Saturday, August 29, 2009

Right to information and cyber freedom -Part 1

Nowadays, access to information is becoming easier. World now is well known as no boundary. In most developed and developing countries internet is a necessary and without internet people will face difficulties. It is undeniable that internet play important role in managing all businesses in our daily life. It has something to do to form an informed citizenry as well. The access to the internet has widened from day to day and right now people have very wide access to information. Any latest news are kept updated from time to time which enables the people to know what is going on around them. This development also has eradicated the communication barrier where people don’t have to take so much time to convey such information among them through email etc.

Recently, the government proposed to censor websites which contain pornography elements. This suggestion got many reactions from the people. Those who disagree think that the proposal not only restricts the pornographic elements but also the restriction of all materials which harm to the public. This broad definition may include seductive articles or any writing seems to criticize the government. This what they think and in their opinion, the intention of the government is not to censor the porn but to restrict access to political blogs or website. They just use this ground in order to shut the people voice.

This issue deals with freedom of speech and expression. Federal constitution has enshrined this kind of liberty in the article 10. However article 10 needs to be read as a whole together with some limitations. Generally, in constitutional law, freedom of speech and expression is a combination of many rights in many forms. It includes so many things such as communication by word of mouth, signs, symbols and gestures and through work of art and so on. Press freedom is one of them but the constitution silent about this where there is no mention in the constitution about freedom of press and electronic media.

The drafter of the constitution couldn’t foresee the development of cyber technology. That’s why there is no clear provision in the constitution to govern this. But we do have a few acts such as defamation act, sedition act, computer crimes act etc as a guideline. The cyber world has globalized the information and simplifies the way for the access. At the same time, some people abuse this rights by circulating rumors, alleging someone falsely, defaming, reveal confidential and secret things and so on. To what extent the law can cover this scope still remains in question

1 comment:

faizelina osman said...

for me,when people used technology to spread rumors,pornography,defamed sumone else via cyber world, technically we cannot take any action towards them..the recent law that governed cyber world(for ex:computer crime act)is still not effective. the gov cannot charge person who harassed other people through internet under traditional criminal law or even though computer crime act itself.it can be said that the law is very restrict when it come to cyber world.due to that problem,people used technology for their own sake bcoz the recent law especially computer crime act cannot take any action towards them.