking

[Dripdry]

I'm sorry, but I have to speak up here.

I have 3 friends who have all gotten starting jobs as police offices in different districts in the last 4 years.
2 of them quit after a few months when it became obvious that the acts they were asked to commit were not even close to being in line with serving the public interest and safety. The third person is seriously questioning his career choice.

I say that without proper oversight and regardless of training, people with too much power often do despicable, selfish things because they can a) Get away with it and b) the justification for these acts comes from having that power in the first place.

just my 2 cents

This is how terrorism works

[The Master Control P]

Make the idiot masses panic with a spectacular, loud, but in all honestly tiny (a few psychopaths with boats and guns) action. Foolish laws are drawn up despite everyone "knowing" where they go. If there's any sign that the society is not going there, repeat to set it back on course to its own destruction if possible.

Re:This is how terrorism works

[zenyu]

Wake up, people! Terrorism is committed and supported by people for whom KILLING PEOPLE IS A DEEPLY SATISFYING ACT, and nothing more.

I think you need to visit some conflict zones and talk to people on both sides. And you need to read a little history. While there may be a larger than average representation of sociopaths in terrorist groups, they are far from the majority within any cohesive, and hence long lasting, terrorist group. Also, no terrorist group can survive long without a support base. Throughout history these have melted away as soon as fairly basic human needs are met. Do you really think George Washington could have operated very long without the 30% of the colonists supporting him in his fight against the government and the rule of law?

I'm not saying the hatred goes away as soon as basic needs are met, just talking to some average Turks and Kurds will quickly convince you of that, but in a generation or two it does. How much do we still hate German Americans, or Irish Americans, or Italian Americans? I think you would have a hard time finding anyone under thirty who has any sort of deep seated hatred in America for those groups. Yet many people were bombing, rioting and subverting the US government because of their hatred for these new groups; and this was within my grandparent's lifetime. Most importantly the hatred does not HAVE to go away for there to be peace, the overwhelming majority of people just want to live ordinary boring lives, once they have seen the horrors of war they will fight to keep the peace if the peace allows them to live ordinary boring lives.

BTW I also disagree with the previous poster that most terrorist wars are purely secular. The underlying reasons for the conflicts come down to the same basic human needs, but almost every war is supported by the local deities. The only exceptions I can think of are the American Anarchists and the Russian Communists. I'm sure there are more, but if only because most people believe in some imaginary being, most wars are supported by one or more of them.

Re:This is how terrorism works

[jackbird]

I would argue that terrorism in Israel/Palestine, through the overreactions it intentionally provokes from the other side, has been extremely effective at effecting an almost 180 degree shift in public perceptions of Israel in Europe and the USA. "The Jews still being there" is not a rational yardstick for Palestinian success or failure unless you think genocide is an acceptable political goal - there are millions of Jews in Israel, and most of them, most of their parents, and a lot of their grandparents were born there. And don't tell me that Hamas, and the PLO before them, ruling Gaza and part of the West Bank; and Hezbollah the de facto government of large parts of Lebanon, isn't a measure of success by most yardsticks.

The sad reality is that terrorist/guerrilla tactics are the only way to fight an opponent with a technologically modern army if you don't have one yourself - bleed the enemy and your own civilians until civilians in the enemy country and the rest of the world make it politically impossible for the enemy to continue on their course.

Re:Welcome to the club

[__aatgod8309]

Considering it's India, I'd be more inclined to thank the lasting Victorian influence of the British Empire.

Morality police

[ardor]

I can already see Indian sub-inspectors extorting people with records of porn they watched. Seriously, a morality police is among the worst things imaginable, it is like the crown of this totalitarian bill.

Re:Meh...

[MBGMorden]

I don't know. Depending on how strict the regime gets, I can easily see things being so risky that people simply don't want to mess with the geek-created tools, even if they exist.

If I'm risking an RIAA lawsuit for breaking some DRM, then who the eff cares. I'll take my chances. If the government is going to break down my door, drag me out and execute me if they catch me looking at porn, then I think I'd be inclined to just not download the stuff anymore, tempting as it might be.

You can't always rely on technical subversions to get you through this type of stuff. Fight it when it starts, when we still have a chance to beat it (and while fighting any government legislation is still legal).

It's time

[nightfire-unique]

When are we, as humans, going to learn that we don't have to cater to the whiny religious/moral nutcases out there?

Politicians: GROW A SPINE. When a whiny anti-sex/anti-drugs/anti-rock-and-roll nutcase writes you, complaining that their sensibilities are affected by the private actions of others, tell them to get bent.

Please, please, please. For the good of society and the world. Tell those miserable people that they can stick their pathetic little psychosis where the sun doesn't shine.

We rely on you. You are our leaders. Please act like it!

Re:India: called a democracy, quacks like feudalis

[TapeCutter]

"Once you can do that with one subgroup of humans, you can do it for any."

To a westener in India it stands out like dogs-balls but if you look again you will find all humans spend a lot of time behaving like this, wealth just makes the behaviour more potent. Once you see that, all of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense. Not saying it's right or wrong it's just the way our wetware bios works.

Re:Welcome to the club

[the_womble]

Actually he has a point. Modern India (the same is true of Sri Lanka) has much more strict sexual mores than they once did. The change is undoubtedly due to British and Islamic influences: although nationalists will not thank you for pointing it out.

it's not people "like you and me"

[speedtux]

People "like you and me" don't run governments, so we don't morph into anything. The reason governments and bureaucracies are so bad is because they attract power hungry people who don't know their own limitations. I mean, would you be callous or stupid enough to order the Iraq war? How can someone like Palin possibly think she is capable of running the country?

It's the same with police. Who do you think joins the police force? What kind of person do you think wants to deal day-in and day-out with drunks, drug addicts, and violence? What kind of person do you think wants to carry a gun, knowing that they may have to use it occasionally? It's either people who are very naive, or people who enjoy violence, or people who simply don't have a choice.

No, sorry, police and government are not made up of "people like you and me".