Surveillance Can't Make Us Secure

Image by takomabibelot via Flickr

January 29, 2010

In a major speech on Internet freedom last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged American tech companies to "take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance." Her call to action followed a series of dazzlingly sophisticated cyberattacks against online giant Google and more than thirty other major technology companies, believed to originate in the People's Republic of China. Few observers have found the Chinese government's staunch denials of involvement persuasive--but the attacks should also spur our own government to review the ways our burgeoning surveillance state has made us more vulnerable.

The Google hackers appear to have been interested in, among other things, gathering information about Chinese dissidents and human rights activists--and they evidently succeeded in obtaining account information and e-mail subject lines for a number of Gmail users. While Google is understandably reluctant to go into detail about the mechanics of the breach, a source at the company told ComputerWorld "they apparently were able to access a system used to help Google comply with [US] search warrants by providing data on Google users." In other words, a portal set up to help the American government catch criminals may have proved just as handy at helping the Chinese government find dissidents.

In a way, the hackers' strategy makes perfect sense. Communications networks are generally designed to restrict outside access to their users' private information. But the goal of government surveillance is to create a breach-by-design, a deliberate backdoor into otherwise carefully secured systems. The appeal to an intruder is obvious: Why waste time with retail hacking of many individual targets when you can break into the network itself and spy wholesale?

The Google hackers are scarcely the first to exploit such security holes. In the summer of 2004, unknown intruders managed to activate wiretapping software embedded in the systems of Greece's largest cellular carrier. For ten months, the hackers eavesdropped on the cellphone calls of more than 100 prominent citizens--including the prime minister, opposition members of parliament, and high cabinet officials.

It's hard to know just how many other such instances there are, because Google's decision to go public is quite unusual: companies typically have no incentive to spook customers (or invite hackers) by announcing a security breach. But the little we know about the existing surveillance infrastructure does not inspire great confidence.

Consider the FBI's Digital Collection System Network, or DCSNet. Via a set of dedicated, encrypted lines plugged directly into the nation's telecom hubs, DCSNet is designed to allow authorized law enforcement agents to initiate a wiretap or gather information with point-and-click simplicity. Yet a 2003 internal audit, released several years later under a freedom-of-information request, found a slew of problems in the system's setup that appalled security experts. Designed with external threats in mind, it had few safeguards against an attack assisted by a Robert Hanssen-style accomplice on the inside. We can hope those problems have been resolved by now. But if new vulnerabilities are routinely discovered in programs used by millions, there's little reason to hope that bespoke spying software can be rendered airtight.

Of even greater concern, though, are the ways the government has encouraged myriad private telecoms and Internet providers to design for breach.

The most obvious means by which this is happening is direct legal pressure. State-sanctioned eavesdroppers have always been able to demand access to existing telecommunications infrastructure. But the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 went further, requiring telephone providers to begin building networks ready-made for easy and automatic wiretapping. Federal regulators recently expanded that requirement to cover broadband and many voice-over-Internet providers. The proposed SAFETY Act of 2009 would compound the security risk by requiring Internet providers to retain users' traffic logs for at least two years, just in case law enforcement should need to browse through them.

A less obvious, but perhaps more serious factor is the sheer volume of surveillance the government now engages in. If government data caches contain vast quantities of information unrelated to narrow criminal investigations--routinely gathered in the early phases of an investigation to identify likely targets--attackers will have much greater incentive to expend time and resources on compromising them. The FBI's database now contains billions of records from a plethora of public and private sources, much of it gathered in the course of broad, preliminary efforts to determine who merits further investigation. The sweeping, programmatic NSA surveillance authorized by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 has reportedly captured e-mails from the likes of former President Bill Clinton.

The volume of requests from both federal and state law enforcement has also put pressure on telecoms to automate their processes for complying with government information requests. In a leaked recording from the secretive ISS World surveillance conference held back in October, Sprint/Nextel's head of surveillance described how the company's L-Site portal was making it possible to deal with the ballooning demand for information:

"My major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated, but that's just scratching the surface.... Like with our GPS tool. We turned it on--the web interface for law enforcement--about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the [L-Site portal] has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests.... They anticipate us automating other features, and I just don't know how we'll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in."

Behold the vicious cycle. Weakened statutory standards have made it easier and more attractive for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to seek information from providers. On top of the thousands of wiretap and so-called "pen/trap" orders approved each year, there are tens of thousands of National Security Letters and subpoenas. At the ISS World conference, a representative of Cricket, one of the smaller wireless providers, estimated that her company gets 200 law enforcement requests per day, all told; giants like Verizon have said they receive "tens of thousands" annually. (Those represent distinct legal demands for information; Sprint's "8 million" refers to individual electronic requests for updates on a target's location.)

Telecoms respond to the crush of requests by building a faster, more seamless, more user-friendly process for dealing with those requests--further increasing the appeal of such tools to law enforcement. Unfortunately, insecurity loves company: more information flowing to more legitimate users is that much more difficult to lock down effectively. Later in his conference, the Sprint representative at ISS World speculated that someone who mocked up a phony legal request and faxed it to a random telecom would have a good chance of getting it answered. The recipients just can't thoroughly vet every request they get.

We've gotten so used to the "privacy/security tradeoff" that it's worth reminding ourselves, every now and again, that surrendering privacy does not automatically make us more secure--that systems of surveillance can themselves be a major source of insecurity. Hillary Clinton is absolutely right that tech companies seeking to protect Internet freedom should begin "challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance." But her entreaty contains precisely one word too many.

About Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor for Reason magazine. You can read his personal blog here

China's Google dilemma: Soften on censorship or anger millions of Internet users

Image via CrunchBase

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 14, 2010; A14

BEIJING -- Google's threat to shut down its Chinese Web site and offices over cyberattacks and censorship puts the government here in the awkward position of having to choose between relaxing restrictions and raising the ire of the roughly 80 million Chinese people who use the search engine.

Few political and Internet analysts appear to doubt that China will stick to its tough stance and reject Google's proposal to stop censoring search results on its Chinese sites. But Google's audience of Chinese "netizens," a few of whom placed flowers outside the company's Beijing offices Wednesday, is large enough to make such a reaction risky.

"This would adversely affect a lot of people, not just the technorati elite that is Western-oriented anyway," said Kaiser Kuo, an independent technology consultant. "The government could face a serious backlash this time."

On Wednesday, the Google story was the top trending topic on a Twitter-like microblog on the Chinese site Sina.com, with about 60,000 people weighing in before the conversation was taken down. Most commenters expressed dismay at the prospect of losing Google's China-based service; some lashed out at the government, while others begged Google to stay. A substantial minority wished the company good riddance.

"This will make the extent of Chinese censorship a lot clearer, even to ordinary Chinese people who are not aware of it," said Jeremy Goldkorn, a China Internet specialist who posts on Sina's blog site and runs a Web site called Danwei, which has been blocked since July.

"Many people think Google should negotiate with the Chinese government," said Zhou Shuguang, a blogger who has done investigative reporting across the country. He added, though, that its withdrawal would lead more Chinese to discover that China lacks freedom on the Internet. "There are no benefits to people at all if Google continues to make concessions with Chinese authorities," he said.

The government has backed down once in the face of outcries on the Internet. Last year, it attempted to require the makers of personal computers sold here to install Green Dam, a filtering software. But it reversed itself after widespread online protests that the software slowed down and damaged computers.

Still, businesspeople in Beijing were pessimistic Wednesday about the prospect of a crack in what is known as the Great Firewall of China. "China can't lose face over this, and it's not going to let anybody run an open search engine," said an industry source close to Google.

The government has shut down or blocked thousands of Web sites. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are all blocked. Just this week, the General Administration of Press and Publication boasted of taking down 136,000 non-registered Web sites and more than 1.5 million pieces of "bad information." It also said it had shut down 15,000 pornographic Web sites.

For now, the government has said only that it will seek more information from Google. Virtually the only official comment came in the form of a signed opinion article on the People's Daily Web site, lacking the weight of an officially vetted unsigned editorial. The article likened Google to a "spoiled child" and said that even if it stormed out of China, it would be back because of the importance of the Chinese market.

Other pro-government online comments said that Google, which lags far behind the Chinese-based search engine Baidu, was simply dressing up a business decision in moral clothing. Baidu has about two-thirds of the market. Some independent analysts have estimated a 30 percent market share for Google, but well-placed industry sources put the number closer to 20 percent.

Dan Brody, who set up Google's China office and now runs the Koolanoo Group, a Beijing-based Internet media investment firm, estimates that Google has annual revenue of $300 million to $400 million in China -- an amount that he said pales next to the revenue it earns elsewhere.

Moreover, he said, if Google loses even a small percentage of its users in Europe or the United States because it is seen as compromising too much with China, it could lose more than it earns in the country. "From a business and moral perspective, user trust in the West is so important to them," he said.

The company has clashed with the Chinese government since it set up google.cn in 2005. Google agreed to remove information that China's leadership might find too sensitive but differed with officials over what should fall into that category.

Last summer, state-run media denounced the firm for providing access to "pornography." Another industry source close to Google said that in addition to well-publicized incidents, Chinese officials were demanding weekly that items be removed. When cyberattacks were discovered, he said, "it was the last straw." The industry sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.

If Google closes down its Chinese site, or if the Chinese government closes it down, Chinese users could still try to use the U.S.-based site. But the U.S. site works more slowly, and access to many pages is blocked.

Where would that leave the Chinese market?

The closing of Google's China site would boost Baidu and Sina and hurt Google, industry analysts said.

Despite expensive campaigns in universities and schools, Google has had trouble catching up to its domestic competitors. Analysts say Chinese Internet users prefer the crowded, busy sites of Baidu and Sina to the no-nonsense sparseness of Google's home page. Unlike Google, Baidu and Sina also feature bulletin boards and music-downloading services. And surveys have shown that most Chinese people have trouble spelling Google or don't know its Chinese name, Guge, which means "valley song."

Google China has also suffered from high turnover and was recently forced to replace some of its locally hired, Mandarin-speaking staff with managers from its California headquarters. The head of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, who was recruited from Microsoft, quit in September.

Ironically, however, the possible departure of Google is no guarantee of harmony on the Chinese Internet. This week, Baidu's site was attacked by hackers who said they were from Iran.

"This is a lose-lose solution for both Google and China," said Hu Yong of Beijing University's School of Journalism and Communication.

"For Google, China is a huge market with very big business potential," Hu said. "For Chinese netizens, it's a bad result as well. A search engine is very important for the free transportation of information online. And we need competition," he added, or "the number of information sources will decrease."

Staff researchers Zhang Jie and Wang Juan contributed to this report.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Stops Censoring Search Results in China (thaibrother.com)
• Clash on the Great Firewall (online.wsj.com)
• Google's Uncertain Future in China (abcnews.go.com)

Hanoi Weighs Price Controls, Tightens Grip

Foreign Investors Grow Concerned as Conservative Factions in Vietnam Reverse Liberalization Trend Amid Downturn

By JAMES HOOKWAY

HANOI – Vietnam is considering putting price controls on a broad array of products and is cracking down on certain personal and political activity, in a sharp reversal of what has been a move toward more-open markets and a more-open society.

Foreign businesses worry about the threat of price controls—something many analysts consider a hallmark of Vietnam's Marxist past. That comes after authorities last month blocked access to Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, following cases in which several bloggers were detained, then released, on charges of criticizing the government. In October, nine people were given stiff sentences for calling for pro-democracy protests.

Carlyle Thayer, a veteran Vietnam watcher and professor at the Australian Defense Academy in Canberra, says conservative factions in the ruling Politburo are tightening their grip on the country as Vietnam's economic worries—especially inflation and fallout from currency devaluations—grow. He says he expects more crackdowns and arrests to come in the run-up to the country's 2011 Party Congress, a major political event that will aim to map out Vietnam's political and economic direction for the following five years.

In turn, the crackdowns threaten to curtail investment and economic growth in the country.

For years, foreign donors and investors hoped that rapid growth would lead to more political debate and economic freedom here, cementing the country's emergence as one of Asia's most dynamic new economies and an important link in the global supply chain.

That's what happened in some other fast-growing countries in the region. In the 1980s and 1990s, the strengthening economies of South Korea and Taiwan helped pro-democracy movements overcome military-backed regimes.

But in Vietnam, leaders seek a path to a quick expansion of the country's $100 billion economy without spurring any grass-roots clamor for more freedom.

Now, the price-control unit of Vietnam's Finance Ministry is drafting proposals that, if implemented by the government, would compel private and foreign-owned companies to report pricing structures, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal and corroborated by Vietnamese officials.

In some cases, the proposed rules would allow the government to set prices on a wide range of privately made or imported goods, including petroleum products, fertilizers and milk to help contain inflation as Vietnam continues pumping money into its volatile economy. Typically, the government applies this kind of aggressive measure only to state-owned businesses, and it is unclear whether Vietnam will write the wider rules into law.

Myron Brilliant, senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, wrote to Vietnamese officials, in a Dec. 15 letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal, saying the plan will "serve as a disincentive to new direct investment in Vietnam."

Vietnamese citizens, meanwhile, are having to give up some political and social freedoms they previously enjoyed, as their Communist leaders struggle with a series of currency devaluations and a worsening inflation problem.

Diplomats are raising their voices over Internet curbs. "This isn't about teenagers chatting online," U.S. Ambassador Michael Michalak told a donor conference on Dec. 3. "It's a question of people's rights to communicate with one another and to do business."

Swedish Ambassador Rolf Bergman, speaking on behalf of the European Union at the same conference, urged Vietnam "to lift all restrictions on the Internet."

Vietnamese government officials didn't respond to requests for comment, except to confirm the existence of the draft price-control plans.

Emerging economies have reversed course during times of crisis before. In Vietnam's neighborhood, both Malaysia and Thailand have used capital controls to stabilize currencies, while unexpected legal rulings are a frequent hazard to doing business in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

Vietnam, a country of 86 million, was considered by many economists to be a surer bet with less political risk. Analysts called it "the new China," and major global names from America, Japan, and South Korea—including U.S. corporations such as Ford Motor Co., Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp.—were among those who set up operations there.

Now, Vietnam's worsening human-rights record is encouraging some important trade partners to shake off their previous reluctance to condemn the country, in part because they worry that rising international criticism could make it harder to expand trade ties there.

Many economists and analysts say the country's leaders are panicking over how quickly Vietnam is lurching from boom to bust and back again, and are taking drastic measures—politically and economically—to restore their grip on the country. The country's recent economic ups and downs have, says one long-time Vietnam-based analyst, "shaken the authorities' confidence in the notion that economic reform and opening is automatically good."

The contrast with the older Vietnam—the Vietnam that helped define the term "pioneer market" among investors—is striking. In the years leading up to Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2007, the ruling Politburo attempted to put its best face to the world by appointing an economic reformer, Nguyen Tan Dung, as prime minister. It encouraged local media to expose corruption and fraud, while dissidents were given limited space to vent their criticism of Vietnam's one-party system. Religious groups were granted more freedom to practice their faiths.

At the same time, the economy quickly expanded, driven by foreign manufacturers who flocked to take advantage of Vietnam's low labor and land costs. Much of that economic story is still in place. The World Bank expects Vietnam's economy to expand 5.5% in 2009. That's a much better performance than many of its neighbors. Economists such as Ayumi Konishi, the Asian Development Bank's country director for Vietnam, say the country's long-term prospects are still rosy.

But the World Bank's growth forecast is weaker than the 8%-plus rates that Vietnam has come to depend on. Widening trade and budget deficits have forced the government to devalue its currency three times since June 2008, most recently in November, when it shaved 5% off the value of the Vietnamese dong. That move spurred fears of rising inflation, prompting a scramble among many Vietnamese to store their wealth in gold or dollars instead.

Professor Thayer, of the Australian Defense Academy, and other analysts note that leaders such as To Huy Rua, chief of the party's propaganda committee, and military intelligence chief Nguyen Chi Vinh, have become increasingly influential since Vietnam's economic problems began to set in last year, largely at the expense of Mr. Dung, the reform-minded prime minister. Mr. Rua is believed to be suspicious of free-market capitalism and critical of the country's transition toward a more open economy. Attempts to reach him weren't successful.

Similarly, analysts say key economic policy makers also harbor a strong conservative streak, and observe that the country has halted economic reforms before, notably during Asia's 1990s financial crisis. People familiar with the price-controls issue say a number of diplomatic missions, including that of the U.S., have raised the price-cap issue with Vietnam. Officials at the U.S. embassy in Hanoi didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

The biggest losers in Vietnam's step back into the past, are the country's dissidents, journalists and bloggers. Several bloggers and activists were detained for writing comments critical of Vietnam's encouragement of Chinese companies to mine for aluminum ore in the country's central highlands region. The mining plan has become a lightning rod for various dissident groups in Vietnam, and opponents include war hero Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who led Vietnamese forces against French and U.S. troops in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Some detainees were released after promising not to raise political issues again, but lawyer Le Cong Dinh was arrested in June for defending antigovernment activists.

Six people were sentenced on Oct. 9 for allegedly "conducting propaganda against the state" for demanding multiparty elections online and through public gestures, such as hanging banners on bridges. They included a prominent novelist, Nguyen Xuan Nghia.

On Oct 7, three other people were jailed for the same offense—something the U.S. embassy in a statement said it found "deeply disturbing."

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Vietnam Charges Lawyer With Capital Crime (nytimes.com)

China: Media Summit Participants Should Push For Press Freedom | Human Rights Watch

Image by netzkobold via Flickr

Address State Censorship, Restrictions on Foreign Journalists

October 7, 2009

Related Materials:

Beijing’s peculiar definition of state secrets

China's Assault on the Rule of Law

The Summit’s participants need to know that this event is being convened by a government that regularly denies basic press freedoms. Without a candid discussion about the difference between genuine media and propaganda, the need to stop harassing and abusing Chinese and foreign journalists, and the importance of reliable, real-time information from inside China, the summit runs the risk of eroding rather than defending media freedoms.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) - Participants at the World Media Summit, to be held in Beijing on October 8-10, should use the opportunity to urge the Chinese government to respect press freedom and stop its routine harassment, detention, and intimidation of journalists, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Summit - organized by China's state-run Xinhua News Agency, whose director Li Changjun is the former vice-director of the Propaganda Department - expects representatives of 130 foreign media organizations to discuss future media trends and opportunities in bilateral and multilateral media cooperation. The participants will include News Corporation Chairman & CEO Rupert Murdoch, AP President & CEO Thomas Curley, Reuters News Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger and BBC Director-General Mark Thompson.

"The Summit's participants need to know that this event is being convened by a government that regularly denies basic press freedoms," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Without a candid discussion about the difference between genuine media and propaganda, the need to stop harassing and abusing Chinese and foreign journalists, and the importance of reliable, real-time information from inside China, the summit runs the risk of eroding rather than defending media freedoms."

Human Rights Watch said that China's domestic media has for decades been subject to strict government controls which ensure that reporting falls within the boundaries of the official propaganda line. For example, in May 2009, the Guangdong provincial government demanded - in the name of "harmony," "stability," and "national interests above all" - that state media outlets reduce "negative" coverage of issues ranging from government officials to public protests.

Foreign journalists have been effectively barred from entering Tibet since the March 2008 protests there except on highly circumscribed visits. Chinese reporters have been blocked from writing about issues of global importance, such as the tainted milk powder exported from China in 2008, which eventually sickened tens of thousands of children and killed six. The Chinese news assistants of foreign correspondents are forbidden to engage in any "independent reporting."

Although Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of the press and the Chinese government's April 2009 National Human Rights Action Plan reiterates that commitment, both Chinese journalists and foreign correspondents are regularly harassed, detained, and intimidated by government officials, security forces, and their agents. In the past month alone a group of unidentified individuals attacked, hit, and pushed to the ground three reporters from Japan's Kyodo News Agency who were covering a rehearsal in Beijing for the October 1 National Day parade. On August 31, 2009, two private security guards employed by the Dongguan municipal government in southern Guangdong province to maintain order at a crime scene attacked Guangzhou Daily reporter Liu Manyuan when he attempted to take photos at the scene. The guards shoved Liu to the ground and beat him for around ten minutes, leaving bruises on his neck and arms and prompting his temporary hospitalization.

These issues and developments do not appear on the Summit's official program.

"Silence at the World Media Summit about the Chinese government's restrictions on press freedom would betray the courageous Chinese journalists who strive day after day to defy state censorship," said Richardson.

Foreign corporations have a mixed record of pressing for greater freedom of expression in China. In 2005, the U.S. Internet company Yahoo established a dangerous precedent when it disclosed information to Chinese police which proved instrumental in the conviction and 10-year prison term of journalist Shi Tao on charges of violating China's state secrets law. Similarly, companies such as Microsoft and Google have censored information on search engines and blogs in China. These companies have since begun to develop and implement standards to protect free expression and privacy with academics, investors, and civil society, including Human Rights Watch. However, these efforts are new and have yet to demonstrate impact in countries like China.

In June 2009, however, foreign technology companies, in alliance with international business associations and elements of the U.S. government, set a positive example in their response to the Chinese government's demand that those firms install Internet filtering software on all personal computers sold in China. Although the Chinese government described that software, called Green Dam Youth Escort, as a pornography filtering tool, analysis by independent experts indicated it posed a much more sinister threat to privacy, choice, and security. The foreign companies' opposition to the plan helped prompt the Chinese government to suspend the mandatory installation of the filtering software on June 30, 2009.

"There is no doubt that press freedom needs more allies in China," said Richardson. "The question is whether some of the world's biggest media companies will fulfill that role."

Law Bans 'Separatist' Talk - RFA

Authorities pass a law that bans the discussion of separatism in a northwestern China divided by ethnic tensions.

AFP

Chinese paramilitary police trucks drive through downtown Urumqi, July 9, 2009.

HONG KONG—Authorities in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have passed a law making it a criminal offense to discuss separatism on the Internet following months of ethnic strife.

Xinjiang's People's Congress Standing Committee passed the "Information Promotion Bill" last week banning people in the region from using the Internet in any way that undermines national unity, incites ethnic separatism or harms social stability.

Armed police now stand guard in public places around the XUAR and are detaining anyone found with footage of ethnic riots that erupted in the regional capital Urumqi last July.

Meanwhile, local residents and officials said Urumqi was tense and fearful following a series of stabbings in public places with hypodermic syringes in early September.

"Ever since the needle stabbing incidents ... there have been armed police on the buses, especially at night, checking people's bags," a resident surnamed Zhou said.

"Now, whenever we ride the bus or go to the supermarket or other public places, they check everyone's bags. This is done out of desperation."

Hunt for evidence

A government official in Urumqi said that the hunt was on to collect evidence related to the recent ethnic violence, which began July 5 after police suppressed a peaceful demonstration of Uyghurs and has left 197 mostly Han Chinese residents dead, according to official media.

"The public security bureau started trying to collect evidence, pulling stones and rocks out of the rubble, trying to find traces of blood," the government official said.

"But there wasn't enough evidence left behind. It had all been cleared away to make the streets clean again. It looked as if nothing had happened, but in fact, the evidence was all gone."

Meanwhile, Urumqi authorities were stepping up controls to ensure that no photos or footage of the July violence was leaked to the outside world.

"They are preventing people from leaving Xinjiang with any photos or video footage of the July 5 incident," an informed source in the city said.

"If they catch anyone trying to do that, they'll be detained."

Discussion blocked

Sichuan-based Internet engineer Pu Fei said a number of cell phone users in Xinjiang had received garbled SMS messages in recent weeks, possibly resulting from their use of "forbidden" words on the list used by government communications filters.

Communications networks in the troubled region have been closed several times in the wake of the July 5 ethnic violence in Urumqi, and any online discussion of the tensions resulted in blockages and closures of Internet and cell phone networks.

"It's very rare to see such a starkly worded piece of legislation," Pu said. "Until now, the regulations have just reminded everyone to avoid certain topics. Now it's been made into law. I think this shows a pessimistic outlook for freedom of speech in this country."

"It seems as if [what happened in] Xinjiang has had a bad effect on everything."

Munich-based World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Rashit said the legislation should be applied, if at all, to the whole of China, not just to Xinjiang, as people all over the country are discussing the ethnic strife.

"Now, the Uyghurs, who have already been denied their freedom of expression by the Chinese government, are being prevented from expressing themselves either inside China or overseas," he said.

Legal experts said the new legislation was based on rather vague definitions of "subversion."

"The principle behind this piece of legislation is in accordance with China's national security legislation, but it lacks a detailed explanation about what exactly subverting the state means, and what incitement to violence actually consists of," said professor Wang Youjin, of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law.

"There are very few detailed provisions in the National Security Law, and this is causing difficulties."

Communications severed

Residents of Urumqi have frequently reported being cut off from the outside world entirely, as the authorities block media and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Officials say terrorists, separatists, and religious extremists used the Internet, telephones and mobile text messages to spread rumors and hatred during the ethnic violence, sparking one of the most comprehensive Internet shutdowns ever reported.

Some footage of the riots has managed to appear on video-sharing sites like YouTube in spite of the clampdown, mostly posted by exiled Uyghurs outside of China.

Urumqi resident Zhou said he was having trouble keeping in touch with his two grown children studying at overseas universities.

"Our eldest daughter is studying at a university overseas. We can't make international phone calls ... and we can't reach her online, either...Basically we have totally lost touch with them," he said.

"We rely on friends in Beijing and other places to relay messages. Complaining about it makes no difference. Who is stronger, the individual or the government?"

"There's nothing we ordinary people can do except sit and wait. What choice do we have? We aren't an armed, military organization."

Original reporting in Cantonese by Hai Lan, and in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Iraqi Journalists Protesting in Baghdad Say the Government Is Trying to Censor Them

By SAM DAGHER

BAGHDAD — Nearly 100 Iraqi journalists, news media workers and their supporters protested in Baghdad on Friday against what they said was a growing push by the country’s governing Shiite political parties to muzzle them.

“No, no to muzzling!” they shouted as they marched down Mutanabi Street. “Yes, yes to freedom!”

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to censor certain publications and books, block Web sites it deems offensive and pass a new media law that would clamp down on journalists in the name of protecting them.

The proposed law, which was sent to Parliament last month, offers government grants to journalists and their families if they are disabled or killed because of “a terror act.” According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 167 Iraqi reporters and media support workers were killed in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2008. But the bill also defines what the government considers “moral” and sound journalistic practices.

Zuhair al-Jezairy, editor in chief of the Aswat Al Iraq news agency, who was in attendance, said that while the journalists’ grievances were legitimate, their message was diluted by the fact that most of them still viewed the government as their patron. “There are journalists who expect guns, land and salaries from the government,” he said.

Mr. Jezairy said that many Iraqi journalists — employed by outlets owned by the government, political parties and even neighboring countries with agendas in Iraq — had been turned into tools in the political struggle. There were abundant signs of this at the demonstration itself, which seemed to have as much to do with a recent spat over a bank robbery as with press freedom.

Sheik Jalaleddin al-Saghir, a Shiite cleric and member of Parliament from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Party, lashed out last week at news media reports that he said insinuated that his party was behind the robbery, in which eight billion dinars, or $7 million, was stolen and eight people were killed. He said many of the journalists were members of Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath Party and promised to punish the offenders.

Among those leading Friday’s protest were two Shiite politicians who are rivals of Mr. Saghir’s. As the event got under way, word spread that the journalists who organized it were in the camp of the interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, who has ambitions of becoming the next prime minister. And the event was boycotted by the Iraqi journalists’ union, which was promised plots of land for its members earlier this year by Mr. Maliki.

One journalist in particular, Ahmed Abdul-Hussein, was the target of much of Sheik Saghir’s wrath. In a recent Op-Ed article in the state-owned newspaper Al-Sabah, which is loyal to Mr. Maliki, Mr. Abdul-Hussein wrote that “we know, that they know, that we know” that the party that stole the money was going to use it to bribe people in the national elections next year. He offered no proof and did not name the party.

“How many blankets can you buy with eight billion dinars?” he wrote. Sheik Saghir took that as a reference to his party, which distributed blankets and electric heaters to voters during the provincial elections last January.

Malaysia Activists Welcome Web Censorship U-turn

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian rights activists on Thursday welcomed the government's decision not to implement a controversial plan to create an Internet filter blocking "undesirable" websites.

The proposal has been described as a "horror of horrors" by the opposition which said it would destroy the relative freedom of the Internet in Malaysia, where the mainstream press is tightly controlled.

A senior official with the National Security Council (NSC) last week confirmed to AFP reports that the ruling coalition was considering the controls, effectively scrapping a 1996 guarantee that it would not censor the Internet.

But Information Minister Rais Yatim Wednesday said the government did not intend to introduce online censoring, telling state media it would instead directly target cases of sedition, fraud and child pornography on the Internet.

"The government has taken a positive step not to implement it. I don't think censoring will make any sense in this globalised world," said N. Siva Subramaniam, a commissioner from the government-backed Human Rights Commission.

"Even if you block certain websites, readers still can get the news from other sources," he told AFP.

Activists however remained cautious over Rais's comments, saying that while the government appeared to have backed away from the plan for a formal filter, it could still be intent on curtailing freedom of expression.

"We are happy if they are dropping the idea, but we would also like to see what is their approach on what should be available on the Internet," said V. Gayathry from the Centre for Independent Journalism.

"The government seems to be determined to monitor and control online content. It creates fear among the people, it is an implied threat and that itself will make people practise self-censorship," she added.

Malaysia's lively blogosphere has been a thorn in the side of the Barisan Nasional government, which was been in power for more than half a century but was dealt its worst ever results in elections a year ago.

Internet news portals and blogs, which escape tight controls on the mainstream media, were credited as a key element in the swing towards the opposition which has been adept at using new media to communicate its ideas.

In comments to AFP last week, the NSC official said the proposed filter was "to keep out pornographic materials and bloggers who inflame racial sentiments. We need to maintain racial harmony. We cannot have full-blown democracy like in the United States".

China Warms to New Credo - Business First

By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — So far this week, the World Trade Organization has rebuffed China in an important case involving Chinese restrictions on imported books and movies. The Chinese government dropped explosive espionage charges against executives of a foreign mining giant, the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto, after a global corporate outcry. And on Thursday, the government said it had backed off another contentious plan to install censorship software on all new computers sold here.

Throughout its long economic boom, China has usually managed to separate its aggressive push into the global business arena from domestic politics, which remained tightly controlled by the Communist Party. But events this week raise the question of just how long it will be before the two meet.

In each of those matters, politics and business collided, and business won. Business does not always win, and when it does, as in these cases, the reasons are as often as not a matter of guesswork. But in at least some high-profile matters, China appears to be facing the reality that the outside business world can be freewheeling and defiant when its profits are threatened. And so China’s authoritarian system may also have to evolve in ways its top leaders may not readily endorse.

Beijing has a global footprint now, a consequence of its booming domestic growth and breakneck international expansion. And decisions that once were made on purely parochial grounds — like censoring Web sites, protecting the interests of its state-owned companies and restricting the flow of foreign news and entertainment into China — now have international ramifications.

“This is a country in the middle of a big transition in its global role,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, a veteran China analyst now at the Brookings Institution. “They’ve always looked in the past to what’s good for China, and they still do. But for the first time, added to that is the consideration that they’re in the position of being rule-makers, not just rule-takers.”

China’s leaders, he said, “are just beginning to learn how to handle that.”

Consider the following: Since late May, Beijing’s Industry and Information Technology Ministry had more or less insisted that so-called anti-pornography software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, would eventually be packaged with every newly purchased computer.

On Thursday, the ministry backed down, calling the requirement a “misunderstanding” spawned by badly written rules. Officials offered no other explanation, but the retreat followed weeks of protests by outsiders — from foreign computer makers to foreign governments to foreign corporate branch offices — that said the software stifled free speech, compromised corporate security and threatened computers’ stability.

Computers are not the only example.

This week, the World Trade Organization told Beijing that it could no longer force providers of American books, music and films to distribute their goods through a local partner. Foreign companies saw that rule as an impediment to reaching a broad Chinese audience with their products. The Chinese market is flooded with pirated CDs and DVDs whose contents’ creators receive no money.

The Chinese legally may appeal the decision, but the foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, indicated in a Geneva speech that simply ignoring it was not an option. China worked for years to join the global trading system and is bound, as much as other nations are, by its rules.

“China will never seek to advance its interests at the expense of others,” Mr. Yang said, according to Reuters.

Similarly, Chinese prosecutors appeared this week to retreat from earlier statements that they would prosecute employees of Rio Tinto as spies for stealing state secrets.

While the espionage allegations were not spelled out, they were apparently related to delicate commercial negotiations over the price of China’s imports of iron ore for its steel mills.

Rio Tinto executives have strongly denied the accusations, and both the United States and Australia said China’s actions could have both business and diplomatic repercussions.

While the Rio Tinto employees still face lesser charges of bribery and theft of trade secrets, the espionage threats stirred broad unease among foreign companies operating in China, which feared that they could face persecution and closed-door trials for engaging in what much of the world would regard as bare-knuckle business tactics.

Yet whether such instances represent trends or exceptions — or neither — remains a matter of some debate.

Increasingly, many experts say, Chinese officials appear to be aware that their actions have far broader ramifications than they might have had even a few years ago.

“Fifteen years ago, the mantra in China was, ‘We’re the victims of a system that’s stacked against us,’ ” said James V. Feinerman, an expert on Chinese law and policy at Georgetown University in Washington.

China’s entry into the world trading system, he said, is slowly helping to change the nation’s view of itself from that of an outsider to an insider with a stake in the global system’s success.

Other experts note, however, that what outsiders see as carefully calculated policy changes may in fact be nothing of the sort.

The government’s decision to install censorship software on computers — and its subsequent reversal — is but one example, they say; the original proposal was probably pushed by a government clique that found itself outflanked once Internet users and foreign corporations began objecting to the plan.

“Is China susceptible to international pressure? Of course it is,” said Charles Freeman, a leading China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“China does have international interests, and they are impacted by what it does domestically,” he said. “There’s a constant battle between agencies over how much political capital to expend on international issues against domestic interests.”

In any case, few experts are willing to stake their reputations on a prediction that Beijing’s recent softening of some positions signifies a strong trend.

To the contrary, Mr. Feinerman said, China had undergone “a real pushback” in the last five years on some fronts, reasserting political dogma in some areas where commercial norms and the rule of law had begun to have more sway.

And Jonathan Hecht, an expert on Chinese law at Yale University’s China Law Center, said that developments in China should be viewed against a history of great leaps forward on such matters, followed by equally great retreats.

“I’ve given up predicting long-term trends,” he said.

NGOs Say No to Internet Filtering by Government

Darshini Kandasamy [1]

Monday, August 10th, 2009 07:49:00

THE plan by Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim to develop an Internet filtering system targeting pornography, has not gone down well with many people.

Many feel that this could be misconstrued as curtailing freedom of information. Although such censorship has been refuted by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, several people are not convinced.

Various NGO’s and parties familiar with the dissemination of information online questioned the effectiveness of filtering online pornographic sites.

Malaysian Insider chief executive officer Sreedhar Subramaniam said if people chose to look at such content, “filtering such sites would only force them to look for other channels to access such smut.”

Instead, he said the authorities should look at what made people seek such sites and address the issue there.

“It is not a simple problem to address. They must see what can be done at home, schools or even study people’s religious beliefs,” he said, adding personal censorship at home was another option.

While Sreedhar acknowledged people can be addicted to porn and it can affect one's relationship with his spouse or family, he stressed that filtering websites may be easy but is not the best solution.

Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran also reiterated that parents should be left to install firewalls in their home computers to monitor their family members’ use of the Internet.

He felt this would allow the government to censor other issues besides pornography due to the temptations of political demands for broader censorship.

Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI) chairman Wong Chin Huat said :“There is no need for the state to decide what we can or cannot see. There has been a lot of porn censorship in the broadcast media but has it been helpful?”

Wong said the government should instead heighten enforcement by going after pornographic DVD sellers or those who own child pornography as there is the danger those who own such materials could be paedophiles.

He also questioned how the government defines pornography.

“What may seem like porn to one person may be art to me and what may seem like art to some may seem like pornography to me,” he said.

“Do not impose (restrictions) on all. It is their life and everyone has the right to sexual privacy. We are not supposed to watch porn in public but it is one’s own life should one choose to watch porn in his own bedroom,” he said.

Author of biography The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His time, Dr Ooi Kee Beng said such filtration was dangerous for Malaysia’s democracy.

He said the call by Rais was not about pornography. “You can’t help but think that that is just an excuse. Once a filtering system is put in place, it can be used for anything. It is not a technology meant for filtering pornography but technology meant to filter what the authorities want to be filtered.”

Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) executive director V. Gayathry said CIJ’s stance was that the government had no right to decide what individuals can access both offline and online.

“To us, any decision to filter is a form of censorship. Today, the government will try to justify filtering content that is pornographic and tomorrow it could be political or social.” She said the government has already installed filtering software for the Internet in government offices and questioned its effectiveness.

“Globally the debate on pornography online and offline is still unresolved. Pornography has always been
used as an excuse to justify controls, but the government ought to realise that controls have failed.

“Offline, people are able to access materials on nudity and sex anywhere despite bans on such publications. What makes the government think it can control it online?”

Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) commissioner, Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria said the government could work on increasing public awareness on the negative implications of pornography, such as how it affects marriages or cause women to be seen as sex objects.

However, he was personally not against filtering such sites, saying that people should not mistake freedom of information to include freedom for pornography.

“It is not something that should be encouraged, along with other sites that promote violence and terrorism,” said Dr Denison.

On Saturday, Rais confirmed he had requested authorities, such as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to look into the possibility of implementing an Internet filtering system for pornography.

It had been reported Malaysia had called for a tender to develop a filtering system, akin to China’s controversial Green Dam project.

These were however denied by Najib later the same day, who said the government would not impose any form of Internet censorship as it would not be effective and would cause much dissatisfaction.

Government Banned 397 Books

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 6 (Bernama) -- The Home Ministry has issued a ban order on 397 book titles containing materials that could jeopardise public order and obscenity from 2000 to July 2009.

Publication Control Division and Al-Quran Text Division principal assistant secretary Abdul Razak Abdul Latif said 190 of them contained materials that could jeopardise public order and 207 with immoral content.

He said 150 of the books were in Bahasa Malaysia followed by English (142), Mandarin (94), Tamil (nine) and Arabic (two).

Of 22 books banned until July this year, 13 were in Bahasa Malaysia while the rest in English, he said in a statement.

Among Bahasa Malaysia titles banned were Cinta Awak Dalam Sehari, Pengantin Remaja, 55 Masalah Seksual Yang Anda Malu Tanya, Rahsia Dalam Rahsia Di Sebalik Tirai Kamar Suami Isteri and Senggama Kubur.

English titles banned include those published abroad like The Jewel of Medina, The Trouble with Islam Today, Ibrahim a.s And Sarah and Qabil & Nabil.

Abdul Razak said individuals involved in printing, importing, publishing, selling, distributing the books can be charged under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 which carries a jail term up to three years and a fine up to RM20,000.

-- BERNAMA

Honduras Targets Protesters With Emergency Decree

By William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 2, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 1 -- The new Honduran government clamped down on street protests and news organizations Wednesday as lawmakers passed an emergency decree that limits public gatherings following the military-led coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office.

The decree also allows for suspects to be detained for 24 hours and continues a nighttime curfew. Media outlets complained that the government was ordering them not to report any news or opinion that could "incite" the public.

A dozen former ministers from the Zelaya government remain in hiding, some hunkered down in foreign embassies, fearing arrest. News organizations here remain polarized. Journalists working for small independent media -- or for those loyal to Zelaya -- have reported being harassed by officials.

Before emergency measures were tightened, thousands of protesters rallied Wednesday to urge Zelaya's return. They were answered by counterdemonstrations in support of the new government. Local radio reported that several bombs were found but safely defused.

Zelaya vowed that he would come back to Honduras over the weekend, while the newly appointed interim president, Roberto Micheletti, repeated in a news conference Wednesday "that when he comes into the country, he will be arrested."

Asked whether Honduras could withstand international isolation and risk losing the foreign aid that keeps the impoverished nation running, Micheletti said, "You know that the Europeans are not going to cut the aid to our country, nor will the Americans."

But on Wednesday, the Inter-American Development Bank did suspend aid, after a similar move by the World Bank. As the impasse continued in Honduras, diplomats at the Organization of American States struggled to organize a mission that would restore Zelaya to power and avoid a clash between him and the military that ousted him.

After nearly 12 hours of debate, the OAS approved a resolution shortly before dawn Wednesday that called on its secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, to undertake every effort to reinstate Zelaya. If Insulza did not succeed within 72 hours, Honduras would be suspended from the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere.

The passage of the resolution prompted Zelaya to postpone a trip home he had scheduled for Thursday, which diplomats had feared could sharply escalate tensions in the Central American country.

"I am going to return to Honduras. I am the president," Zelaya told reporters Wednesday. But he added that he did not want to complicate the diplomatic efforts of the OAS over the next few days.

Insulza faces an unusually complex task in trying to reverse the coup. Normally, he would negotiate with the de facto government for the return of the deposed president. But OAS members, furious about the military ouster, do not want him to talk to Micheletti, for fear that would legitimize the new regime.

Even hard-core coup backers here say they were surprised how quickly and forcefully the Latin American countries condemned their actions.

"This coup is a mess," said the outgoing Italian ambassador, Giuseppe Magno. "Mistakes have been made on all sides, and the only solution is for a compromise. We hear that different parties are talking among themselves. That is good. The solution has to come from the Hondurans themselves. It cannot be imposed on them."

Honduras is finding itself increasingly isolated. France, Spain, Italy, Chile and Colombia began recalling their ambassadors Wednesday. The Pentagon suspended joint military operations with Honduras.

"What provoked an enormous indignation among Latin Americans, above all, was the military coup," said one diplomat involved in the planning at the OAS, referring to the way soldiers seized Zelaya at dawn and bundled him onto a plane bound for Costa Rica.

Insulza, of the OAS, is trying to establish contact with people who are not closely allied with either Zelaya or Micheletti to build a compromise, the diplomat said. It was not clear when he would fly to Honduras.

The coup is the first big test for the Obama administration's policy of seeking a more diplomatic and collegial role in a region traditionally dominated by the United States. The military action has been roundly condemned internationally, including by President Obama. But U.S. diplomats have sought to prevent a response that is so tough it leads to bloodshed.

U.S. officials said Wednesday that they would hold off formally designating the Honduran military action a "coup" until Insulza reports back to the OAS on Monday. Such a move is significant, because it would lead to the cutoff of millions of dollars in military and development aid.

However, the Pentagon said Wednesday that it had decided to reduce military contact with the Honduran armed forces. "We're still reviewing and making decisions" about what cooperation would be affected, said a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command, José Ruiz.

The U.S. military also has cut off contact since Sunday with those who orchestrated the coup, officials said. The United States has a contingent of about 700 military personnel at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, focused on disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and counternarcotics activities in Honduras and the region.

Honduras also is facing a freeze on petroleum exports from Venezuela and a halt in trade from other Central American countries.

"In the 21st century, these kinds of coups don't last long. It is very hard for a country like Honduras to maintain this kind of position in the face of overwhelming rejection by the world, and especially the region and its major trading partners," a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

Zelaya is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who led a bloc of leftist governments in pressing the OAS to suspend Honduras immediately and support Zelaya's quick return to the country -- even at the risk of his being arrested. The governments believe that unless there is a tough response to the coup, their own leftist governments could be threatened, diplomats said.

Venezuela's ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton, described the approach as "diplomatic asphyxiation." The Venezuelan government provided a plane for Zelaya's trips Tuesday to the United Nations and the OAS.

Sheridan reported from Washington.

Thailand's Press Club Faces Police Probe Over Lese Majeste

Pravit Rojanaphruk The Nation (Thailand) Publication Date: 02-07-2009

For the first time in its five-decade history, the whole board of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) has been accused of committing lese majeste, a crime with a maximum jail sentence of 15 years. Laksana Kornsilpa, 57, a translator and a critic of ousted and convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra filed a lese majeste complaint against the 13-member board at Lumpini police station on Tuesday night. Laksana was quoted on ASTV Manager website as claiming the board's decision to sell DVD copies of Jakrapob Penkair's controversial speech at the club back in 2007 constituted an act of lese majeste. She alleged that the whole board "may be acting in an organised fashion and the goal may be to undermine the credibility of the high institution of Thailand". ASTV Manager daily also quoted Laksana as saying some major local newspapers may also part of a movement to undermine the monarchy. FCCT president Marwaan Macan-Markar said the board members have decided not to give separate interviews. It issued a statement saying: "The FCCT will cooperate with such an inquiry [by the police]." The board, includes three British nationals including the BBC's Bangkok correspondent Jonathan Head, three American nationals, including two working for Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, an Australian national and a Thai news reader for Channel 3, Karuna Buakamsri. Social critic and lese majeste case defendant Sulak Sivaraksa, reacting to the news, told The Nation yesterday that "the problem of [abusing] lese majeste law is now utterly messy". "The fact that leading world intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and others have petitioned to [PM] Abhisit [Vejjajiva to reform the law] is a testimony to it. If we let it goes on like this it will get even messier. It's time for the government to do something." A source within the FCCT, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was "surprised" at the latest allegation, which came after two years of the speech being made, adding that "it places Thailand in a very poor light". DVDs were set up largely for club members who missed interesting talks and sales are restricted solely for FCCT members. Few copies of the Jakrapob talk are understood to have been sold because a manuscript of his talk circulated in Bangkok shortly after he was charged, and the video can be downloaded free from some websites. In the comments' section on ASTV Manager's website, most posters expressed support for Laksana and praised her for the move. One said: "Put them in jail for 99 years." Another asked the site to post a picture of Jonathan Head so the person could attack him if he or she ran into him.

China Delays Order for Green Dam Web-Censoring Software

By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — Facing strong resistance at home and abroad, China on Tuesday delayed enforcement of a new rule requiring manufacturers to install Internet filtering software on all new computers.

The delay by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was announced through Xinhua, the official news agency, one day before the July 1 deadline for the software to be installed on all computers sold in China.

The software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, has caused a torrent of protests from both Chinese computer users and global computer makers, including many in the United States, since the government order became public in early June.

The Obama administration has officially warned China that the requirement could violate free-trade agreements, and sent trade officials to Beijing recently to press the government to rescind the decision. In Beijing on Tuesday, a United States Embassy spokesman said Washington welcomed the announcement.

China has said the software is designed to filter out pornography and violence to protect minors, but many experts say it can also block any other content that the authorities deem subversive.

The ministry said the mandatory installation would be delayed for an indefinite period to give computer producers more time to put the order into effect.

As a practical matter, the abrupt postponement bows to reality because most of China’s computer retailers have large stocks of machines, manufactured months before the decree was announced, that have yet to be sold. Many global computer makers have declined to say how they would comply with the requirement, apparently hoping that the government would delay or reverse its decision under international pressure.

The filtering software has been the object of furious online debate since the requirement to install it was disclosed. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which licensed the technology from two Chinese developers, says the software automatically blocks Web surfers from seeing “unhealthy Internet content.” Updated lists of banned content are automatically downloaded onto users’ computers from the developers’ servers.

But the software’s current list of banned words, posted online by Chinese hackers, is laced with political topics. Businesses have complained that the software is so poorly designed that it opens computers not just to government snooping, but also to hacker attacks by vandals and criminals.

On Friday, the leaders of 22 international business organizations delivered a letter to Prime Minister Wen Jiabao arguing that Green Dam flouted China’s professed goal of building an information-based society, and that it threatened security, privacy and free speech. A day earlier, the European Union protested that the software was clearly designed to limit free speech.

Global computer makers have contended that they are being forced to install untested software for purposes that they may regard as objectionable.

In Washington, the Business Software Alliance, a group representing software makers worldwide, said Tuesday that it was encouraged by the government’s delay and hoped for “a thorough examination of the related technology issues.”

Green Dam works only on computers that use Microsoft’s Windows operating system. So far, no version has been released for Linux and Apple’s Macintosh systems. Nor would the software be required in Hong Kong or Macao, said one expert familiar with the government’s requirement.

The Chinese government has said little about the requirement. Zhang Chenmin, the founder of one Green Dam developer, Jinhui Computer System Engineering, has frequently described the software order as voluntary and innocuous, but he did not respond Tuesday to telephone calls and text messages seeking comment.

It appeared that many computer makers had yet to comply with the directive, not only in the hope that the government would alter its plans, but also because the order gave them scant time to test Green Dam with their machines.

Some did comply. Acer, a Taiwan manufacturer that assembles many of its products in China, has said that it will install Green Dam on its machines. A spokesman for Lenovo, China’s best-selling computer brand, did not respond to a question about its Green Dam policies, although some Beijing vendors said the software had been installed on some Lenovo models.

Hewlett-Packard — the No. 2 computer brand in China, according to IDC, a market-intelligence company — has been silent on its plans, as has Dell, the third-best-selling brand. According to the Web site Rconversation, which has published leaked documents regarding Green Dam, Sony has packaged a Green Dam software CD with some of its computers, along with a warning that it is not responsible for any problems the program may cause.

Major Beijing computer retailers said most computers being sold lacked the software. One of China’s biggest electronics chains, Suning, insisted Tuesday that the order applied only to computers made after July 1, not to those manufactured before that date but sold later at retail.

“Suning is an outlet, so we’re also playing the role of monitor” to ensure that the computers have the required software, said a company spokesman, Min Juanqing. “If the computer doesn’t meet the requirement, we won’t purchase it.”

Several other vendors said Tuesday that their existing stocks of computers were manufactured in April or May, and that computers with Green Dam were unlikely to reach their shelves for several weeks.

One vendor, identifying himself only as Mr. Wu, said some buyers saw little but trouble in the government’s order. “Some of our clients are concerned about the security of the software,” he said. “I myself haven’t tried it yet, but we’ve been paying attention to it. I personally don’t want to install this software, but the government has asked us to install it for our kids’ good.

“But we can help you uninstall it if you want,” he said. “It could be easy to erase it completely from your computer.”

Huang Yuanxi and Zhang Jing contributed research. Sharon Otterman contributed reporting from New York.

China, Cuba, Other Authoritarian Regimes Censor News From Iran

By Ariana Eunjung Cha

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 27, 2009

BEIJING -- Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the authoritarian governments of China, Cuba and Burma have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand democratic reforms.

Between 1988 and 1990, amid a lesser global economic slump, pro-democracy protests that appeared to inspire and energize one another broke out in Eastern Europe, Burma, China and elsewhere. Not all evolved into full-fledged revolutions, but communist regimes fell in a broad swath of countries, and the global balance of power shifted.

A similar infectiousness has shown up in subtle acts of defiance by democracy advocates around the world this week.

In China, political commentators tinted their blogs and Twitters green to show their support for Iranians disputing President Ahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection. The deaths of at least 20 people in violent clashes in Tehran have drawn comparisons online to "June 4," the date of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing in 1989. And a pointed joke about how Iranians are luckier than Chinese because sham elections are better than no elections made the rounds on the country's vast network of Internet bulletin boards.

"The Iranian people face the same problems as us: news censorship and no freedom to have their own voices," 28-year-old blogger Zhou Shuguang said in a telephone interview from the inland province of Hunan. Zhou said he and several friends were among those who had colored their online pictures green, the signature color of the Iranian opposition.

In Cuba, President Raúl Castro's government has imposed a complete blackout of news surrounding the Iranian elections. But word of developments is trickling through, anyway.

Havana-based blogger Yoani Sánchez, 33, who e-mails friends outside Cuba to get her entries posted online, said the Iranian protests -- in particular, the reportedly widespread use of Twitter, Facebook and cellphones -- have served as "a lesson for Cuban bloggers."

"Seeing those young Iranians use all the technology to denounce the injustice, I notice everything that we lack to support those who maintain blogs from the island," Sánchez wrote. "The acid test of our incipient virtual community has not yet arrived, but maybe it will surprise us tomorrow."

"Today it's you," she told the Iranian protesters in one posting. "Tomorrow it could well be us."

In Burma, the junta's mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, has drowned out news from Tehran with articles on bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan. But some of the nearly 200 journals published privately in Rangoon and Mandalay have seized on the topic as a way to pass subversive messages to readers.

"What we, the private media, are trying to do was to put in as much stories and pixs of what's going on in Teheran in our papers. So far we were successful," the editor of a Rangoon-based weekly publication said in an e-mail. "The upcoming paper of mine . . . will carry, albeit if it's not censored, news stories of the events in Teheran and a feature on 'Elections and Democracy,' trying to draw some parallels between the one in Iran and the upcoming one here," a reference to elections, scheduled for 2010, that many critics dismiss as a sham.

Unlike in Iran, however, the experience of past failed protests has yielded a measure of pragmatism in Burma. Overtly political opposition groups, such as Generation Wave, and numerous apolitical networks have in recent months focused on a more evolutionary strategy of change, reaching out in particular to Burma's rural masses.

"We cannot go directly to our goal," said a graphic designer who co-founded a group that teaches social management and governance in Rangoon and remote towns under the cover of English classes.

Moe Thway, founder of Generation Wave, said Iran's citizens do not appear to be as depressed or despairing as Burma's. Even the most hard-bitten Burmese activists see little hope in taking to the streets for now.

"About Iran, I can't say whether their current movement will change the political trend or not," he said. "Iran and our Burma are still different."

In Venezuela, a South American country that is increasingly polarized, protests against President Hugo Chávez's administration are common. Juan Mejía, 22, said he found the protests in Iran stirring, partly because he felt that opponents of the government in Tehran want the same thing as protesters in Caracas.

"The fact that people have gone out onto the street, that they demand their rights be respected, means to us that they felt there was no liberty and that they want a different country," said Mejía, a student leader who opposes Chávez. "We believe that if the people of the world raise their voices loudly enough -- in Iran, as we do it here in Venezuela, and hopefully one day in Cuba -- then surely we will have a better world."

Venezuela, as opposed to countries such as Cuba and China, holds frequent elections, and dissent remains a part of the political discourse. But in a decade in power, Chávez has taken control of the Congress, the courts and the state oil company, and his opponents charge that he is a dictator in the making.

In China, the Communist Party's propaganda machine has worked furiously to portray the protests in Iran -- already being dubbed the Green Revolution, after the Rose and Orange revolutions earlier this decade in Georgia and Ukraine -- as orchestrated by the United States and other Western powers, not a grass-roots movement. Unlike Western leaders, who have avoided acknowledging Ahmadinejad's claims of victory, President Hu Jintao joined Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev in meeting with and congratulating the Iranian president.

On online discussion boards this week, tens of thousands of comments about Iran were shown as deleted; most of those allowed to remain took the official party line on the elections.

China's main message has been that this vulnerable period, with the world hit by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, is no time for a "color revolution."

"Attempts to push the so-called color revolution toward chaos will prove very dangerous," the state-run China Daily said in a recent editorial.

The Chinese government has been especially aggressive this year in cracking down on talk of democracy because 2009 is full of politically sensitive anniversaries. In the most recent move, officials announced Tuesday the formal arrest of Liu Xiaobo, an influential dissident who had helped draft and sign a pro-democracy petition known as Charter 08.

Albert Ho, chairman of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group in Hong Kong, said he sees many parallels between the situation in Iran and the atmosphere in China, citing many "hot spots" on the mainland that could explode into violent protests at any time.

"This time, the dark dictatorship has won, but I don't feel hopeless," Ho said of Iran. "On the contrary, I see more clearly that there is hope. I used to think, in such a totalitarian country, people had no hope for democracy. But I can see not only students but people from all different classes, even very low-class men and women, all have such a strong will for democracy, and they fight together for taking down the cheated election."

In contrast, Li Datong, a Beijing-based pro-democracy writer who was fired from his job in China's state media after publishing a piece on censorship on the Internet, said democratic change will come more gradually and peacefully in China.

"Young people might be excited about what happened in Iran now, but not me -- a 57-year-old one who has witnessed dramatic change in China. I think the cultivation of democratic elements within a society is more important and practical," Li said, mentioning the increased acceptance of public accountability and the growth of civil society groups in recent years.

Some democracy advocates in China said that even if the Iranian protesters fail in their calls for legitimate elections this time, their fight will inspire others, as similar uprisings -- in Burma in 1988 and at Tiananmen Square the next year, for example -- have done in the past.

The iconic image of the Iranian protests may be the chilling video, filmed on a cellphone camera, of Neda Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old woman who died on the streets of Tehran minutes after being struck by a bullet.

"Democracy won't come by the charity of the governing class," someone from the city of Suzhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, wrote about Agha Soltan on an online message board. "Fighting is the only way to gain democracy. . . . People are doomed to be slaves unless they are willing to sacrifice their blood."

Correspondent Juan Forero in Caracas, special correspondent Karla Adam in London, a staff writer in Washington and researchers Zhang Jie, Wang Juan and Liu Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.