Top Palace techie defends cybercrime law

The Aquino administration’s top technology policymaker on Thursday defended the government’s move to regulate the Internet amid the public outcry from several sectors over the last-minute insertion of a provision on libel to the newly enacted cybercrime law.

“The Net has come a long way to impacting the lives of people. The government needs to have a role in this,” said Louis Casambre, head of the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO), an attached agency of the Department of Science and Technology.

Casambre said the ICTO was in the middle of a reorganization to clearly define its regulatory powers over the Internet in the country.

Casambre said the government was also in discussion with other stakeholders, including Internet service providers and civil society groups to formulate a position on the government’s role in the industry.

‘Economy is priority’

He said the goal was not to restrict free speech but to promote economic development.

“The economy must be the priority. Users are not the only ones affected by the Internet. The state has the responsibility to protect the people,” he said.

“The government should regulate the Internet, but on a very limited basis. The Internet’s democratic nature should be preserved,” he added.

On Sept. 12, President Aquino signed in to law Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

The law’s original goal was to criminalize acts like child pornography, identity theft and the interference of private electronic communications in the country. However, a last minute insertion by Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III of a provision to expand the scope of libel law to cover Internet posts has caused a stir among local journalist groups.

Maria Ressa, veteran journalist and the chief executive officer of the social news network Rappler.com, questioned the law, which she said was passed without any clear implementing rules.

“On the surface, it looks like it’s just extending the existing physical laws into the virtual world. But it depends on the implementation and again, the implementation depends on the interpretation of the law,” said the Rappler executive editor and nightly news anchor, noting that the law was passed without going through a real public hearing.

“What’s fascinating was how fast it was passed. I think part of the reason it was passed was because it wasn’t debated. That what’s worrisome about (this) bill,” Ressa said on the sidelines of MoveLB, the seventh leg of Rappler’s chat series on social media and citizen journalism, held at the University of the Philippines Los Banos on Wednesday.

She said it was just unfortunate that the Cybercrime Prevention Act, viewed mostly by media practitioners as an infringement on the freedom of speech, was passed way ahead other pressing bills such as the freedom of information and the reproductive health.

‘Very democratizing’

Ressa said intellectual conversations online are “very democratizing. It really is people power.”

“The Cybercrime Prevention Act actually broadens the scope of a libel law so antiquated and draconian that the United Nations Human Rights Council itself declared it excessive and called on the Philippine government to review the law with the end of decriminalizing libel,” the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines said in a statement.

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, for its part, said the law ran counter to the demand “from journalists and human rights groups from the decriminalization of libel.”

A United States-based Internet rights watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a statement on Wednesday, called the new law “troubling,” saying it could have the effect of making people more cautious about what they post on the web.