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India moves to total media censorship This is NOT a drill people. I repeat, this is NOT a drill.
We are, for all intents and purposes, now living in a nascent Orwellian State. (At least, the 300 million of us.)
The addendums to the Information Technology Act grantee that every single act of social networking that we perform, whether it is via E-Mail or Text or a Call or even Browsing a website - Everything is open to government inspection.
Everything is open to government censorship. (Hi there, China)
A blog about people complain about the abhorrent nature of reforms in a particular part of the country - can be blocked.
A site about sexual appreciation of scantily clad feminine bodies – or, to be precise, pornography or risqué art – JailTime.
A site about Muslims by a community of people concerned about their legal footprint - Terrorism. Blocked.
A blog about the fact the fricking act, like the POTA, has no safeguards against misuse. - Fucked.
Anything that some son of a bitch hypocrite brimming with orthodoxy and an obsolete puritan morality - anything this person considers unsuitable can be bared from public eye.
This is not the end of the world, you might think. The government does not have infrastructure required to regulate the wide, wild ocean of the web, do they? They can't monitor all the texts that you send? All that you say?
All they are doing is constructing a legal framework to **** you sideways. You think the abuse of authority is bad now, consider what it would be when it is sanctioned by the letter of the law.
Whoever publishes/ transmits/ causes to be published/ transmitted in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either prescription for a term which may extend to two years and with fine which may extend to five lakh rupees and in the event of second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and also with fine which may extend to ten lakh rupees.
What does it mean? What is ‘lascivious’ to an adult, to a child? Do we have a realistic meter that measures depravity? I cannot talk about sex with a child but with an adult is it okay? Sex would corrupt a child but not an adult? Even if we take the broadest distinctions possible, how exactly are we supposed to know the age of a stranger whom we met online? Where is this defined? If it is not defined, who exactly will do the defining? How can one rest the law upon the prejudices of an unknown entity? People in this country still ******* cringe from sex education.
(a) any content that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or (b) any content which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will... shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years and with fine.
Huh?
This section and section 67 does not extend to any book, pamphlet, paper, writing, drawing, painting, representation or figure in electronic form—
(i) the publication of which is proved to be justified as being for the public good on the ground that such book, pamphlet, paper, writing, drawing, painting, representation or figure is in the interest of science, literature, art or learning or other objects of general concern; or
(ii) which is kept or used bona fide for religious purposes.’.
Note the exclusion of photographs and videos? Sorry Ravi, but according to the government they are not art.
Bona Fide religious purposes? Just like the Gujarat pogrom was for a bona ******* fide purpose.
If you still live in this fantasy world where everything is good and dandy, you really don’t need to look very far back in history to Completely shatter every naïve notion you might have held about the goodwill of the Indian state.
To be fair, the people most immediately and terrifyingly affected by this will be the minorities and those fighting for their rights. They government can now legally choke them in every way possible. They can defend this murder in the Supreme Court. What took place in dark of the night can become a public affair. They can cut every avenue of communication open for people like Medha Patkar.
And that is where it will start.
A number of parallels exist in the world. Look at China. Look at the south-east. Look at patriot act in the US.
We already have something that barely represents a democracy. This will mutilate it further.
# The Bill.
http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&sou...FcezMzBudrSr2Q
# The article which informed me that it had been passed.
India Sleepwalks To Total Surveillance By Binu Karunakaran
And the funny thing is, nobody knows.
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Originally Posted by fdserty 
