Slashdot Mirror
Pakistani Court Rules On Internet Censorship: Unconstitutional
Fluffeh writes "It looks like some Pakistanis are taking on 'the man.' With plans laid by the Pakistani Government that could sink up to fifty million websites that it isn't a fan of, Pakistanis took the matter to court — which ruled that such action by the government was unconstitutional. Reporters without Borders was however a little more skeptical 'The high court's ruling, if respected, would make it impossible for the government to introduce any nationwide website filtering system. While welcoming the ruling, which penalizes the lack of transparency in the PTA's past website blocking, Reporters Without Borders calls for vigilance because the PTA could try to circumvent it by devising a constitutional procedure based on the anti-blasphemy law and national security provisions. '"
Our guys have been asleep at the wheel for the last 10 years. I'm pretty sure at this point that most of the U.S. Justices don't even know there *is* a 4th Amendment, much less what it says.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Actually that's pretty inaccurate. I'm going to ignore the obnoxious racism in your comment and just address the freedoms issue. No major government body in the US is trying to block fifty million websites, and if they did, the entire Supreme Court would tell them no. And the US rejected any form of blasphemy laws as unconstitional quite some time ago. Pakistan still allows the execution of people for blasphemy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_Pakistan. Shabaz Bhatti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbaz_Bhatti was assassinated just for trying to lessen the penalties on the blasphemy laws. As to the matter of grope sessions to fly planes- Pakistan has essentially close to almost no equivalent of Fourth Amendment protections. The US and Europe are not in great shape right now, and there's no question that human rights have been getting better in Pakistan in the last few years (especially post-Musharraf), but let's not lose perspective here on overall which is set of countries is doing better for human rights.
The government can't be seen offending their own people. They're more progressive than they let on. Because of the threat of violence from the religious fundies, the progressives often disguise their actions or appear to be "arguing for" something they are actually against.
All of the institutions in Pakistan have to walk lines between the progress the lawyers and intellectuals and professors want to see happen and what the religious fundies will tolerate. It's not that different in the US. as the etch-a-sketch positioning in the Republican primaries reveal. You can't alienate that much of your (stupid) electorate and expect to get or stay in power.
The government and most of the military in Pakistan hates the Taliban as much as anyone and was as glad as we were when we did bin Laden Of course they had to act outraged.
Pakistan is chock -o-block full with highly intelligent forward looking progressives who aren't drinking the Kool-aid. That's why the drone program is a great thing. The religious head cases in Waziristan are hated by many Pakis as much as they're hated by us, and both the Pakistan government and its military smile every time a fundie gets dished out to him what he earnestly sought to dish out to civil society.
Just like with any other country, you can't understand the international headlines unless you have at least a basic grasp of the domestic politics.
in the USA they are still stuck at the 'watch him long enough and eventually he'll commit a crime' stage.
FTFY. Here in the US, we get around the "well you can only arrest people who break the law" by creating so many laws and such a complex legal system that almost everyone is guilty of something.
Palm trees and 8