ANTIDOTE The Najib administration is teetering through another legislative U-turn , this time on Section 114A of the Evidence Act 1950, thanks to a revolt in cyberspace - the Aug 14 Internet Blackout Day.

Under the government's Section 114A amendment, all Internet users are presumed guilty until proven innocent. Any Internet user may be convicted for content regarded as defamatory on his or her website or social media page, even if the webpage was hacked, and even if the offensive comment was planted by a paid 'cyber-mercenary'.

There was a flurry of global news coverage and Twitter interest regarding this bizarre law. News reports, as exemplified by the BBC, quoted Malaysiakini co-founder Premesh Chandran's criticism of the unfair burden of proof placed on Internet users.

Premier Najib appears to be testing public opinion, and trying his luck to push through various unpopular laws, hastily and without debate. He is evidently hoping that such laws may boost his chances in the upcoming general election. The ruling BN coalition has admitted it lost the online war for hearts and minds in the previous general election in 2008.

A 'cyber-sedition' bill, proposed in December 2010 by the home minister, was dropped after fierce opposition. A similarly embarrassing reversal of the Election Offences Act in May 2012 points to haphazard tactics: sneaking through poorly drafted laws that favour the BN, and then hoping to weather public opposition.

Refusal to cooperate

“I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good," Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his autobiography, tracing a lineage of resistance from Gandhi's 'Satyagraha' to Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'.

Bloggers, news portals and commentators can cripple the present administration's attempt to stifle online dissent - by simply carrying on. If enough Malaysians refuse to cooperate with unjust laws, the laws must eventually be reformed.

All responsible writers are, of course, bound by their conscience to write critically, but without resorting to libel or vitriol, to check sources and to verify their facts.

Even if Internet users take these precautions, those intent on Internet censorship may still win their court battles, using any number of reactionary laws. The Sedition Act and Internal Security Act, to take two examples, are being replaced with laws with mellifluous names, but with contents just as bad as in the original (or, in some clauses, worse).

Regardless of the laws employed to clamp down on dissent, a judicial system that shrugs its collective shoulders at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's responsibility for Teoh Beng Hock's death can clearly be relied upon to support existing power structures.

If a national bowler can escape a custodial sentence despite being convicted for statutory rape because he has a "bright future", we can only imagine the advantages enjoyed by Umno cabinet ministers, who may be presumed to have an even brighter future.

But even China, the wealthiest undemocratic government in history, cannot impose complete censorship on the Internet, despite blocking international sites like Google and Facebook.

Thanks to ingenuity, sheer doggedness and tools such as Virtual Private Networks, Chinese users manage to peer through holes in the Great Firewall of China.

"So far, the Great Firewall is lagging behind and still needs improvement,"Fang Binxing, regarded as the ‘Father of the Great Firewall’, admitted last year, in a rare interview with the Guardian newspaper.

Crude denial of service attacks on news portals like Malaysiakini can offer BN politicians a temporary respite, at best.

Taking the Internet for granted

The Internet may remain a work in progress, but it is certainly a useful tool for mass mobilisation, as the Arab Spring demonstrated.

"It's really important for people who use the Internet not to take it for granted. It's worth going online and making sure you talk to your MP, talk to your friends and make sure they're aware of this concern and, if necessary, get out there in the streets," the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, told the BBC in April, in response to an Internet snooping law proposed by the British government.

He pointed out similar American laws, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), aimed at enhancing Internet surveillance, were defeated by a huge public outcry, but a new law, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), was soon proposed.

"It's staggering how quickly their government has come up with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizens," he warned in an interview with the Guardian. "The battle lines have been drawn."

On our local front, too, further attempts to control the Internet are a safe bet.

We know from bitter experience that it would be unwise to rely on former premier Mahathir Mohamad's “no Internet censorship” promise for the Multimedia Super Corridor, made in California in 1997, given the well-documented contradictions in Mahathir's public statements, as well as the current BN government's dizzying record of U-turns.

Mass mobilisation via the Internet and social media, as we saw with the Blackout Day, and a stubborn refusal to cooperate, will be essential in fending off future assaults.

The greatest advantage for those resisting Internet censorship is perhaps the BN government's own political insecurity, and its relative lack of IT savvy.

KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - ‘ anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia '. This weekly column is an effort to provide a voice for marginalised Malaysians. Keruah Usit can be contacted at keruah_usit@yahoo.com

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