I refer to the malaysiakini report Gov't mulls Internet laws against bloggers .

I was upset but not totally surprised to read that the government is mulling the idea of introducing laws to check the spread of lies and disunity in Internet blogs. The report above cited the case of a male and female lawmaker of who were accused of carrying on an affair.

In my mind, the Internet and the blogging site in question appear to be cast as the main culprits, while the person or persons who started this malicious rumours appear to be merely an accessory to the crime. The couple in question and the relevant authorities should go after the malicious accuser rather than using this to justify a clampdown on the Internet.

This line of thinking reflects very poorly on Malaysia and its leaders and again, we are likely to be the laughing stock of the international community. On a deeper level, what is considered 'lies and spreading disunity'? Sounds like this will include all blogs that are in any way critical of the government and its policies.

The mainstream media is already controlled by the government. All government politicians have been drilled to say only good things about the leadership. Even saying Big Brother's speech is 'nothing new' incurs the wrath of the whole government and the party apparatus. We are heading in a downward spiral where the leaders are living in an ivory tower where everyone has to keep on repeating 'Saya sokong' and the leader is shamelessly proclaiming that he is still popular.

Rather than spending government resources in employing CID officers to go to the grassroots to gauge grassroots sentiments, it is much cheaper to read people's views through blog sites. This free service, of course, will be shut down if there is a risk of arrest and detention.

Bloggers are Malaysians and we are nationalists as well. When we see obvious lies being spread about our countrymen and foreigners alike, we are compelled to call their bluff in no uncertain terms and come to our country's defence.

My experience with the free flow of debate at blog sites shows that the people who set out to spread lies about our country, our race and our religion often have to back down because it is very difficult to argue with truth and facts.

So my message to the government is this - leave it as it is. We cannot stop foreigners from airing their views and we should not stop our people from blogging. A blogger may be highly critical of something today but will comes out defending our government on some other issue another day. His views may be more convincing than any minister's comment in the national papers.