AUG 12 1996
No law-abiding Netter should be afraid
Aug 12, 1996
Monday with Koh Buck Song
I THANK Mr Vincent Kor, Legal Officer at the Singapore Broadcasting Authority, for his letter last Wednesday (ST Forum) responding to my column last week on the new Internet out-of-bounds (OB) markers.
Mr Kor noted that the SBA ruling which bars content that "tends to bring the Government into hatred or contempt, or excite disaffection against it" is drawn from the Sedition Act, which has been in place here since 1964.
This clarification -- and the implications that follow -- should serve to allay, if not put to rest, any Netter's lingering fears and unhappiness over SBA's censorship guidelines, introduced last month.
KBS, I beg to differ. SBA's clarifications DO NOT put to rest the lingering fears. You mean one reply from the SBA will be sufficient? Are we all simplistic people?
I would like to make three further points.
First, my observation holds that there has been a shift in OB markers for the new medium of the Internet.
In my column last week, I was not suggesting that the political rules had been changed to the advantage of the Government, but that a fresh perspective has been added to the specific sphere of censorship.
SBA's ruling may be drawn from old legislation, but it is nonetheless true that it is new to censorship.
Granted, there is an implicit concern for public order, and possible sedition, in the censorship of stage shows and other performances, which must be licensed as public entertainment.
The virtual reality of cyberspace has hitherto been unrefereed and so has a similar potential for disorder.
It is here that the closest parallel can be drawn between the spirit of the Sedition Act and that of SBA's ruling.
But the phrasing of SBA's ruling, taken almost verbatim from the Sedition Act, had never been applied before in other media, whether films or publications, based on the 1992 report of the Censorship Review Committee.
The concern, all along, had been phrased to disallow items that "subvert the nation's security and stability", that is, to protect the nation while leaving room to question Government policy.
Second, when considered in its full context, the Sedition Act is in no way as sweeping or intimidating as the extracted guideline as it has been reworded in SBA's ruling, which can be read as taking exception to seemingly mild transgressions.
Hence the concern as to WHY include this in the net regulations in the first place. In SBA including this, we are muddling and confusing the goals the SBA has set out in the first place.
The Act, in fact, allows four situations in which even exciting disaffection against the Government is not to be regarded as seditious.
These are:
"To show that the Government has been misled or mistaken in any of its measures";
"To point out errors or defects in the Government or the Constitution as by law established or in legislation or in the administration of justice with a view to remedying of such errors or defects";
"To persuade the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore to attempt to procure by lawful means the alteration of any matter in Singapore"; and
"To point out, with a view to their removal, any matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of ill-will and enmity between different races or classes of the population of Singapore".
These exceptions allow loyal, concerned citizens to speak up, within the law, to argue against wrong policies, so as to reach a consensus on the right way to do things -- something that Netters want to continue to be able to do.
In these four qualifications in the Act, there is an underlying assumption that patriots who criticise Government policy with national interests at heart are, by no stretch of the imagination, to be seen as seditious.
Third, with this clarification and the faith it inspires that regulatory bodies of the Internet will apply the new rules with the qualifications in mind, Netters can heave sighs of relief and stop imagining the worst.
Neither SBA nor the Government is an ogre of oppression. The Sedition Act is not there to muzzle the people, but to empower the state to punish those who seek by illegal means to destroy society.
And since the SBA ruling derives its authority from the Sedition Act, these exceptions should also apply in regulating the Internet.
Hence, SBA and the National Internet Advisory Committee should be mindful of the Act's qualifications in their deliberations and in policy enforcement.
Herein lies the dilemma. We do not yet know who's going to be on this committee. We do not know what their terms of reference will be. We have no inkling what form of appeal can be made on any such decision. We can only be certain on how these rules stand when there is case law to back it up.
In the initial debate over any new public policy, it is natural for more heat than light to be generated.
This is where we are doing injustice to ourselves. We need debate and public feedback BEFORE enactment of public policy. Enactment of public policy - as any public policy student will attest to - has to be done with due consideration to the public on whom the policy is directed. There has been none of this - or atleast what can be perceived. Why was there "more heat than light"? Because of a badly and vaguely worded public policy statement. Is that the way public policy is to be designed and developed? I think not.
There was similar concern over the broad wording of the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act when it was first debated in 1989.
But no one questions the Act now, because so far there has been no report of any priest or imam being spirited away in the dead of night.
The MRHA you refer to is a whole different kettle of fish. Just because no one questions the Act now and because no one has been spirited away, DOES NOT make the policy right. I'll put a large knife over your head. It stays there for years. Why should you complain that the knife could cut your head off - afterall it has been there and nothing has happened. It should be OK. What kind of logic is this? Coming from the Straits Times, I can accept - they have a knife hanging on them. The SBA wants to put a knife over the Net. Do go ahead and try it. The Net will make the knife blunt, turn it into a fixture to be laughed at, a tourist attraction to be ridiculed at and hopefully to be melted down.
No Netter who respects the state and abides by the law will suffer such a fate.
It could be just a matter of time, then, before Netters return to other topics, such as the dismal performance of Singapore's Olympic contingent, executive condominium subsidies and fake American accents.
So, you have given it up. There are more to it than meets the eye - what about the geomancy thing. What is that supposed to be? Just because you brought up one issue and the SBA gave a reply, you accept it without further debate and in one sentence, make the rest of the nonsense acceptable.
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