Wrong first step
Whatever this controversial business over the cybercrime does, or does not, achieve in terms of policing Pakistani cyberspace, it does expose a particularly weak spot in Pakistani legislation. Leaving a rapidly evolving phenomenon like cybercrime under a vague legal framework, at best, was clearly no longer possible. And, like most countries, the Pakistani government needed to finally put its best foot forward in terms of controlling cybercrime.
But why must that mean formulating necessarily bad laws; ones that not only betray little understanding of the cyber world but also a little disguised urge to control individual freedoms? And it’s not as if framing the right kind of laws is not possible. IT professionals and rights organisations actually did propose – when they were finally heard after a lot of yelling and waving – the kind of procedures that ensure clamping down on pornography, child pornography, black mail, data theft, etc, without infringing on individual rights. The recommended laws would also have denied the PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) the kind of powers that the cybercrime bill has provided it. No high executive in the Authority could shut down any website, leveraging a set of loose laws, after a phone call from some government office.
And nobody, of course, would have been granted the authority to oversee emails, personal communication, etc. Granted, the online sphere has played a key role in the success of international terrorism lately. And modern militant methods of online recruitment, etc, mean that some of the freedoms will simply have to be let go of. That is just the new reality. But when governments posture, deliberately, to clamp down on some of those liberties in the guise of progressive legislation, some manner of concern is naturally raised and expressed. There is no denying that the online sphere needs control. But there is also near unanimity, outside the government, that the proposed cybercrime bill is not a good one. With little time left to deliberate, the government must realis that it is making a bad opening in an important innings.