dna edit: Weigh your thoughts

First it was the Central Monitoring System (CMS) rolled out in April. The CMS aims to provide centralised access to telecom networks and direct monitoring of phone calls, text messages, and Internet use. In basic terms, an individual’s browsing habits, search histories, social networks and e-mails are no longer private if the government deems it necessary.

And now comes a multi-agency coordination body — the National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) — that will collaborate with all intelligence and technical agencies. The mandate of this centre is to collect, integrate, and scan internet traffic data. The setting up of the CMS and NCCC is in line with what governments the world over are doing — asking citizens to sacrifice privacy at the altar of national security.

The CMS and NCCC coming on the heels of the leaks revealing the extent of the US’ cyber-snooping poses a vexing question. How can vigilant citizenry tackle the tendencies of governments, with active collusion of legislating bodies and judiciary, to encroach on private space without public debate?

The fear of threats from terrorist organisations, rival nations, hacker groups and cyber criminals are valid. But of equally genuine concern is the scope for human rights violations in the absence of adequate oversight and built-in legal safeguards against both government overreach and rogue actions by the security apparatus. And the Indian state does not inspire confidence here. From booking Jadavpur University Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra under Section 66 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2008 for emailing cartoons of Mamata Banerjee to slapping sedition charges against Binayak Sen and Arundhati Roy — as well as persecuting journalists for exposing the excesses of paramilitary forces in tribal areas — it has shown itself remarkably intolerant of free speech.

Today, Indians of various political persuasions use the Internet to voice dissent against corruption, state-sponsored violence and other acts of omission and commission by organs of the state. Their divergent views, often perceived as anti-national and anti-developmental by sections of the urban middle-class and the government, make such individuals vulnerable.

The absence of strong privacy laws is exacerbated by a corpus of colonial-era laws criminalising even non-violent dissent like Section 124A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code. Even recent laws like the IT Act have failed to build in specific safeguards against misuse of private information by state agencies. The message to the citizen is clear: be very afraid.