[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE PROMISES WE KEEP ONLINE:
INTERNET FREEDOM IN THE OSCE REGION
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HEARING
before the
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 15, 2011
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Printed for the use of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
[CSCE 112-1-7]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via http://www.csce.gov
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COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
HOUSE
SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland,
Chairman Co-Chairman
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama TOM UDALL, New Mexico
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida ROBERT F. WICKER, Mississippi
LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
New York
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
MARCO RUBIO, Florida
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
MICHAEL H. POSNER, Department of State
MICHAEL C. CAMUNNEZ, Department of Commerce
ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, Department of Defense
(ii)
THE PROMISES WE KEEP ONLINE:
INTERNET FREEDOM IN THE OSCE REGION
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July 15, 2011
COMMISSIONERS
Page
Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 1
Hon. Phil Gingrey, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 9
Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 11
WITNESSES
Dr. Daniel Baer, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human
Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State..................... 3
Dunja Mijatovic, Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE.... 14
Sec. David J. Kramer, President, Freedom House................... 16
Rafal Rohozinski, Senior Scholar, Canada Center for Global
Security Studies and the Citizen Lab, University of Toronto.... 18
Ivan Sigal, Executive Director, Global Voices.................... 22
Dr. Charles Lee, Former Chinese Political Prisoner............... 25
APPENDICES
Prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith.................. 48
Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin.................... 49
Prepared statement of Dr. Daniel Baer............................ 50
Prepared statement of Dunja Mijatovic............................ 56
Prepared statement of Sec. David Kramer.......................... 61
Prepared statement of Rafal Rohozinski........................... 68
Prepared statement of Ivan Sigal................................. 70
Biography of Dr. Charles Lee..................................... 77
(iii)
THE PROMISES WE KEEP ONLINE:
INTERNET FREEDOM IN THE OSCE REGION
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July 15, 2011
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The hearing was held at 10 a.m. in room 210, Cannon House
Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H. Smith,
Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
presiding.
Commissioners present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Phil
Gingrey, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation
in Europe; and Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Witnesses present: Dr. Daniel Baer, Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S.
Department of State; Dunja Mijatovic, Representative on Freedom
of the Media, OSCE; Sec. David J. Kramer, President, Freedom
House; Rafal Rohozinski, Senior Scholar, Canada Center for
Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab, University of
Toronto; Ivan Sigal, Executive Director, Global Voices; and Dr.
Charles Lee, Former Chinese Political Prisoner.
HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Smith. Commission will come to order, and good morning
to everyone. And I want to welcome our very distinguished
witnesses and all those who are interested in this very, very
important topic of global online freedom.
Sadly, online censorship, surveillance and the intimidation
of online speech is not restricted to countries where it is
commonly reported, especially China, Vietnam and Iran. It is
increasingly common in member states of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, broadly speaking, in Europe
and the former Soviet Union.
With this hearing, we seek to draw the world's attention to
the arrest of bloggers, to the blocking of websites, the
surveillance and intimidation of peaceful political activists,
to aggressive denial-of-service attacks and to violent
intimidation by some OSCE member states. For example, Belarus
is blocking social networking sites such as Twitter and
Facebook and temporarily shutting down opposition Internet
sites.
Turkey is set to require a mandatory nationwide Internet
filtering system on August 22nd, unprecedented in scope in the
OSCE space and compounding the already aggressive blocking of
around 1,400 websites and broad restrictions on content.
Kazakhstan, which already blocks a number of popular blogs and
media sites, is also in the process of creating a national
Internet, having recently decided that all .kz domain names
will have to operate on physical servers within its borders.
No less disturbing is the violent intimidation of dissent
in Russia. Though Russia does not aggressively censor terms or
significantly block access to information on the Internet, as
China does, it has its own crude but effective methods for
controlling the Internet. Mafia thugs in league with the
government beat people and instill fear in Russian bloggers and
journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists,
quote, ``Online journalists in Russia and throughout the region
whose work appears on the Russian language Internet known as
Runet, have faced physical intimidation, attacks and threats
for far longer than has been widely noted in either Moscow or
in the West.''
In a report issued by OpenNet Initiative, the authors--one
of whom is here with us today--concluded that Internet controls
in the Commonwealth of Independent States have evolved, quote,
``Several generations ahead of those used in other regions of
the world.'' Runet controls are not only mirroring past
oppression, the authors said, they're foreshadowing the future
of Internet control worldwide. The prospect of the Internet
environment deteriorating to that level is frightening, and
surely is a call to action. At the signing of the Helsinki
Final Act in 1975 President Gerald Ford stated that history
will judge the signatories, quote, ``Not by the promises we
make, but by the promises we keep.'' This is as true now as it
was then. All 56 OSCE states have agreed to respect their
citizens' human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the
freedom of expression. But some do not do so, and are not only
not improving but even backsliding. And I do look forward to
our witnesses today and what they can do--or what they will
recommend as to how we might turn this around.
Turning to our first panel, I'm very pleased to welcome Dr.
Daniel Baer, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of
State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. And his portfolio
includes Internet--the Internet Freedom Office.
Dr. Baer was sworn in as deputy assistant secretary on
November 23rd of 2009. He--prior to joining the Department of
State, Dr. Baer was assistant professor of strategy, economics,
ethics and public policy at Georgetown University's McDonough
School of Business, where he taught business ethics to MBA and
undergraduate students. 2007 to '08 he was a faculty fellow at
the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Ethics--Center for Ethics at
Harvard.
In 2004 to '07 he worked at the Boston Consulting Group,
was project leader and provided strategic advice to leaders in
corporate government and nonprofit sectors. Dr. Baer has also
worked in the Office of African Affairs, the Office of East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Office of Multilateral and
Global Affairs. So he has a very, very wide swath of
experience, and we are deeply grateful to have him here today
to testify before the Commission.
So, Dr. Baer, please proceed.
DR. DANIEL BAER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR DEMOCRACY,
HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Dr. Baer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
your affording me the opportunity to address an issue with
profound implications for the exercise of human rights in the
OSCE region and across the globe, ensuring a free and open
Internet. This hearing is emblematic of the Commission's strong
defense and dedicated promotion of human rights principles
enshrined in the core of the Helsinki Final Act and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I value the opportunity to work with members of the
Commission and your superb staff. The Commission's efforts
greatly strengthen mine and that of Assistant Secretary Posner
and our colleagues at the State Department as we work with
other governments, civil society advocates and the private
sector to defend and advance human rights and democratic
governance.
Can I also take a moment to thank you for inviting the
other witnesses you've welcomed here today. I'm thrilled to be
here with my friends David and Dunja, both of whom I admire a
great deal, and also with Mr. Rohozinski, Mr. Sigal, I feel
honored to be in such great company. And I know that Mr. Lee
will share his views too, and I'm glad for that.
Mr. Chairman, I endeavored in my written testimony to
respond to your specific requests and to highlight key trends
and concerns regarding a number of countries in the OSCE
region, many of which you highlighted yourself, as well as to
describe what we are doing institutionally within the OSCE to
protect and advance Internet freedom. And I'd like to make just
a few brief general comments here, and then take whatever
specific questions you might have.
First I want to say a few words about why we, the United
States, are committed to Internet freedom. The United States
champions Internet freedom because it derives from universal
and cherished rights: the freedoms of speech, assembly and
association. An open Internet gives people a neutral platform
from which to express their legitimate aspirations and shape
their own destinies.
As Secretary Clinton has emphasized, the rights of
individuals to express their views freely, petition their
leaders, worship according to their beliefs--these rights are
universal whether they are exercised in a public square or in
an individual blog. The freedoms to assemble and associate also
apply in cyberspace. In our time, people are as likely to come
together to pursue common interests online as in a church or a
labor hall.
As we all know, the Internet and other new technologies are
having a profound effect on the ability to organize citizen
movements around the world. And because repressive regimes
understand this power, they are redoubling their efforts to
control it. Recently in Vilnius, on the margins of the
Community of Democracy's ministerial meeting, Secretary Clinton
and I met with a number of activists, including several from
the OSCE region, who spoke of the surveillance, hacking and
harassment they face every day.
As Assistant Secretary Posner said earlier this week,
``These are the acts of governments that fear their own people.
In cracking down on the Internet, they expose their own lack of
legitimacy.'' But speech is harder than ever to control in the
digital age, and young people who have taken to the streets
this year understand that it isn't pornography or pirating
that's being suppressed; it's people and their legitimate
demands for dignity and a say in the political and economic
futures of their countries. As President Obama said in Cairo
back in 2009, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them
go away.
The actions of these governments remind us of a basic
truth. Governments that respect their citizens have no reason
to fear when citizens exercise their rights. And governments
that respect the rights of their citizens have no reason to
fear a free Internet. Of course, repressive governments are
also missing out. The Internet can be a force for social and
political stability if governments use it as a way to better
communicate with their citizens and to serve them in an open
and transparent fashion.
The Internet offers an early warning signal for public
discontent, and therefore a way to address grievances before
they erupt into protests. As Assistant Secretary Posner said,
governments should not shoot the instant messenger. They should
address the underlying problems that cause citizens to lose
faith in their governments and in the future.
Mr. Chairman, we are not cyberutopians who believe that the
Internet is the magic answer to the world's human rights
problems. Technology does not change the world, people must.
And we must not forget that calls for freedom still spring from
human dreams and resonate in human hearts even if they are
shared by keystrokes and text messages. That's why we take a
person-centered approach through our diplomacy, through direct
support for embattled activists worldwide--we are helping
people stay one step ahead of the censors, the hackers and the
brutes who beat them up or imprison them for what they do
online.
Since 2008, thanks to Congress' support, we have committed
$50 million in direct support for activists on the front lines
of the struggle against Internet repression. By the end of
2011, we will have allocated $70 million toward these efforts.
Our programming responds to the most urgent priorities we hear
from activists on the ground, including embattled democracy and
human rights activists from the OSCE countries.
We're committed to a free and open Internet because it
follows from our commitments to fundamental freedoms and
universal values. These commitments, like all human rights
commitments, are part of who we are; part of, as the title of
this hearing suggests, the promise we keep. And, of course,
it's also part of the promises at the center of the OSCE.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, the OSCE was the first regional
organization to recognize that respect for human rights,
pluralistic democracy and the rule of law are prerequisites for
a lasting order of security and prosperity. And the OSCE was
the first regional organization to acknowledge the vital
importance of civil society. The Helsinki process must continue
to be a pioneer for human dignity, civil society and democratic
government in the digital age.
Challenges to Internet freedom in the OSCE region are
illustrative of the issues we are addressing across the globe.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, in the past the Helsinki process was
a major international platform for defending the citizens
expressing dissenting views, the samizdat, and for protesting
the jamming of radio broadcasts. Today email, social networking
and text messaging are new forms of samizdat, as well as
indispensable tools of commerce, education and global
communications.
As the United States has done since the inception of the
Helsinki process, so too in this new century we stand with
those in the OSCE region who seek to peacefully exercise their
fundamental freedoms and promote and protect human rights
including via new technologies. The United States will take
every opportunity to work with the Lithuanian chair, the EU and
other participating states and civil society to ensure that the
OSCE sends a clear message from Vilnius on Internet freedom. If
I were to distill that message into a Tweet to the world, it
would be: Enduring freedom, new apps.
Mr. Chairman, when he--as you said, when he signed the
Helsinki Final Act 35 year ago, President Ford famously said
that ``History will judge this conference not by what we say
here today but by what we do tomorrow, not by the promises we
made but by the promises we keep.'' He was right then, and his
statement is even more true today. In this digital age, keeping
our promises greatly depends on ensuring that the Internet is
open and free.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Commission. I'd
be glad to take your questions.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Baer, thank you very much for your
testimony, and for your leadership. This is certainly one of
the cutting edge areas of human rights, and the alternative,
the suppression of those rights by tyrannies--tyrannical
governments and dictatorships. Let me ask you just a few
questions, if I could.
We know Belarus--and we've had reports that in Belarus the
Chinese have cyberpolice, and the experts in controlling the
Internet have shared best practices there so that Lukashenko
can better repress the dissidents and the democracy activists.
What kind of information do we have regarding that kind of
collaboration, not just in Belarus but in, perhaps, some of the
other more repressive regimes in the OSCE region?
Dr. Baer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think what you've
highlighted is what we see as a growing trend in the last few
years, which is that, as you said, there's an increasing
sharing of what we might call worst practices--[chuckles]--in
terms of Internet repression. And as governments are sharing--
as nefarious governments are sharing their methods for
repressing online speech or assembly, they're also developing
new ones. They're innovating and sharing, which is--which makes
it even more challenging.
And so certainly we are seeing--we do believe that
governments are sharing techniques. And, you know, we are
trying to respond in kind. We're trying to make sure that we
are staying in touch with people on the ground and that we're
listening to the new threats that they're seeing. You mentioned
Belarus. We know that in Belarus there, as you talked about,
there have been denial-of-service attacks, there's monitoring,
there's shutdowns--it's a kind of confluence of a number of
Internet threats. And we're listening to people on the ground
there and elsewhere and trying to make sure that we're
providing them the support they need.
Mr. Smith. But are the Chinese--is Beijing providing the
all-
important expertise to help Lukashenko and the others?
Dr. Baer. Without--I'd be happy to brief you in private on
particular country concerns, but I think that it is fair to say
that there is information sharing going on between a number of
countries in terms of how to--how to limit online speech and
activity.
Mr. Smith. Including China?
Dr. Baer. I would expect that there's information sharing
going on between countries that limit the Internet.
Mr. Smith. OK. Let me ask you--several years ago I held a
hearing that lasted some eight hours--it was the longest
hearing I've ever chaired--we had Google, Cisco, Yahoo and
Microsoft testify. And frankly, at the time, all four of those
large companies were totally reluctant and enabling of--
reluctant to share information and enabling of the Chinese
dictatorship when it comes to repression via the Internet.
Google since has come around to some extent, and I think a
large extent. They now support the Global Online Freedom Act.
Yahoo actually moved personally identifiable information when
they set up shop in Vietnam, and they put that out of reach of
the ``Internet police,'' if you will, in Hanoi.
And Microsoft and Cisco, however, seem to be moving forward
unperturbed by how their enabling of a dictatorship has led to
arrests. And in the case of Cisco they're selling capabilities
that, you know, the Interpol and the FBI--you know, state-of-
the-art police techniques, sharing of information, routers,
it's just--it's just extraordinary--policenet which gives the
secret police extraordinary capabilities. And I'm wondering if
you're seeing those companies and others exhibiting the same
kind of enabling of dictatorship in the OSCE space?
Dr. Baer. I think--I think you're right to highlight the
importance of private companies in the Internet freedom
conversation. Most of the Internet is made up of private
assets, and obviously most of us use the services that
companies provide; that's how we access the Internet. I think
that what we've seen in the last few years, as you rightly
point out, is an evolution in the way that companies are
thinking about this. I think that increasingly companies are
realizing--as we should never forget that companies are made up
of people, and people who often when they understand the nature
of the consequences, perhaps unintended consequences, of
decisions they make, can manage around them.
And so, you know, one of the initiatives that we're quite
keenly following is the Global Network Initiative, which is
made up of Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. The director of the
Global Network Initiative is here with us today. I saw her in
the audience before I came in. You know, that's meant to be a
way for companies to come together and talk about what a
principled approached to doing business in this space looks
like, and to make commitments to do so. And I think we see that
as a promising way forward, both because it establishes
commitments, but it also provides a forum for companies to
share, quite practically, the challenges they're facing.
So, you know, you brought up the issue of storing data
outside of--outside of Vietnam. You know, that was a lesson
learned from the Shi Tao case. You know, storing data--where
you store data matters. And so that's a practical conversation
that companies can have. I think that, you know, this is an
evolving conversation. I think it's one that's important; we
should keep our eye on. I think that there are a number of
companies that are--and actors within companies that are taking
a lead on this and who recognize that this is a conversation
that they have to be a part of.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask two final questions then yield
to Dr. Gingrey. The--I mentioned earlier--or you mentioned as
well, with regards to obscenity and issues of that kind, you
know, when--and I will be reintroducing the Global Online
Freedom Act shortly--the previous versions and any version
makes it very clear that we're talking about nonviolent
political speech, nonviolent religious speech, conscience but
not obscenity--as even the Supreme Court has said--is not
protected speech. And I think you would agree with that.
But if I--how would you recommend we deal with the hate
speech, especially the anti-Semitic speech that is very often
generated in this country? I mean, I do believe passionately in
free speech, but there are lines that need to be drawn and, you
know, some of the anti-Semitic speech that I've seen on the
Internet is just without parallel--the hatred and the animosity
towards Israel and Jews in particular. Do you have any thoughts
on that?
Dr. Baer. I appreciate your raising that, and I think it's
one of the places that we have room to continue and bolster the
conversation going forward. I work very closely--my office is
next door and I was sworn in on the same day as and with--
Hannah Rosenthal, our special envoy to monitor and combat anti-
Semitism. And we've talked about this several times, and how we
can really foster a conversation that reckons with the fact
that a commitment to free speech entails also a commitment to
speak out when hateful speech is put into the public sphere, to
defeat it through the force of argument and to express our
disapproval of those kinds of utterances.
I think that there is a--there's obviously--the challenge
that arises, as you point out, is that we want to be very
careful about any limitations on speech because we know that
while well-
intentioned actors may use them well-intentionedly [ph], other
actors will exploit those as an excuse to limit the kinds of
speech that ought not be limited. And so that's the challenge
that we face in this conversation.
And I think we remain committed. Hannah has been pounding
the pavement, traveling the world speaking out against it. We
remain committed to fostering a conversation that deals with
hate speech and recognizes it as an onerous and terrible thing.
Mr. Smith. I would just add, many of our colleagues in the
European countries, including France and a number of the other
countries, you know, are very concerned about the anti-Semitic
speech and are befuddled as to why we can't make a clear
distinction between grossly hateful speech and freedom of
speech.
Two final questions--Internet-restricting countries--if you
were to say which countries in the OSCE space are the worst, if
you could, tell us what those countries are. And with regards
to the money that has been appropriated to pierce the
firewalls, in particular, the firewall in China, the Falun
Gong, as you know, has developed an extraordinary capability to
pierce that firewall so that people can access the Internet
without fear of government intrusion, almost, for want of a
better word, an unfettered access to the Internet.
Why hasn't that money flowed to them, since they have an
off-the-shelf capability? I mean, I spent the better part of
three hours six months ago with some of their practitioners,
some of their technological people--tech people, and I was
amazed. And I understand from peer reviews that it does work.
Will that money indeed flow to them so that they can do that
work?
Dr. Baer. On your first question, in terms of Internet-
restricting countries, it's a difficult ranking to make because
of the dynamism of the way that threats are evolving. So
whereas in one country, you may have extraordinary legal
restrictions--you mentioned the new--the pending new filtering
regime that is set to take place in Turkey--in another country,
you may have threats that are good, old-fashioned brutality
mixed with online activity.
So, you know, we're concerned about actions in Russia to
punish bloggers or things like that. I mean, obviously, Belarus
continues to be a prime concern. But you mentioned--the
countries that you mentioned in your opening statement, I would
say we have concerns about all of them. All of those countries
are areas of concern, and in different ways.
And one of the things--one of the challenges not only in
our policy, but also in our programming--and I'll talk about
our programming now--is to respond to the specific context of
each country. You know, that's why we keep in such good touch
with people on the ground, because what--the tools that are
needed, the supports that are needed in one place may not be
the same as the tools or supports that are needed in another.
And we're working very hard to deliver customized supports to
the people on the ground.
Mr. Smith. But if you were to say, what are the top five or
the worst five, I should say, just so that we can better hone
our focus?
Dr. Baer. You know, State Department guys get in big
trouble when we make ranking lists--[chuckles]--on the fly. I
think I would say the handful of countries that you mentioned
in your opening statement would certainly pass muster as a top
five.
In terms of your question about the programming, first of
all, let me reiterate our thanks for Congress' support for
Internet-freedom programming. We see that as essential to the
United States' global push to advance and support Internet
freedom.
The way that we approach this is to take a venture
capitalist-style approach. Part of the challenge, again, is the
fact that whereas five, ten years ago, there was really only
one salient threat to Internet freedom, and that was blocking,
increasingly what we're seeing is--and the cases of Belarus and
others are prime examples--is that it's not just blocking; it's
the fact that people can't associate or communicate securely.
It's the fact that their websites get attacked by nefarious
actors and taken down. And so we need a range of tools.
And we also need to make sure that the people on the ground
know how to use them and know how to use them safely so that
they're not putting themselves or others at risk. So our
portfolio of investments includes a range of tools, including
circumvention technology, which you brought up, as well as
other tools to help people communicate securely and to keep
their websites up, et cetera, as well as the training or the
underground railroads that distribute those and give people the
kind of cyber self-defense training that they need.
In terms of the specific tool that you brought up, it is
one of the tools in our portfolio, but we don't comment
publicly on our grants, because we want to give our grantees
the discretion to do so. That has been publicly brought up by
the grantee, and I'd be happy to--I have met with your staff in
the past, and I'd be happy to meet again to talk about the
upcoming round of grants. I think you'll be quite pleased by
the portfolio.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Gingrey.
HON. PHIL GINGREY, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Gingrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Dr. Baer. I--the
old saying comes to mind: It's easy to recognize a speck in
someone else's eye, yet we might indeed have a plank in our
own. Let me ask you this question: We've had some hearings--in
fact, recently--on Internet security in this country, more in
regard to advertisers' cookies and tracking people and off of
social networks and websites, et cetera, and how we should
really strike that balance.
And the United States itself has certainly faced some
recent criticism for its push to obtain personal information in
the private correspondence, as I said, of social media users in
the name of things like combatting terrorism, pursuing
criminals or even to serve legal notices to our citizens.
Does the government's reach in these areas deter users in
this country from freely utilizing the Internet services? And
are not these intrusions affecting freedom of expression on the
Internet in the United States?
Dr. Baer. Thank you very much, Congressman. I think that
the question you pose reflects what we have long acknowledged,
which is that there are challenges to preserving a free and
open Internet and making sure that we're taking care of
security concerns, law-enforcement concerns and harnessing the
full commercial power of the Internet.
Just because they're challenges doesn't mean they're
unsolvable. There are challenges in the offline world to
figuring out how to make sure that we are permitting companies
to do business and innovate and develop new ideas as well as
making sure that consumers are protected, et cetera.
So I don't think they're necessarily new challenges, but
they're certainly challenges. I think, you know, that the
secretary in her Internet-freedom speech this year, in
February, laid out a number of those tensions and the tensions
that we face in crafting policy. And, you know, in some sense
it's even harder in this sphere because the technology evolves
so quickly that it's at a hyper speed. And so you have to be
incredibly careful in the way that you respond--the policy
responds.
And I think that's why it's so important that we have
guiding principles, that we have our commitments to free
expression, that we have the commitments that are in our
Constitution and the commitments to fundamental freedoms that
are in the Helsinki Final Act and that we don't lose sight of
those as we attempt to craft policy to manage the commercial
and security aspects of the Internet.
Mr. Gingrey. If you could maybe give us some specifics what
the State Department overall is doing within OSCE to combat the
attacks on freedom-of-speech association on the Internet. You
have in general said that in response to some of these
countries that Chairman Smith talked about, that you're ready,
willing and able, from the State Department perspective, to
assist. But what specifically, if you could give us some--
Dr. Baer. Well, obviously, we have--specifically, we have
programs and we have diplomacy with the OSCE member states. But
within the OSCE, our ambassador, Ian Kelly, raises these issues
in the permanent council on a regular basis. And we--in the
lead-up to the Astana Summit last year, we worked very hard to
develop language that we hoped would be--would be part of the
action--the plan of action coming out of the summit.
As you know, there was no plan of action adopted at Astana.
But we are going to work again this year in the--in the run-up
to the upcoming ministerial in Vilnius in December to try to
make sure that a statement affirming the application of the
same fundamental freedoms that have applied offline to the fact
that they apply online, and not just freedom of expression, but
of assembly and of association as well--we're going to try to
get that language into the outcome document from the Vilnius
ministerial as well. And we'll continue to raise these issues
as we can within the OSCE.
I would say that I think that one of the great assets of
the OSCE in terms of Internet freedom is the next witness that
you'll hear from. Dunja's work has been--first of all, she
never stops. She's everywhere, all the time, working with
governments. I see her at blogger conferences. I see her all
over the place, and we work together very well. And I've really
appreciated the work that she's done. I think that she's a
clarion call. She--her reports and her statements really do
call out the areas in which we should all be focused within the
OSCE region. So I would point to her as one of the successes of
the OSCE and Internet freedom.
Mr. Gingrey. Yeah. Well, it seems to me--and this is--
certainly, I'm not being critical of it, but it sounds to me
that it's just a matter of expressing in a formal manner our
righteous indignation over some of these things and shining the
light of day on activities and hopefully embarrassing the bad
actors into behaving.
But in regard to real specifics, any kind of a hammer, it
really doesn't sound that you've described one to me. And maybe
it's not needed, but it seemed like to me--[chuckles]--it would
be very helpful if we had that.
Dr. Baer. I think there are--I think you're right. I think
there are opportunities to operationalize the commitment to
Internet freedom in other aspects of the OSCE in ODIHR. You
know, there will be opportunities on the ground in field
offices, et cetera.
But as we look back at the history of the OSCE, I think in
many respects, the hammer--the hammer that the OSCE has is the
incontrovertible, undeniable truth of the principles on which
it's founded. And so I think that to the extent that all of us
continue to call out violations of those principles, that is
the hammer. And it's not ineffective.
Mr. Gingrey. Yeah. I would agree with that. Thank you very
much, Dr. Baer. And Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Cohen.
HON. STEVE COHEN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask you just a
couple of questions. After the Arab Spring, where the Internet
was credited with so much of the Egyptian revolution, have we
seen more restrictions on Internet activity in other places
around the country--around the world?
Dr. Baer. It varies. In some places, yes, although we
don't--it's hard to attach causality to that. You know, after
the Arab Spring, when the stories were written, many of them
were breathless about the fact that the Internet had played a
major role. And to me, I've said, you know, you've got a bunch
of 20- and 30-somethings--and the whole range of society, but a
lot of 20- and 30-somethings that the stories were focused on.
If there were stories about them doing something that didn't
involve the Internet, that would be the story. I mean, these
days, the Internet is so much woven in to daily life and
indeed, into the story of human rights, that it's necessarily
part of the story.
And because of that, I mean, I think we do see that when--
that other governments are certainly paying attention. They
are--whether or not they're taking action, they're paying
attention to what's going on.
Mr. Cohen. So you haven't seen a spike?
Dr. Baer. I mean, I think we've seen certainly increase--we
were worried about the trend in China in the last six months.
There's been increasing extra-judicial detention of lawyers, et
cetera, crackdowns on religious groups, et cetera. But I don't
know whether we would causally link that to the Arab Spring.
Mr. Cohen. You co-opted the chairman's four or five
countries. What would be the next four or five countries?
[Laughter.]
Dr. Baer. I'd like to take that question.
Mr. Cohen. You'd like to take that question?
Dr. Baer. I'd like to take that question and come back to
you with a considered answer.
Mr. Cohen. OK. And none of the countries that he mentioned
are--they're all within our area of--our jurisdiction. Cuba and
China weren't mentioned. Is that the reason? Because Cuba and
China I would think would be at the top of any list.
Dr. Baer. Right. Oh, sure. I mean, China has the longest
history of Internet restrictions. Cuba has significant
restrictions. Vietnam has significant restrictions. So if we're
looking outside of the OSCE region, you know, there are a
number of others we could--we could--[inaudible].
Mr. Cohen. What's--in Turkey, what we're concerned about--I
didn't realize they had this situation, their 138 words. George
Carlin would probably know them all.
Dr. Baer. Right, he only knew seven--he only needed seven.
[Chuckles.]
Mr. Cohen. That's right. How many do you know? And what are
they, translated into English?
Dr. Baer. The collection of words is--each of the words is
meant to be--the stated intent is to filter out obscene
content. But obviously, 138 words would be--is a large number
of words. And we have serious concerns over it, that as well as
the law that authorizes the takedown of websites that could
possibly be implicated in one of seven or eight crimes, and
then the fact that Turkey has blocked over 5,000 websites.
There are serious concerns with the condition of Internet
freedom in Turkey and of media freedom, more generally.
I was talking with Dunja before I sat down today, and their
latest numbers are that over 70 journalists are in prison
there. So we have serious concerns, and we'll continue to raise
them with the Turkish government.
Mr. Cohen. And is--are there particular concerns about
references to the PKK or to Ataturk?
Dr. Baer. My understanding is that some politically
sensitive topics are--political sensitivity is the rationale
for blocking certain websites.
Mr. Cohen. All right, so Erdogan is just as concerned about
Ataturk as the other party?
Dr. Baer. Certainly there have been examples of material
that involved Ataturk that has been blocked.
Mr. Cohen. I thank you for your time and I look forward to
your answer on the next four or five countries. I yield back
the remainder of my time.
Dr. Baer. [Chuckles.] Absolutely.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Baer, thank you very much for your
testimony. If you could get back to us with some of those
follow-ups as quickly as possible, including the first five and
the next four or five, it would be very helpful. Again, it
helps us to focus our resources on the most egregious
violators, so I do thank you for that.
And I do hope as well that your office will look very
carefully at the Global Online Freedom Act and hopefully
endorse it. I know that it has to go through a lot of check-
offs for that, but you know, it is an idea whose time has come
and would give you the ability to really hold countries to
account and to designate--the designation ``Internet-
restricting country'' would trigger a number of very important
policies towards that country. So I do hope you'll take a good
look at that, as well.
Dr. Baer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm in active and very
fruitful conversations with your staff and will continue to be,
so--
Mr. Smith. Dr. Baer, thank you very much and we really
appreciate your leadership.
Dr. Baer. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. I'd like to now ask our second panel--matter of
fact, we're going to have to combine panel two and three, a
little change of procedure, because we do have a large series
of votes that will probably take over an hour and a half to
complete on the floor of the House. And I would not want to
inconvenience our witnesses more than we probably already will.
So let me ask, if I could start with Dunja Mijatovic, who's
the OSCE representative on freedom of the media. She is an
expert in media law and regulation and in 1998 was one of the
founders of the Communications Regulatory Agency in Bosnia. She
helped create a legal, regulatory and policy framework for the
media in a complex postwar society.
She also involved--was involved in setting up self-
regulatory press council and the first free media helpline in
Southeast Europe. Ms. Mijatovic has flown all the way from
Vienna to join us at this hearing today. The timing of her
appearance is fortuitous, as her office just released a report
detailing the legal provisions and practices related to freedom
of expression, the free flow of information and media pluralism
on the Internet in the OSCE region. Look forward to her
testimony.
Then we'll be hearing from David Kramer, who's the
president of Freedom House and former assistant secretary of
state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor as well as a former
Helsinki commissioner, often sitting right here, asking the
questions, not giving answers. So I thank him for being here.
And without objection, all of your very, very extensive
bios will be made a part of the record. Each of you are highly
distinguished and have great resumes that speak to a broad
range of issues, including the one at hand.
We'll then hear from Rafal Rohozinski, senior scholar,
Canada Center for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab
at University of Toronto. He was also one of the lead authors
of an important report on Internet freedom in the OSCE region
called ``Access Control as Part of the Open-Net Initiative.''
Next we'll hear from Ivan Sigal, executive director of
Global Voices, a virtual community of more than 300 bloggers
and translators around the world who work together to publish
reports from blogs and citizen's media everywhere with an
emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard on the
international media mainstream.
And then we'll hear finally from Charles Lee, a Falun Gong
practitioner and former Chinese political prisoner, who spent
from 2000 to 2003--2003 to 2006, I should say--was unjustly
incarcerated in the laogai in China and suffered gross
indignities to his person while he was held there. He believes
that technology sold by Cisco is violative [ph] of the law and
has filed a lawsuit against Cisco. He also--and he and others
have been briefing members on Capitol Hill, including Frank
Wolf and many others about a huge breakthrough in technology
that pierces the firewall in China, but he also has spoken out
about how China is sharing its worst practices with the OSCE
region.
So I'd like to now, if I could, begin with Ms. Mijatovic,
if you could proceed as you would like.
DUNJA MIJATOVIC, REPRESENTATIVE ON FREEDOM OF THE MEDIA, OSCE
Ms. Mijatovic. Thank you, Chairman, members of Commission.
I'm honored to be here again, actually the second time since I
was appointed. I appreciate this invitation very much,
particularly in light of the report that you just mentioned we
published, and I would like also to mention that the report was
commissioned by my office, but the author of the report is
distinguished Professor Yaman Akdeniz from Bilgi University in
Istanbul.
For centuries the right to be heard has been seen as the
cornerstone of democracy. We can all agree with this. It
enables other rights to exist, and in the age of a borderless
Internet, the protection of a right to freedom of expression
regardless of frontiers takes on a new and more powerful
meaning.
The argument for freedom of expression on the Web is a
double-edged sword. And it's a hotly debated issue nowadays. On
one side, it is upholding civil rights and, on the other,
allowing governments and censors to question people's own
judgments. The Internet at its best is a cyber-experience on
every single topic imaginable from personal pages detailing the
life and thoughts of a schoolchild to multinationals promoting
their wares online. Governments, however--too many governments,
I would dare to say, within the OEC region-- have already begun
to impose controls on the Internet, threatening the potential
of this new medium.
As an international community of users and providers of
information, we are at a dramatic turning point. The Internet
will change the way people live. It offers extraordinary
opportunities for enhancing creativity and learning for trading
and relating across borders, for safeguarding human rights, for
realizing democratic values and for strengthening pluralism and
cultural diversity. The change holds promise, but also holds
challenges for all of us.
One of the major challenges is to confront ways in which to
spread access through the Internet so that the whole world can
benefit rather than creating gaps between information rich and
information poor. The exploration of cyberspace can be a
civilization's truest, most challenging and also very
controversial calling and adventure. The opportunity's now
before all of us to empower every person to pursue this
opportunity and not to restrict and to suppress free speech.
However, the exploration of cyberspace brings both a greater
opportunity and in some ways more difficult challenges than any
other previous human adventure.
National actions must fit into pattern of international
understanding or in the best ways in which to deal with the
Internet content issues. Just for reminding us--and I will use
United States as an example--the Internet is the fastest
growing medium ever. While it took your country 38 years to
reach 50 million radio users, 10 years to reach the same number
of television viewers, in only five years in the case of the
Internet. So we can also see this, you know, how quick we are
moving in this adventure.
We already live in digital age, a time in which we can
create truly democratic cultures with participation by all
members of society and, in only a few years from now, this
participation will virtually include most of world citizens. So
despite the progress we see, some challenges and preconditions
remain. The first one is surely, as I mentioned at the
beginning, access to the Internet. Without this basic
requirement, without the means to connect and without an
affordable connection, the right to freedom of expression and
freedom of the media become meaningless in the online world.
The second one is restricting this freedom and restricting
free flow of information which is also one of the basic OSCE
commitments, and I would even go so far to say that the free
flow of information is, in my view, an oxygen of cyberspace. If
we stop it, the Internet cannot breathe. It becomes a
meaningless tool.
Why do certain governments try to block, restrict and
filter this flow? I'm asking myself by doing this job all the
time. To protect us from terrorism, child pedophilia, human
trafficking, and other forms of threats and make our societies
more secure? All mentioned are legitimate reasons that should
not be challenged by anyone. But to protect us from criticism,
satire, provocative and shocking comments, differing views,
tasteless and sometimes controversial content--for that they do
not have our permission. We as the citizens that voted for them
never asked or obliged them to shape our minds and opinions.
And again I repeat: In too many OSCE participating states this
is happening on a daily basis. I'm seeing this every day, but
do I travel--during the time I travel to participating states,
talking to the civil society, but also talking to the
authorities that are informing me about their attempts to
restrict and to suppress further.
There is no security without free media and free
expression, and no free expression and free media without a
security. These two terms should come hand in hand and not
fight each other, like we see in so many parts of the world.
And there is no better place, at least in my modest view, to
discuss and fight for both in the OSCE--than the OSCE. Security
and human rights are both at a heart of Helsinki Act and our
standard commemorative declaration as well as the OSCE
principles and commitments that we share. So why do we still
struggle? We can also ask ourselves, and why are we so afraid
from words and where does this fear come from?
Our common goal achieving the promises we made should be a
free, open and safe Internet. Very simply, when services are
blocked or filtered, users of Internet platforms everywhere
cannot be served effectively. Today, many governments disturb
the free flow of our online information. Popular tactics
include incorporating surveillance tools into Internet
infrastructure, blocking online services, imposing new
secretive regulations and requiring licensing regimes. Since my
time is limited, I will finalize my statement without
mentioning particular countries, but I'm ready to reply to any
of your questions.
I have a brief recommendation and a comment at the end. I
would like to stress once again that blocking access to
Internet or banning certain content has proven to be totally
ineffective. I call it--maybe too bluntly--when I talk to the
authorities within the OSCE region: I call it a lost battle.
Even by trying to establish regionalized networks, it will not
be possible to gain full control over the communication
exchanged and information shared on the Web. Any attempt to
hinder the free flow of information to disproportionally
restrict the right to free expression, to block dissenting
opinion, or to prevent critical voices from being heard will
prove to be short-sighted because a free Internet and
independent media are a means and not an end in itself.
Finland and Estonia are countries that should be followed,
in my view. They introduced pioneering legislation which
established the access to Internet as a constitutional right.
In France, the constitutional court ruled in a similar way, but
they have still a long way to go.
In order to pay tribute to the unique contribution the
Internet has given to participatory democracy, to freedom of
expression and to freedom of the media, it is only fitting to
enshrine the right to access the Internet on exactly that level
where such rights belong, as human right with a constitutional
rank. Perhaps the time is ripe to turn a new page in the
history of fundamental rights and establish access to Internet
as universal human right. It would be promising indeed to see
the number grow of the OSCE participating states which
recognize this principle on a constitutional level. The
Internet is a fantastic resource that has fundamentally changed
our societies for the better. We should not be afraid of it. It
will continue to have a positive impact if we allow it. The
lesson is simple: The Internet must remain free and safe. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Smith. [Off mic]--thank you very much for your
testimony. I really appreciate it. We all do, and your work and
your report.
I--we do have a series of 16 votes followed by two
additional votes. Without objection, all of your prepared
testimony is going to be made a part of the record for the
hearing record. Technically we will have to briefly go to a
briefing, and Mark Milosch and Shelly Han, our policy--senior
policy adviser and chief of staff, will chair the--that part.
We will try to come back when there's a motion to recommit. We
should have about 25 minutes, but there are 16 back-to-back
votes.
No one can ever predict this, believe me, or else we
wouldn't have done this at this particular time. So I apologize
for that inconvenience to all of you, but --and I can assure
you that all of us will read your testimonies very, very
carefully and react to them because you provide us a blueprint
for going forward as well as information in terms of where we
are right now. So thank you so much, but I will though ask
Secretary Kramer if he could begin his testimony, and then we
will then become a briefing; but all of your testimonies are
part of the official record.
Secretary Kramer, please.
SEC. DAVID J. KRAMER, PRESIDENT, FREEDOM HOUSE
Sec. Kramer. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the
opportunity to be here. It's always a pleasure to appear before
you and the Commission.
In the interests of time, let me just very quickly say the
last time I appeared before you was before an HFAC
subcommittee, and we were talking about Belarus. And despite
the gravity of the situation there and the pressure and attacks
that protestors and civil society activists, journalists and
others face on a daily basis in Belarus, I have to tell you,
Mr. Chairman, I am more optimistic that that situation is going
to change for the better before too long. I think Alexander
Lukashenko's days are numbered. He is in the gravest situation
he's ever faced, and I don't think he's going to be able to
come out of it.
So many thanks to you in particular, Mr. Chairman, for your
sponsorship and support and leadership on the Belarus Democracy
Act that passed the House last week, an extremely important
piece of legislation, and very much hope that that will move
through the Senate, and get the signature of the president very
soon. So many thanks for that.
Mr. Smith. Please share that with Orest as well because he
has done the lion's share of--[inaudible]
Sec. Kramer. I do on--I do almost on a daily basis.
Absolutely.
Mr. Chairman, my organization, Freedom House, produced this
report, ``Freedom on the Net 2011,'' in April of this year.
It's the second time we have done this report, and in this
report we looked at 37 countries around the world, and in the
OSCE region, we looked at 11 countries.
You and your colleagues had asked about some rankings of
countries. This is not a comprehensive list of OSCE member
states, but I think it does give you some sense of where
countries stand. There are some countries that stand out.
As Dunja mentioned, Estonia is at the top of the list; the
United States is not too far behind; Germany, the U.K. and
Italy all stand in the free category. We rank countries as to
whether they're free, partly free or not free in--when it comes
to Internet freedom.
In the partly free category--and this is based on their
scores, so I'm going from the best scores down to the lowest
scores--would be Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia,
Kazakhstan, and then, in the very last category of not free,
would be Belarus, not surprisingly and unfortunately.
Mr. Chairman, Freedom House produces this report, but it
also engages in activities in promoting Internet freedom,
across a range of activities, in helping with censorship-
circumvention technologies in countries where the Internet is
restricted. We build indigenous capacity to promote and support
the use of anti-censorship tools in highly repressive
environments, provide technology to developers and work with
international bodies, including with the OSCE, and it's a real
privilege for me to be here this morning with the high
representatives for special--for media freedom in the OSCE
region.
There are--it is not surprising, I think, that many of
these governments that I listed do their best to try to
suppress Internet freedom just as they do with other kinds of
freedom and other kinds of media. Belarus, as I indicated, is
at the top of the list in trying to crack down on Internet
freedom, and the Internet is simply the latest frontier for
which Belarusian authorities try to restrict freedom in their
country.
But Belarus is not alone. The other--a number of the other
countries that I mentioned are equally engaged in activities
and efforts to crack down on Internet freedom. Some of them
just simply haven't kept up with the Internet and
communications revolution sufficiently to be able to do so, but
I think if we look at their efforts in cracking down on TV and
radio and newspapers, it is not a stretch to assume that the
Internet is very much on their radar screen and will be the
next target of their efforts.
It is very important to defuse the impact of the latest
online calls to protest--or rather in an effort to defuse the
online calls to protest in places like Belarus, we see these
governments impose restrictive and repressive measures to spam
online threads about protests, misuse hash tags, create fake
Twitter accounts to undermine actual activists, engage in all
kinds of activities; so they're both using the Internet and
they're also trying to crack down on it, and I think that's
something we very much have to keep in mind.
My testimony goes into a number of countries. I already
offered you the rankings. I do want to highlight and mention
the work that the State Department is doing including when I
was there at the State Department and funding became available
to promote Internet freedom. I commend the Obama administration
and DRL in particular for the work it's doing in this area. And
also as Dan Baer said, I do want to acknowledge Ian Kelly, our
OSCE ambassador in Vienna for the work he has done and for his
outspoken record in stressing the importance of Internet
freedom.
I think, in the interest of time, I will forego going
through the details of each of the countries, but in my written
testimony, I go into more detail on the cases of Belarus and
Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey, which are reflected
in our Internet freedom report. I do also refer to one country
that is not reflected in our report, and that is Hungary in
light of the concerns that have been expressed about a media
law that was passed last year in Hungary and is being
implemented this year and the potential impact that that could
have on Internet freedom as well.
So, with that, let me close there in the interests of
yielding time to my fellow panelists. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much, Mr. Kramer. As the
chairman said right before he left, we are now in briefing
mode. We'll continue and hope that he will be able to return
when they're debating a motion to recommit. We will proceed now
to Mr. Rohozinski.
RAFAL ROHOZINSKI, SENIOR SCHOLAR, CANADA CENTER FOR GLOBAL
SECURITY STUDIES AND THE CITIZEN LAB, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Mr. Rohozinski. Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like
to thank the Commission for the opportunity to appear and
testify at today's hearing, which comes at a particularly
important moment. The Internet has precipitated perhaps the
fastest and largest expansion in rights in human history. And
yet we find ourselves at a constitutive moment where our
actions, our leadership, can lead to two opposing outcomes: one
of which promises a future of greater freedoms and
transparency; the other threatens a return to a darker, more
authoritarian past.
My name is Rafal Rohozinski. I'm a senior scholar at the
Canada Center for Global Security Studies, and CEO of the
SecDev Group and Psiphon, Inc. For the past 10 years, I've been
a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative, a
collaborative international research project between the
University of Toronto in Canada, Harvard University, Cambridge
University and the SecDev Group which has studied and
documented the practice and policy of Internet censorship and
surveillance worldwide.
We have published more than two dozen case studies and
reports and are currently publishing our third volume that
documents censorship practices in over 70 countries worldwide,
including all of the members of the OSCE. The OpenNet
Initiative has created the largest and most comprehensive
profile of how countries seek to shape access to cyberspace
through a combination of regulation, repression and technical
means.
Now, just over 65 years ago, Winston Churchill warned an
American audience of the dangers of an Iron Curtain falling
across Europe, casting a shadow of authoritarianism and
depriving citizens of their basic democratic rights. Churchill
spoke in 1946 at a time when the United States stood as a(n)
uncontested global power. He urged the creation of norms and
institutions that would safeguard freedom and actively oppose
the forces of authoritarianism. For Churchill, the end of World
War II was a constitutive moment, when the choices made by the
victorious allies would have enduring consequences for the
causes of freedom in Europe and elsewhere.
Today, we stand at the threshold of a similar constitutive
moment, brought about by a revolution whose long-term
consequences we are only now starting to grasp. For the past
two decades, the emergence of the Internet and cyberspace has
led to the largest sustained global expansion of knowledge,
rights and freedoms. Over a third of humanity is connected to
the Internet, and they are almost as many cell phones in
circulation globally as there are people. Significantly we are
now seeing the coming of age of digital natives, those who have
grown up knowing only a connected world. Two-thirds of those
currently accessing cyberspace are under the age of 25, and
over 80 percent of those use one form of social media or
another.
But the numbers do not do the justice to the social
significance of this expansion. So pervasive and all-
encompassing is this revolution that it's difficult to see just
how fundamentally it's changed the exercise of individual human
rights and how much it's added to the cause of basic freedoms
and the abilities of all people, no matter how small, to make
their voices heard. We need not look any further than the color
revolutions in the Commonwealth of Independent States or the
recent Arab Spring to witness the extraordinary power of
networked social movements.
But the tectonic plates of cyberspace are also shifted. The
U.S., once the heartland of the Internet, makes up
approximately 13 percent of the global Internet-connected
population. Europe and the U.S. are approximately 40 percent.
The center of gravity is fast shifting to the south and to the
east. The consequences of the shift are of direct relevance to
today's proceedings.
A digital curtain is descending across the globe that
threatens to reverse the gains made possible through the
emergence of the global commons of cyberspace. Just over half
of the world's Internet-connected populations live under one
form of restriction or another, and that number is fast rising.
Since 2003, when we first documented the emergence of the
``Great Firewall of China,'' more than 45 states worldwide have
adopted similar means for turning the Internet from a global
commons into a series of gated communities. Eurasia, and in
particular the states of the former Soviet Union, are a petri
dish of experimentation in the new forms of online repression
that deprive citizens of the means to demand transparency from
their leaders, accountability from their governments and the
right to seek social and political change.
These new forms of restrictions, which we document as
second- and third-generation controls, leverage the ability of
governments to create restrictive legal environments that
attempt to enforce self-censorship through fear of punishment.
They also include the application of sophisticated technical
means, just-in-time blocking, disrupting access to critical
information resources at times when they are most needed,
sowing disinformation and otherwise manipulating information
flows. They also include the use of targeted online attacks,
denial of service, injecting false content and sophisticated
information operations--and I mean this in the military sense--
turned inwards at domestic populations.
These controls are pervasive but also applied selectively,
such as during elections in order to discredit legitimate
opposition groups and deprive them of the right to free and
unfettered speech. And I say for the record, as someone who
operates a circumvention company, that no circumvention
technology can effectively combat second- and third-generation
techniques, which are becoming the global norm.
In Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Russia, and
notably in Belarus, these techniques have been used with great
success to silence opposition groups, driving them and their
followers offline. In fact, in all post-Soviet states, the
Internet is subject to one form of control or another. Indeed,
the mechanisms for control are getting deeper and more
coordinated through regional bodies such as the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty
Organization, as well as bilateral cooperation between
governments and their security services.
Tragically, perhaps, we are complicit in this growing trend
towards authoritarianism. Our own fears of cyberinsecurity and
terrorism make it easier for others to appropriate these terms
to justify political repression. Terrorists can morph into
anyone inconveniently opposed to the political status quo; and
calls for changing the Internet, introducing greater security
and the ability to identify users, helpful in tracking down
hackers and cybercriminals, find their place in the arsenal of
repressive regimes as a means of selectively prosecuting human
rights activists, journalists or anyone seeking to struggle for
social and political reform.
Our emphasis on harmonizing laws on cybercrime and seeking
global solutions to global security--to cybersecurity
paradoxically makes it difficult to assert and demand respect
for freedom of expression and access to information online.
And security is not the only means by which rights can be
suppressed. Net neutrality, copyright enforcement and the
empowerment of telecommunications carriers to clean pipes are
convenient means for regimes with less-than-democratic
tendencies to offload and outsource policing and ultimately
repression. There are no simple solutions to these challenges,
only difficult tradeoffs. To paraphrase the words of the
immortal Pogo: We have met the enemy, and he is at least
partially us.
So what is to be done? Future historians will look back at
this time and see it as a constitutive moment. Before us are
some hard choices, but also clear norms and ideals that have
been core to the Euro-Atlantic alliance for the past 50 years
and part of our shared cultural and historical heritage.
Leadership comes from the courage to make hard decisions in
pursuit of a greater common good. In this respect, a commitment
to an open, global commons of cyberspace is by far the most
important and far-reaching objective for the U.S. and its like-
minded partners in Europe and globally to support.
Security is an important obligation of the state but must
be balanced against preserving the right to dissent,
communicate and act online, even if it comes at costs. This is
especially true as the new generation of digital natives find
their own voice in the online world. New forms of protests,
whether they come in the form of making public confidential
information, as in the case of WikiLeaks; or the
``hacktivism,'' as has been exercised by LulzSec and Anonymous,
may be the necessary friction for preserving a global norm that
enshrines the right to seek and access information.
We must carefully adjust our own laws to make accommodation
for some of the new forms of dissent that will emerge. Is there
really a difference between picketing an employer during a
labor dispute and making his website and Internet systems
inaccessible through denial-of-service attacks? These are
important questions, and we must pause before we consider how
to address them, as the rules that we apply will have
repercussions well beyond our borders. In a global world, there
is no such thing as a purely domestic policy.
In specific terms, at the highest level, this Commission
should encourage our European partners to remain committed to a
global commons of cyberspace. Calls such as those put forward
by some members of the U.N. to end the multi-stakeholder
engagement on governance of cyberspace should be strongly
resisted. Pressure should be applied through bilateral
agreements such as--as well as organizations such as the WTO to
ensure that restricted access to content online is also framed
as a trade issue, with consequences and sanctions against
countries pursuing these practices. Access to an uncensored
Internet should become a basic measure of freedom and
demographic--democratic progress and made a condition for
recipients of preferential U.S. trade relationships or
development assistance. Access to political content via the
Internet should become a central component of monitoring the
freedom and fairness of national elections, as important as the
right to assembly and balloting. Preserving the global Internet
commons will not be easy, but the costs of not doing so are
greater. The rise of a new superpower in the East is occurring
just as the tectonic plates of cyberspace are shifting to the
same region. The historic moment in which we live and which has
greatly expanded human expression, quest for knowledge and an
ability to network on a planetary scale risks becoming a fading
chapter in a future where the same technologies enable
surveillance societies that far exceed those which George
Orwell's ``1984'' could imagine. The future is ours to lose,
and as in those days of March 1946, when Churchill warned us of
the Iron Curtain, now is the time for us to courageously make
choices so that our constitutive moment, the future of
cyberspace, furthers rather than constrains the universal
values of dignity, freedom and right to choose.
I thank you for your time and attention.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much, Mr. Rohozinski. That--
there's a lot to return to in that testimony. I particularly
appreciated your image of the--of the digital curtain.
Now we'll proceed to Mr. Ivan Sigal.
IVAN SIGAL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GLOBAL VOICES
Mr. Sigal. Good morning, Commission. Thank you for the
opportunity to address the subject and the topic of online
freedom of expression in the OSCE countries. My name is Ivan
Sigal. I am the executive director of Global Voices, a
community of bloggers, writers and translators from around the
world who amplify and analyze the most interesting
conversations appearing in citizen media. Global Voices also
has a team of writers and analysts who focus on the former
Soviet Union, and my testimony today is informed in part by
their analysis and their research.
So my perspective today is slightly different from the--
kind of the state and institutional perspective that we've
heard thus far from the international organizations. I am
trying to channel or represent a diverse set of voices and
perspectives that are coming from individuals who are on the
cutting edge of the creative process of generating content,
news and information for their own communities in their own
contexts, and I think the important thing for me in all of this
conversation is to figure out how we can support and emphasize
that the work of building and creating networks starts with
individuals and citizens in their own communities and is
focused primarily on creative capacity.
I'd like to look specifically at the question of recent
attacks and challenges in the OSCE region, focusing very much
on the former Soviet Union. I'd like to say that while attacks
have been occurring in this region for quite a few years, those
targets have mostly been mass media and more institutional
targets. And the change that we've seen recently has been much
more of a focus on individuals and social networks. Those
targets have fewer resources, less experience, and face a
different kind of risk than traditional mass media.
A recent example is Belarus, and we've heard a good deal
about that today, so I only want to emphasize that the targets
of social media networks themselves are focusing on a different
kind of challenge than what we've seen, which is that creative
hacking and targeting of individuals that are part of a social
media network themselves are not just out going after elites
and journalists and kind of leaders or representatives of
communities, but individuals who are acting in their own
interests, without necessarily an awareness of the impact that
their participation in these social media networks will have.
More generally, the mix of tactics of suppression and
repression that we see in the OSCE region has a--has a long
history, a combination of filtering and hacking of websites,
physical threats and intimidation, propaganda and defamation,
burdensome legal and regulatory environments, market
manipulation and the use of other legal controls such as tax
inspections that worked to threaten an earlier generation of
content providers online. The targeting of individual websites,
online publications and individual writers through a range of
online and offline tactics is also not a new story in the
region. The concern is that, as the Internet access grows
across the region, governments will step up their restrictions,
targeting not just the relatively elite communities, but all
citizens writing and sharing content on a range of user-
generated platforms.
And while the tactics may change, the overall strategy of
mixing tools of repression to achieve various ends remains in
place. The ultimate goal of this kind of harassing activity
seems to be to systematically suppress speech and media content
that questions the legitimacy of those in power, and
particularly those who question how power and wealth are gained
and distributed. It is notable as well that some of these
practices are not restricted to nondemocratic regimes. Recent
mass media laws in Hungary also treat websites as mass media,
for instance.
I'd like to provide you with a short list of some of the
tactics and speech--to suppress speech. My testimony goes into
them in some detail, so I'll just give you the categories here.
Those are: legal and regulatory controls; pressure on service
providers and intermediaries; extralegal responses; propaganda,
misinformation; disinformation campaigns and harassment of
individuals; and indirect methods that are not directly related
to speech, such as violence, destruction of property, arson,
physical and psychological pressure.
In this context, what can OSCE member states and the U.S.
government do? The document of these abuse tactics is well--
reasonably well established, as reports referenced earlier and
throughout the panel today have shown, thanks to activists and
freedom of expression watchdog activities. The OSCE should
continue to support and promote monitoring and documentation of
member states' activities in this sector, both in their own
work and in the work of civil society watchdog groups. The
deeper question is the willingness of governments to apply the
political will to create positive incentives for citizens to
participate in public spheres, pursuing both the letter and the
spirit of OSCE rights obligations and the Article 19 of the
U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
These commitments are not just about the economic or
scientific benefits of increasing Internet penetration, a
concept that many FSU countries and governments support, but
about the political and civic rights of their citizens. Without
politically legitimate and accountable governance, the
political will to foster these rights is unlikely to appear.
And to be clear, not every government in the former Soviet
Union applies restrictions on online speech to the same measure
or kind. The picture is varied, with some countries working to
meet their obligations.
So in my testimony, I think for--in interest of time, I
won't go through the details of it. And in my testimony, I have
a set of ideas about how principles--about some principles for
removing suppression of speech and discouraging self-censorship
in the context of existing laws and legal frameworks within the
former Soviet Union. They exist ideas about restrictions on the
nature of filtering if it is absolutely necessary, ideas about
the restrictions of the use of hate speech or negative speech
laws to suppress broader classes of speech, and ideas such as
requirements for independent courts rather than administrative
uses for law. I'll leave that--I'll leave that to you to read
later on.
I want to--I want to focus at--for the end of my testimony
on the idea of support for generating and creating contexts for
people to participate more positively. There are positive
reinforcements that the OSCE member states can follow,
supporting both the letter and the spirit of their commitments.
From the perspective of citizen interests in online
environments, this includes a focus not just on access to
information, but on the opportunity for online participation,
creation and engagement, online and networked media
environments. Speech rights precipitate assembly movement and
all other rights. Without the medium of speech, other rights
are difficult to assert.
There has, in the past year, been an appearance of newly
assertive civic voices in several OSCE countries that have poor
records on government legitimacy issues such as free and fair
elections, corruption and repressive security regimes. The use
of information technology tools and platforms that combine data
analysis, visualization tools mapping community participation
and reporting, and subject-specific expertise point to the
creation of projects that are specifically designed to
highlight corruption, create transparency and demand
governmental accountability. Examples include a project called
``Help Map,'' which allowed Russian citizens to volunteer
information and resources to fight fires in the summer of 2010,
Roskoms yetka [ph], a crowd-sourced map in which Russian
citizens can document instances of bribery, and RosPil, which
documents--which crowd-sources independent analyses of Russian
government procurements.
These projects show the potential that citizens of--in the
former Soviet Union have to find creative solutions to their
own problems. Such projects can demonstrate that drivers of
change often come from inside repressive environments, and that
with greater connectivity, opportunities to participate can
create meaningful change. Supporting the continued openness and
unfettered nature of the Internet provides projects such as
these with a firm foundation for the emergence of creative
opportunities for people to express their citizenship. The OSCE
role is best articulated in asserting that its members follow
the letter and the--this spirit of their obligations.
As far as the U.S. government, its role is best articulated
as supporting a continued open nature of the Internet as well.
But as a first step, the U.S. should consider how its policies
of Internet freedom will affect local communities as--that they
purport to help. It should follow a do-no-harm approach that is
sensitive to local concerns and contexts and takes into
consideration the personal security and goals of the online
activist working in repressive contexts.
In addition to voicing support for access, advocates should
consider how to provide multifaceted diverse tools and
resources that help people both to get access to information in
restrictive environments and, perhaps more importantly, to help
them create, share and preserve, build the tools and resources
to be engaged in their--as citizens in their countries. The
recent U.S. State Department initiatives to support a wide
range of tools in education and information--[inaudible]--
creative content in countries that use extensive filtering is
an example of the right kind of approach. Narrowly focusing
resources only on information access to external information,
on the other hand, downplays the importance of locally
generated content, information tools--information technology
tools and the opportunities for communities in repressive
environments to strengthen their own content creation.
While building tools to help people participate freely
online, protect identity and privacy and participate freely in
the exchange of information is useful, it is ultimately not a
substitute for the application of political will on the part of
all OSCE member states to foster legal environments and civic
cultures of online participation. To ensure that we protect and
then grow the Internet for citizens first, rather than for
security agencies or corporate interests, in this context, the
U.S. has the opportunity to lead by example, whether in
supporting open governmental data, as with the recent launch of
the Open Government Partnership, or supporting Internet policy
principles that represent the interests of citizens as well as
corporations and governments in forums such as the OECD, or
ensuring that cybersecurity policies do not impinge on the
privacy and rights of its citizens, as with ongoing debates
over the extensions of the Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act to facilitate surveillance.
Finally, governments interested in supporting these
commitments should support information access but also focus on
the creative capacity, removing barriers to civic
participation. A set of tools to respond to restrictive
governments removing both economic and political barriers is
just the beginning. Governments interested in meeting this
spirit of OSCE--[inaudible]--can offer many positive incentives
to use and support that kind of participation.
Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much, Mr. Sigal. Again, there's
a lot to return to there. One thing I would like to return to
later--if I--if I forget, please remind me--I think many of us
would like to hear more about freedom of expression in Hungary
in particular as it touches on the Internet and new laws there.
So now we'll turn to Mr. Charles Lee.
DR. CHARLES LEE, FORMER CHINESE POLITICAL PRISONER
Dr. Lee. OK, thank you.
Thank you very much, Commission. It's my honor and pleasure
to be here testifying on what happened in China.
When we look at China, actually, the Communist regime in
China is the grandfather of information control. After they
took over the power in 1949, they took over all these
newspapers and, you know, radio, that kind of things at that
time.
And later on, well, Internet came up about 20 years ago.
They had a great fear inside the Communist Party because--and
that was just after the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement--
democratic movement crackdown, so they are afraid--very afraid
of these sentiments in the--inside China. So they--but they
know that because they opened their economy, so they cannot
shut down the Internet. So they try their best to develop the
Internet in the meantime, the controlling system and then the
``great firewall.'' So the ``great firewall'' prototype was
established in China in 1990s already.
But however, the development of this Internet censorship
was very much tightened and even more sophisticated after the
crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners. Talking about the Falun
Gong, you know, just want to mention briefly that what is--
Falun Gong is: The use of--is an ancient Chinese meditation
system based upon the principles of truthfulness, compassion,
forbearance, and they have also five sets of exercises.
Combined by the principles of this practice and also exercise
is so effective.
So the Falun Gong practitioners--the number of them
increased to almost 100 million after the end '98, so the
Communist regime started to crack down because they did not
want to see any group of individuals who can, you know, think
and then do things separate from their system. So they started
to crack down in 1999, and then, after that, tens of thousands
practitioners have been persecuted--tortured to death.
You know, ultimately because they--you know, they highly
control information and, like, Internet is one of the--one of
them--you know, the most important one--you have also the TV,
radio and the newspapers--they launched a huge campaign against
Falun Gong, defaming Falun Gong practitioners in order to
incite hatred against the practitioners.
But--[inaudible]--there are a lot of efforts done by the
Falun Gong practitioners, especially those people in this
country--they have followed a--[inaudible]--Internet freedom
consortium, combined with the practitioners from the East Coast
to the West Coast. They have developed a lot of very effective
technologies that can be used by people inside China.
One of the examples is that Falun Gong practitioners inside
China have established about 200,000 material centers. But
these material centers, they use these technologies developed
by the Falun Gong practitioners outside of the country to get
the access to the--to websites out of China and also get the
materials--all those materials have been sent out, most of them
by the practitioners inside China themselves. So they--
[inaudible]--materials and then distribute the truth materials
to people inside China.
And also, another issue is that--[inaudible]--thousand
material centers, they support an estimate of 40 million Falun
Gong practitioners inside China today, even though the Chinese
government spends so much energy and time and money to crack
down, but there are still so many people inside China
continuing to practice and also reveal the truth to the
grassroots people in China.
Another aspect is that since the end of 2004, there's a
book called ``Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party''--was
published by the Epoch Times. And since that time, there's a
growing wave of--movement which is focused on quitting the
Communist Party membership and also their other group--other
organizations like Communist Youth League and Communist
Pioneers. And the number of these people who have quit these
memberships have reached about 98 million just recently.
So these numbers should tell us how effective these
technologies are, you know, in terms of piercing the ``great
wall,'' and also for those technologies--you know, Mr.--[name
inaudible]--just mentioned that, supported by some of the
foreign companies, including Cisco. They have--[inaudible]--
technologies. And also, another one is called Golden Shield;
it's a system of monitoring and filtering the information,
monitoring the information, communication between different
people inside China, so they can track down those people's IP
address and find out who those people are and arrest them. So
these numbers tell people that, you know, it's like an ongoing,
continuing war between the Chinese Communist regime and also
the--between--and the Falun Gong practitioners who have been
developing these technologies and upgrading these very
frequently so they make sure these technologies work.
So I just to say, these technologies have also been used by
some other countries like those people in Iran, Egypt and also
other countries like Vietnam, to get more information on--
censored information. So I think this-- nowadays, you know,
this--one thing is that the Communist regime, they have
developed so many confiscated technologies and have it used by
other dictatorial countries as well. But on the other hand, we
also see hope that people are working on this, piercing these
great firewalls and also those Golden Shield systems. So it is
important to raise awareness of this ongoing war between this
censorship and also these efforts to piercing this censorship.
And we should support more of these people who can really bring
this technology to--bring the information to the--free
information to people in those countries.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much, Charles. I hope--we hope
we can return to some of the themes you raise, particularly
including the effect that China may have on degrading Internet
freedom standards in the OSCE.
As the chairman said before he went to vote, Shelly Han and
I will proceed to ask questions regarding your testimony, just
as if we were--we were in a hearing while we wait for the
chairman to return. Ms. Han, I should say, is on the staff of
the Helsinki Commission. She is working on Internet freedom
legislation for the chairman, and she organized this hearing. I
will begin with a question, then I will turn over to Shelly and
we'll go back and forth.
The question that I wanted to start off with--and this is
perhaps for--more for David Kramer and Mr. Rohozinski--though,
of course, all are welcome--is: Is it correct to see in the
OSCE--we've talked about China here--is it correct to see China
as the instigator or as the motivating force, inspiration,
provider of technology, provider of techniques and apparatuses
to countries that are--that are restricting Internet freedom?
Or is there--is there--is it--do we tend to exaggerate that? Is
there some other driver, perhaps, within the OSCE--would there
be within the OSCE a country that plays the role that we often
attribute to China of spreading or providing technologies of
repression? I'm wondering about Russia and Kazakhstan, but it
could be another country.
Please.
Sec. Kramer. I would--China is an accomplice to it, I would
say--in providing technology and know-how. But the motivating
factor is insecure, paranoid, authoritarian regimes in the
OSCE. They are the ones who are driving efforts to crack down
on Internet freedom just as they are responsible for
suppressing other kinds of freedom. And what we see are these
regimes cooperating with each other.
And in fact, they do a much better job of collaborating,
cooperating with each other--sharing technology, sharing, if
you'll allow the expression, best practices--at least for what
they do, than we do in the democratic community of nations in
terms of sharing information and technology and coming together
to push back on these challenges that are posed by
authoritarian regimes.
If we had included all of Central Asia in our survey we
would have seen Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as one of my
colleagues had mentioned, also in the not-free category when it
comes to Internet freedom. And some of these regimes do rely on
outside players, such as China, to help them in suppressing
Internet freedom in their countries. But I think to be clear,
the driving force is the regimes themselves who do not want to
see freedom, whether it's on the Internet or anywhere else, in
their societies.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you.
Mr. Rohozinski. Well, I would add to that, I think, maybe
something which is a basic fact. And that is that the OSCE
region--countries within that region also belong to other
regional blocs; for example, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization or the CSTO. Within those organizations certainly
there is collaboration between security forces and security
interests around shared agendas. Whether that translates into
technical assistance, I think is a fairly far stretch at this
point in time. We certainly have not seen in any of the former
Soviet states the adoption of identical technologies such are
used for securing the great firewall of China. That simply
doesn't happen.
We see instead a lot more just-in-time approaches to
filtering and blocking, which are built around the specific
political agendas of the regimes at stake and generally apply
to times when those regimes feel it is necessary to tamp down
on inconvenient opposition movements. Certainly China plays a
role in terms of supplying technology that builds the physical
layer of the Internet. And certainly Chinese operators,
particularly in Central Asia, have been vying with Russian
telecom operators in terms of becoming the carriers of Internet
traffic for those countries in the region.
In fact, when we did a study in Uzbekistan several years
ago and compared the censorship regimes on several of the
Internet service providers, we found that there was an
inconsistency between those that chose to buy their Internet
services through Russian providers and those who used China
Telecom, where China Telecom's censorship regime had
effectively been exported to this particular central Asian
country. So at the physical layer obviously Huawei is a major
provider of equipment.
And since Huawei also operates in Western markets, all of
their equipment conforms to CALEA standards, which essentially
means it has the same technologies and protocols built in to
give lawful access to interception of Internet technologies as
does anybody else. By that measure we can say that Chinese
technology is used to secure censorship means in--[inaudible]--
states. But whether that's a direct transfer of technology or
something which is inherently built in to the standards of
technologies that we all use I think is a more accurate way of
putting it. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you. Anyone else?
Dr. Lee. To talk about little things about--you know,
besides the technical aspects is that these countries in the
OSCE region, most of them are former communist countries. Yeah,
I know they're not right now, but there are still elements of--
you know, from the previous communist parties--the mentality
and things. And I think it's important to realize the movement
I just talked about, the--[inaudible]--Communist Party in
China. This is like a de-communization of people's mind and
behavior. So this is, I think, is like a broadest, you know,
angle to look at these things. And it will truly improve this
free information efforts, so for people to realize what is
truth. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much, Charles--or, Mr. Lee. We
go back a little ways. Shelly?
Ms. Han. Ms. Mijatovic, I wanted to ask you--your report
that you issued last week provides a really important baseline
for where we are in the OSCE region in terms of Internet
content regulation. And I'm wondering where you see your work
going forward on this issue, what kind of support do you need
from participating states and how receptive are--what we would
call, without naming, but the problem countries--how receptive
are they to efforts from your office or other parts of the OSCE
or even bilaterally to changing some of the regimes that they
have right now?
Ms. Mijatovic. Thank you. Well, the report is in a way a
step forward in the process of reminding governments of 56 [ph]
about their commitments and, as you rightly pointed out in the
headline, promises our heads of states made on so many
occasions in relation to the free flow of information. It
doesn't change, offline or online. The situation within the
region and beyond of course--we cannot ignore it--it's not
rosy.
The attempts of the governments to further restrict,
suppress are visible, almost without any shame. This is done in
the process of stopping and silencing the voices. Sometimes we
see kind of a sophisticated way of suppressing free speech. But
in the cases we see more and more and--colleagues today and--
mentioned several countries where we see the problems, which is
now increasing particularly in relation to Facebook--social
media. So that is seen by--and I would dare to say--unstable
governments as another threat in the process of establishing
more and more borders.
And I really liked what Rafal said about digital curtain.
What they are trying to do, they are trying to build a curtain
within their own countries. But again--and I would repeat
myself once again, it's a lost battle because in the offline
world history taught us that no matter how much the regimes try
to suppress free speech or human rights in general, people will
always find ways to reach for those rights. It's not an easy
task; it's not an easy job for my office and for the mandate
that I have. I must say that the cooperation is there, but
sometimes I have a feeling that some of the documents--some of
the most important documents we have within the OSCE are just
empty words on paper because they are not complied with, they
are not honored and they are not implemented.
My job in this process is to remind the governments, but
today we also heard from a distinguished commissioner at the
beginning, do we need a hammer? I do not think so because all
the tools that the OSCE has at its disposal, because of
comprehensive and
consensus-based nature--all those tools are of democratic
nature. And those are the only tools we use in this process in
order to build more trust.
It's not something that happens overnight, but the
cooperation is there. There is more need for coordinated
approach by different international organizations in order to
make changes. Belarus was mentioned on so many occasions. The
only thing we can do is to continue raising our voices and
trying to change the situation there and to help people that
are really suffering tremendously just because they have
differing views or they tried to express their opinion.
Also the countries that were mentioned and they're all the
time on the very top of my agenda. Hungary, you mentioned, is
of great concern for my office. I raised this issue first time
in June, 2009. And we are at the moment monitoring the
situation there in order to see in which direction this will
go.
You also ask, what are the ways we can help and we can
change the situation? We can offer legal analysis of certain
laws, articles we send with recommendations to the government.
We did it in the case of Hungary. Unfortunately, the
recommendations and everything that was put forward was not
accepted as valid for certain changes. But we do continue
dialogue because that's the only way. And from the Hungarian
government's side there is cooperation, in a way that they do
listen. But unfortunately still there are no changes, even
though I do expect that those changes will--we will start
working on it soon.
Turkey as well it was mentioned--and I think it's important
in this because we mentioned several Central Asian countries
and post-communist countries. Turkey is in a way a very
particular case. We have two issues that are burning:
imprisonment and Internet freedom. But I think that would
deserve a longer time in order to explain it. We do work with
the Turkish government very openly.
I'm invited by the authorities for the first visit since I
was appointed in September. I welcome this step forward very
much, and I do hope that we will come to some conclusions which
will change the Internet law that in a way needs to change if
you want to see any positive movements. But at the moment, the
situation doesn't look very promising.
Mr. Milosch. Ms. Mijatovic, could you characterize the
Hungarian law and how it affects Internet freedom so that we
all have an idea?
Ms. Mijatovic. Well, it's almost impossible--[chuckles]--at
this occasion because the law--it's one of the--it's thousands
and thousands of pages that were adopted overnight, no public
consultations. It is very much related to the whole media
package, so it's not just the Internet freedom. We heard that--
there were many issues mentioned today, but in relation to
Internet particularly--Internet is seen as just another media
that needs to be regulated in the old traditional way.
Media Council--Media Authority, which is the regulatory
authority, is composed of members with the mandate of nine
years renewable, which is not seen in any of the EU member
states. They have full power to regulate electronic media,
Internet and press, which is also something that is not seen
in--within the EU member states' legislation. Internet is a
chapter that we also analyzed, and we offered the analysis to
the Hungarian government in order to change the law before it
was adopted, but as I said, that was not accepted. And the only
changes that were made were changes--I would call them of a
cosmetic nature--that were made were changes in relation to the
request from the European Commission that were related to
different issues than Internet freedom.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you. Thank you very much. You know, it's
very tempting to ask each of you now to rate the five worst
countries in the OSCE region but I think we've brought that out
already and Freedom House has, by the way, been working on that
and done that for us. So I'll ask another question here. Can
you give me an idea how the technologies used in Internet
repression are changing?
In 2006, we tended to think of Internet repression
generally in terms of blocking sites and putting surveillance
on users. I have this sense, but don't know exactly, that in
fact there are now a lot more things going on, and while
blocking and surveilling are still issues, they're no longer 80
percent of the games or 60 percent of the game, but are
becoming--are diminishing in their relative importance as many
other nefarious tricks and devices have come into play. Can any
of you--all of you elaborate on that or respond?
Mr. Rohozinski. Permit me to make the first remark. I think
there's a--that there's an essential fact here that has to be
recognized and that is that the technologies that are used for
limiting access to information or targeting and identifying
individuals are the very same technologies that we have
demanded to be built into the Internet in order to tackle the
problem of cybercrime, cyberespionage, and cyberinsecurity. In
fact, some of the most significant technological changes, which
will transform the Internet, are being brought about by our
concern of securing our national networks from these parasitic
and ultimately what we see as negative occurrences.
Now, that having been said, it's also quite clear that
regimes have become well versed in the art of information
operations--that is, how to create, shape and influence actors
on the net using a variety of different tools, including legal
tools, including tools that effectively try to drive opposition
movements out by flooding their dialogue with a counter-
discourse that effectively confuses users; by using shaping
through the turning on and off of different parts of networks
available on a national level in order to sow doubt, so fear
that technologies don't work or that are in, effect, working
against the very activists that are using them.
That, I would say, is one of the fundamental trends which
we have laid out as second- and third-generation filtering, and
ones which, as I say, are being propelled by our own concerns
about securing cyberspace from cyber-crime and cyber-espionage.
Now, I agree with my colleague from the OSCE that in some
respects, it is human agency, the willingness of people to put
themselves at risk, that ultimately drives social change and
net technologies. But it's also undeniable that these
technologies have made the work of activists and others who
care about their communities much easier, much quicker and much
less bloodless.
I fear that as cyberspace becomes closed down as an
environment, as a domain for legitimate political action, we
will be moving from the relatively bloodless jaw-jaw [ph] of
activists to the war-war of rebellion. And I, for one, would
much rather live in a world where the revolution can be tweeted
than when it's belched from the barrel of an AK-47.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you. Others? Shelly?
Ms. Han. We've mentioned a couple times the concept of a--
of a regional or national Internet as a way for countries to
control information. Recently, Google blogged on their blog
about Kazakhstan's request to them to only route information
through google.kz, which would mean that in effect, they would
be creating almost their own national Internet.
And Google--you know, demurred and asked that--you know, to
reconsider that. And I think that they were somewhat successful
to--but they--there are still--like, I think future domain
names that are added to google.kz will still come under this
restriction.
So can we talk a little bit about the technology behind
that? How does that work versus blocking? And is that sort of
the future for countries--I think Cuba basically already has
something similar to that. But is that the future for countries
that want to sort of take themselves off what we would consider
the global Internet and then create their own version? And how
does that work, and why should we be afraid of that?
Mr. Rohozinski. Well, let me take that question. The
latest, and I think the headline-grabbing aspects of Kazakhstan
wishing to use control of its top-level country domain as a
means of creating a national intranet is actually a bit of an
old story. Effectively, in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, national
intranets based upon an Internet which is accessible only
within the top-level country domain has existed for at least
the last three or four years.
In fact, I would say that this is one of the emerging forms
of censorship, where economic discrimination or economic means
are used as a way of effectively creating a two-speed Internet
for citizens of these countries.
So the way that it's worked in Tajikistan and the
Kazakhstan previously is there was a different tariff put
against someone who wanted to access the Internet that was
restricted to domains existing within .tm or .kz and those that
gave access to domains outside of that. The difference now
that's being made is that that kind of virtual bubble built
around tariffs and access to domains are starting to be applied
to services which exist on a more planetary level, like Google.
We fully anticipate that both the repatriation by most
states in the region, and in fact globally, of top-level
domains, which effectively gives them control over the domain-
name system within their countries, combined with requests to,
for example, register international media carriers as local
media, making them subject to media laws, are the emerging,
front-leading edge of what we'll see as control regimes that
exist.
We are already starting to see similar kind of efforts, for
example, being put in place in Iran--the creation of a national
intranet, again, which segments itself from the global
Internet. And we fully anticipate that economic, i.e., tariff
means, are going to be as effective in creating and making that
an effective means for containing populations as will any
physical means put over trying to restrict access to the global
Internet.
And again, I would say that that is one of the issues in
terms of what Department of State and U.S. government should be
looking at in terms of addressing the problem of keeping the
Internet commons, that simply funding circumvention
technologies is not enough. It's going to take a lot of policy
work to crack this particular nut. Thank you.
Ms. Han. But before I let other people comment, how exactly
would the State Department address that? You know, because it
seems that now, because of the way the Internet governance is
established now, it--there is no government-government
mechanism for doing that--unless I'm mistaken. But I'm just
curious if you had some thoughts on how to address that.
Mr. Rohozinski. No, it's very true. The part of the--one of
the benefits of the way that Internet governance has worked up
to now is the fact that it's diffuse and multipolar and
controlled by a variety of different actors, including
commercial, private, self-governing, self-constituting bodies.
What has happened, and what is a trend outside of the OSCE
as an organization, OECD as an organization, basically those
which conform to our, let's say, similar normative
characteristics, is that you are seeing regional bodies start
to look at the issue of Internet governance as a strategic
priority; harmonize amongst themselves, such as for example
within the SCO; use and leverage international organizations as
a way of shifting and centralizing inter-governance--Internet
governance into organizations that are collective national--or,
sorry, international and subject to majority vote.
So the danger is that because the simple majority exists,
there is a danger that in effect, those rules will start to be
changed. And I think it's extremely important for both the
OSCE, at least in terms of its members from Europe and the
Euro-Atlantic alliance, and certainly the U.S. in terms of its
international engagement, to realize that strategic lobbying
and building a coalition of the willing around a concept of a
free, open global Internet commons is extremely important as an
idea to push cultivate, and support.
Thank you.
Dr. Lee. I want to comment on the situation in China.
[Inaudible]--the Chinese government has been tempted to build a
national Internet for a long time, but because China's economy
is so heavily relied on in foreign trade and you know, there
are a lot of foreign business in China, so if they did that,
there would be a disaster for the economy, so they couldn't.
So they're trying to tailor--you know, if they could build
up a national Internet for the Chinese people or something like
that. But technically, it's very difficult. So I don't see this
in the near future that can happen. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. I'd like to ask a question of Mr. Rohozinski
and also Mr. Lee. I'm--and of course, again, to anybody who
interested in commenting. But it would be very helpful if
somebody could explain the difference between second--the
notion of second-generation technologies in fighting Internet
restrictions or these--the second generation of Internet-
restriction technologies and how that's changed from what we
were dealing with about five or six years ago.
And related to that, I'd like to hear people's opinions on
firewall-busting technologies versus--or, circumvention
technologies versus other means of--other technical means of
promoting freedom on the Internet. I guess we start off with
Charles.
Dr. Lee. I feel this is like--like, as I imagine, it's
ongoing war, because the--for the next Internet-censorship
technology--[inaudible]--upgrading and also, the people, you
know, in this country, I mean, Falun Gong practitioners, they
also have upgraded these technologies constantly. So I don't
have any clear answer for this, you know, generations for--per
se, because myself is not a technical person.
But I want to add that, you know, the way of controlling
the Internet is--you know, there's a lot of ways for the
communist regime. [Inaudible]--very interesting thing in China
is that they have hired millions of people, you know, who are
unemployed to post the comments in the Internet, to--trying to
mislead people's opinions. This is one of those things they do.
I'd just say, on the side of, you know, the technical
question--they pay these people like 50 Chinese cents for a
post they do, so--which is very good money for them. They--you
know, this--you know, they use these resources in China to
control the Internet contents. Thank you.
Mr. Rohozinski. So this is outlined actually in the written
testimony that's been submitted to the Commission, but I'll
restate it here in simpler terms just so we can have a criteria
for it.
Mr. Milosch. Please.
Mr. Rohozinski. So first-generation filtering essentially
relies upon lists that enumerate sites or content that should
be blocked and creates a firewall, or a physical barrier that
simply does not that let that through. Now, this takes on
various technical characteristics, but ultimately what it means
is that you are creating a wall that stops certain content from
being accessed. It exists all the time. It is constantly
upgraded. It effectively enumerates as you go along and in some
cases has become much more anticipatory in terms of what
content should be blocked. This is what we referred to as the
``great firewall of China.''
There are very few countries in the world that practice the
``great firewall in China''-type approach. And in fact, the
number of countries practicing that particular approach is
falling.
Mr. Milosch. So I take it that no OSCE countries--
Mr. Rohozinski. OSCE countries, we see Uzbekistan, we see
Turkmenistan certainly using those kinds of technologies where
there is a constant block list, constantly applied.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you.
Mr. Rohozinski. We're starting to see selective blocking on
a much less--lower level in places like Kazakhstan and
elsewhere. However, the vast majority of what we're now
starting to see as online censorship are what we call second-
generation techniques. These may apply the same kind of
blocking, but it doesn't do it consistently and doesn't do it
over time. What it does instead is applies them when those
sites or when that information is most needed.
So for example, in 2006 during the Belarus elections,
selected sites were blocked, but only for a three-week period.
Other than that, they were available. Other second-generation
techniques include more active measures taken to shut down
sites. Rather than to filter them, they are attacked through
denial-of-service attacks, essentially rendering them
inaccessible to anybody on a planetary level.
There are also hacking attacks which deliberately
manipulate or change the content on those sites themselves.
Some of them are quite crude, simply defacing or bringing down
the site. Some of them, such as we have seen in Kazakhstan, can
be quite elaborate, or in effect, what happens is, content is
injected into a legitimate site, only changing small aspects of
it rather than entirely blocking the site or entirely changing
or defacing the site in a way that it's not effective.
Secondly, second-generation techniques also include the use
of surveillance and selective prosecution and the designing of
laws that create harsh barriers for someone wishing to either
use certain technologies or access certain information,
effectively criminalizing it or creating high-level finds that
cow people, creating fear and doubt and actually wanting to go
outside of this.
Third-generation techniques take it a step further. Those
include, for example, the use of malware, computer-virus based
attacks against human-rights groups, opposition groups and
others in order to pollute their information flows, disrupt
their communications, effectively turn members of the
organizations against each other if possible.
They include the use, as Charles said, of 50-cent armies,
effectively hiring large numbers of counter-bloggers who engage
opponents in an online dialogue or simply overwhelm their
information flows through the creation of alternative
information. Now--
Mr. Milosch. Do any OSCE countries do this?
Mr. Rohozinski. Yes. We've seen this very effectively used
in Belarus. We've seen this used during the Russian elections.
We--in fact, we see this used in just about every OSCE country
east of the Elbe.
Denial-of-service attacks are used constantly against
independent media, opposition parties or, in effect, a lot of
very inconvenient information that exists even out there in the
wild that may be specific to any one politician.
In fact, a few years ago, if you had opened a Russian
online newspaper, you would have openly seen adverts where
people would hire out botnets to carry out denial-of-service
attacks against anyone who had the money to pay them the $200
or so to carry these things out. We obviously saw denial-of-
service attacks being used very effectively in 2007 against
Estonia and later in the
Russia-Georgian war as well.
Now, what I would point out, and I would--here, I would put
my cards on the table: As an operator of a circumvention
technology, it's that dealing with second- and third-generation
type attacks is extremely challenging. And none of the tools
that are being created, either by our colleagues at the Falun
Gong or anywhere else, can effectively get a site back up,
circumvention tools, when it comes under denial-of-service
attack or encourage people to use online tools where they may
fear doing so instead of prosecution or defend them against
malware-based surveillance or other kinds of techniques that
are being used.
So these are hard challenges which don't have solutions in
the purely technological realm.
Mr. Milosch. This is very discouraging. I'm getting a
picture here of an increasingly broad arsenal of the--of the
repressive governments.
Ms. Mijatovic?
Ms. Mijatovic. Just a brief comment, but in the OSCE
region, unfortunately, you don't need to be very
technologically advanced in order to see how the Internet
freedom is suppressed on a daily basis. You do not need second
or third generations. You just need a young Facebook activist
who has a differing view and who is the next day arrested on
dubious charges and put in prison for it. So those are also the
ways of, in a way, very basic ways of suppression and
restriction.
In Azerbaijan, two young bloggers were in a prison for
almost two years because they just put a video clip on their
website that was critical of the government. They are finally
outside the prison, but there was no need for the government to
use any advanced technological means in order to put them in
prison and to have this enormous chilling effect that is
continuing in Azerbaijan, because now there are two more
Facebook activists in the prison just because of differing
views, again, on dubious charges.
And when I write to the governments, what I hear from them
that it's absolutely nothing to do with freedom of expression,
it's because of drug-dealing, that's mostly the case that it's
used, drug-dealing or hooliganism as an explanation of
suppressing people's rights to express their views on the
Facebook. And that is becoming more and more problematic,
especially in Central Asia, because it's seen as--especially
after African Spring--as another threat to the governments', in
a way, will to suppress any critical voices in their countries.
So just the point was that you do not need advanced
technology in order to continue this agony, in a way, of trying
to suppress people's voices.
Mr. Milosch. Point taken. Mr. Sigal?
Mr. Sigal. I'd just like to point out that this trend--
we're talking about it as if it's new, but in the former--in
many countries in the former Soviet Union, this is something
that's been occurring for 15 years. And if there are additional
tools in the arsenal of repressive regimes today, it does not
diminish the basic strategy that they've employed for a long
time, which has always been a mix of tactics designed to
intimidate, to restrict, to suppress, to propagandize, to
create disinformation or misinformation around a particular set
of ideas.
If, in 1996, the response of--the way to take out an
independent newspaper in Kazakhstan was to throw a firebomb
into a printing press, today there's a similar mechanism. And I
think we shouldn't be discussing this issue as if there's some
kind of essential change in the way--the approach that's--that
we see here.
There are websites that were altered, hacked and altered
around--opposition websites that were hacked and altered in
Kazakhstan 10 years ago so that that second-generation
technology that Mr. Rohozinski is speaking of is--has been
occurring in Kazakhstan for 10 years.
So it is not--it is--again, the intent is to focus on
internal voices that have an effect not just of receiving
information and listening passively, but are actively trying to
produce content information or create a voice that are a threat
to the legitimacy or threaten the authority of regimes around
very specific issues. And security ministries in many of the
countries we've been discussing are--have active strategies
about how to combat or pinpoint those kinds of issues. And I
think that's the--the proper framework for understanding the
problem.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you. Mr. Kramer?
Mr. Kramer. Could I just quickly add--picking up on some of
what's been said--it is important to recognize, I think, that
the technology can have a negative impact on the state of human
rights and freedom in the world, and certainly in the OSCE
region. The OSCE is no exception.
In the recommendations and the testimony I've submitted I
suggest that companies conduct transparent human rights impact
assessments so that they determine how American-made technology
might adversely affect the privacy of citizens in the OSCE
region that could severely restrict freedom. And in light of
the European parliament's passing an export control regime of
products that have a negative impact on Internet freedom, I
would suggest that the Congress also look at the possibility of
such a regime.
And then, in picking up on a point that Rafal had made and
going through the different generations of technology that
these regimes use, as critically important as busting through
the firewalls is, there are other anti-censorship technologies
and assistance and advice that can be provided. And those
include training so that activists are aware of and recognize
the threats that are being posed--they reduce their
vulnerabilities; security, so that they have the support
necessary to fight against the various cybersecurity threats
that they face on a daily basis; and then thinking about urgent
response mechanisms so that if in urgent need they have places
that they can go and networks that they can rely on.
Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you.
Ms. Han. One more question?
Mr. Sigal, I wanted to ask, and I'd like others to chime in
if you'd like too, but really what is the role for citizens? I
mean, Global Voices is a forum for users in a lot of different
countries. But how should citizens be working? I know we're
focusing here on government policies and what governments are
doing but, you know, I'd like to look at--talk a little bit
more about what private companies--the technology companies
that are expanding the, you know, either the social media or
the infrastructure itself--what should be their role? But then
also, what about users?
Ethan Zuckerman famously coined the cute-cat theory of, you
know, sort of harnessing the number of users and the interest
in the Internet for watching cute cat videos; how do you then
translate that into users who are really--how should I say
this--that are interested in how they're getting their
information and what information they're getting? You know, how
do we make that leap from people who just randomly want to go
on and watch YouTube videos to people who actually care about
how their government is controlling or blocking their Internet?
I wondered if you had any thoughts on that, and others as well.
Mr. Sigal. Well, this--the fundamental structure of online
communities in a network media society is webs or circles of
individuals who have multiple links through their communities
that are focused around common interest, if you're talking
about citizen media space. So if--for instance, a very simple
example, if I have blog and I write about cats, and I will put
a list of links in my--within my blog to other people who also
write about cats. That constitutes a community.
Once a community is formed, it continues to focus on its
subject or its issue but it has become potentially an active
space for other contexts--other conversations. If we look
broadly speaking at the way that online communities have moved
in regard to, say, Arab Spring movements, we see that the
function of the Internet is very much an accelerator. It is
very useful at bringing together a cross of categories, that is
people who--people who like cats, and networks--that is, people
who are involved in another and happen to live for instance in
the same physical space. And there's a sociological theory
around this that's called Catnets, which is not the same theory
as the cute-cat theory.
On the Internet it becomes much easier to create, to raise
a flag such as an image or a concept or an idea, and rally
people around that idea. And the formation of those groups can
be--is much more rapid. Whether or not that leads to some kind
of actual social change is a different question. But if we look
in Egypt, for instance at the We Are All Khalid Said movement,
we see a simple event which is difficult but an event, which is
the arrest and then eventually the killing of an individual,
that served as a flag or a concept around which people could
rally.
As I said, as a social movement it is not different,
necessarily, from earlier kinds of social movements except in
terms of its accelerating potential. And when we follow how
social movements track, not just nationally but around the
world, we see the potential for communities to gather quickly
around a concept rather than around an individual--are greatly
enhanced. And one way of thinking about it is that we should be
thinking about how ideas move through people and networks
rather than finding or focusing specifically on charismatic
leadership or on traditional hierarchies of organizing in
opposition movements, which is not to say that organization is
not important. I think anybody who works in the digital media
activism space would say that you still have to organize people
if you want to get them onto the street.
It's not technological determinism to say that these are
tools that are effective in creating and driving change. It's
more of the--more the point that there's a different kind of
organization. And if you're thinking about how communities do
organize, they--it's a matter of choosing the right tool and
the right tactic for the event.
So in Tunisia, Facebook was really important. And it was
important because so many other user-generated content services
and blogs were blocked, but the private networks within Tunisia
were able to focus on work in the Facebook space. But that
didn't reach a large audience; it reached a very narrow
audience. For them to be effective, they had to be translated,
taken out of the Facebook community, put into blogs, put into
other contexts, and then ultimately broadcast by Al Jazeera.
And then they were effective at a national scale.
Mr. Rohozinski. I'd just like to comment on something that
Ivan said because I think it's a very essential point here. The
character of opposition movements--how they coalesce, how
citizenry can, in effect, mobilize itself for social change--
has been transformed by technology. You know, whereas
previously movements required long gestation periods, different
organizational structures, now it is possible to create a
``Facebook revolution'' essentially because of the means of
being able to bridge commonality of interests and create an
emotive spirit to get out on the streets and carry out social
change in ways that simply isn't possible when you have an
organization that's dependent on leadership. You can have
leaderless resistance.
However, and I think this is an important point, just to
come back to something that you had mentioned as one of your
questions, I don't--certainly don't want to leave the
impression here that circumvention tools or technologies are
not important to be supported in their own right. I think
they're an essentially a very important tactical tool for
promoting openness and the possibility of social change.
They're not a substitute for a strategy.
And I think that's where, in the past, debates have
unfortunately fallen into--that somehow we can design something
that will meet our objectives or create our objectives. Let's
not forget, fax machines did not lead to the Polish revolution;
Solidarity did. Much in the same way, it'll be the work of the
Falun Gong or concerned Chinese citizenry that will effect
social change and not TOR or not GIFC or not Sai-Fon [ph].
Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. I'd like to switch gears for a moment here.
Just as most of you or all of you represent groups that are
about change, that the Helsinki Commission is also about
change. And it's of course very helpful to get your assessment
of the situation and the problem. I'd like to talk about what
we can do going forward.
My first question would be for Ms. Mijatovic. The Helsinki
Commission, of course, was created to interact with the--with
the OSCE. Do you have any suggestions on what the Commission
and congressmen who are interested in the OSCE can do to
promote those--the Internet freedom agenda to promote freedom
on the Internet within that organization? What kinds of
things--and you can be very particular, very specific--would be
helpful to move this issue onto the agenda in an effective way
within that--within that group?
Ms. Mijatovic. Thank you for this question, it's very
relevant. And I would also like to use this opportunity for us
to thank the Commission for constant interest and involvement
in the work of my office and its support, which in a way
presents an enormous energy that is given to us when we see
that participating states through their commissions and
different other bodies are trying to engage more in all the
issues that we are discussing in order to promote and to
implement the commitments.
What can be done in order to enhance this cooperation and
in order to make those states that are not actually honoring
the commitments? I think what we have as a problem in certain
regions--but in certain countries of the OSCE region--is
something that is almost in a modern, digital world something
that is, you know, not understood well. It is the problem of
telecommunication infrastructure, a very low level of
penetration of the Internet, and ultimately a lack of Internet
literacy education.
So I think, in a way, in order to promote freedom there is
more need to continue talking about it on different levels and
in different countries because I always said in my work it is
almost impossible to do anything from Vienna. In order to
change things, you need to go to certain countries in order to
promote the commitments and in order to engage with civil
society and with the authorities.
Sometimes it's a struggle, but in this process the
Commission and all other bodies that are interested in working
with the office can do more on promoting trainings and
education in certain regions of the OSCE so we can move to a
different level when we talk to people and we try to help them,
because some of the issues that we tackle today in some of the
countries would be almost impossible for people to understand
in order to know their rights. So in those countries it's very
easy to manipulate people's minds and their decision-making
process because they do not know enough for a different
reasons.
Maybe it's a legacy from the old systems, as we heard
before, but maybe also the restriction of information that is
seen as a tool of suppressing their views, not to mention any
critical views. So the chilling effect is another thing that we
see as a huge problem. I do not have a formula how to tackle--I
do not have a formula how to tell Commission in order to engage
in this process.
But I think what we have already--the cooperation with the
NGOs and different other organizations in order to promote
Internet freedom and to actually explain what does it mean and
why it is so important so it's not seen as some kind of monster
behind a closed door that is going to destroy, as I hear on
many occasions, tradition, culture, and sensitivities of
certain societies, which is not the case. So I would just
encourage you to do more and more of hearings of this kind in
order for us to be able to talk to the audience but also to
engage in the projects that would promote Internet literacy
within the OSCE region.
Mr. Milosch. If I could follow up, because I have a very
closely related second question, and that is, if the first one
was about how the Commission can interact with the OSCE to move
this issue forward, what about what Congress can do to move
this issue forward in the OSCE and in the broader world?
I think I've already mentioned that the chairman is working
on long legislation on Internet freedom. It'd be very
interesting to hear from each one of you your thoughts on the
traps that legislation--that it could fall into, the directions
we should go, your thoughts and reflections on emphasis, the
success or failures of previous iterations of Internet freedom
legislation and, you know, how the issue is changing and how we
need to be changing our thinking about it in order to, as I
said, promote change--what about change?
Ms. Mijatovic. Well, if I may, I said at the end of my
statement that one of the humble suggestions of mine would be
to make an Internet a human right, like, for example, Estonia
or Finland did. So I think if more and more countries would
engage in making it a human right and enshrine it in their
constitution, that would probably bring long-term changes in
people's mind on how important it is to have access to
Internet.
On a more practical level, I think Dan mentioned it during
his testimony, this year towards the end we will have a
ministerial conference in Vilnius. And Lithuanian chairmanship
made freedom of the media and freedom of the Internet, of
course, as one of their priorities. I know that the
chairmanship is aiming to adopt a ministerial decision in
relation to Internet freedom.
And the support from the Commission and the Congress and
the U.S. government in this particular issue would make a great
impact and a great change in order to make this happen because
I think it would be, in a way, not a new commitment but rolling
over what we have already into a new reality, which is Internet
reality. And it would present a political view on the
importance of Internet freedom within the OSCE region.
And I do hope that 56 will have enough courage and wisdom
to adopt such an important decision at the end of the year. So,
you know, we will be open--my office of course doesn't play a
role in their decision-making process, but we would assist and
help as much as we can, because because I think for Internet
users and for citizens within the OSCE region this would
present an enormous step forward.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much. Fifty-six--that is the
tough part, the 56 member states. David?
Mr. Kramer. Just very quickly--the three points. One, the
Commission and members of Congress really can't stress enough
the importance of open access to the Internet. That this is, as
Dunja had said, this is a fundamental freedom-- it's freedom of
expression. Having hearings like this, having hearings specific
about certain countries and abuses that governments are
responsible for, I think, is very worthwhile.
Second is to call out member states that are not complying
with these fundamental freedoms--naming and shaming. It is
tough to do in an organization that is based on consensus. But
some member states have to stand up and take a principled
position when there are such abuses taking place and trodding
on fundamental freedoms.
The third point is to support in the strongest way possible
the Office of the Representative for Freedom in the Media. It's
critical. It's not an easy job. And it deserves full support
from members of Congress, from the Commission and from the U.S.
government.
Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Please?
Ms. Mijatovic. A quick note on this. And thank you very
much, David. You said it, so I didn't have to say it--
[chuckles]--myself. But support is there and it's extremely
important to have this support because it gives more energy and
more courage for us fighting for free speech around the world.
But I think we are criticizing a lot of 56, but I think
also this is a good moment to remember that the office was
created by 56. And the office is the only intergovernmental
media watchdog in the world. It is unique, and I think this
uniqueness and in a way the beauty of the mandate is that the
56 created an institution to name them, shame them and blame
them for not complying with the--with what they agreed on a
voluntary basis.
So that's actually my job. It's not any easy one. It's a
very sensitive and very responsible task. But I do not hesitate
to explore the mandate and innovate to bend it and stretch it
when there is a need to remind the participating states. But if
there are more voices joining from the NGO side and from the
authority side, of course, the impact and the results are much
greater.
Mr. Milosch. That's a very true observation. Pardon my
flash of cynicism on the number 56.
Please, Mr. Rohozinski.
Mr. Rohozinski. Well, as a Canadian citizen, I find myself
in the funny situation of being asked to advise the U.S.
Congress when my own parliament has yet to hold a single
hearing on this particular issue.
That having been said, let me summarize a few points as
take-aways. One, I think it's really all about leadership and
moral courage. We have to recognize the centrality of
cyberspace to everything that we do. There is no separation
between domestic policy, in terms of how we choose internally
to regulate the Internet or provide means for providers in the
U.S. and how those means will be interpreted and used, whether
in the OSCE or globally.
Along with that comes a very important task of recognizing
cyberspace as a global commons, a global commonwealth that
requires a joint stewardship. It's not simply about the
Internet. It's not simply about a domain. It's about something
which we collectively have to tend to as a global society in
order to ensure that those flickers of freedom that have
emerged over the last two decades globally continue to burn
rather than to wink out into a new era of darkness.
Three, we need to recognize that there is a basic
contradiction between the way we are currently addressing the
insecurity, cybersecurity and the militarization of cyberspace
and some of the values and principles that this panel has
raised. There is a cost to maintaining an accessible and open
Internet. And that may mean being able to absorb the friction
of the inconvenience of groups like WikiLeaks, which put our
secrets out for everyone to see, and provide transparency which
is perhaps slightly more radical than most commercial and
public bodies are willing to see.
Three--or, four--in terms of addressing the hammer that one
of the members of the Commission raised, access to content,
access to information should be raised as a trade issue, as one
on limitation of trade. I think that's an avenue for combatting
censorship, which has not been fully exploited by anyone and
where the U.S. has a unique position as a major trading partner
to actually exert some authority.
Fifthly, governance: We must preserve the multi-stakeholder
approach to Internet governance. That means ensuring that the
centralization of governance is not concentrated in
institutions where values through simple majority vote may
shift it into a direction which is inimical to the principles
of freedom and choice that we have enshrined and that we all
support. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much. Mr. Sigal.
Mr. Sigal. I very strongly support and echo the concept of
a global commonwealth within the space of Internet and
cyberspace. I think that the notion that we have the--a
potential future where all of us are interlinked, connected and
can actually--can exist whereby any individual in the world can
talk to, communicate with any other single individual, groups
of individuals is a vision for a future of a borderless world
which I'd like to participate in.
And I think that the legal principles that make that
possible already exist within the frameworks that we have. In
making legislation, I would urge that we be careful about
focusing on today's technologies to the detriment of thinking
about the future of where our technologies will take us because
as we've seen, the communications tools and platforms that we
are using today were tools that we didn't envision 10 years
ago.
And we may find that--we know that technology moves faster
than law, faster than regulation. And we may find that we're
building systems that aren't able to accommodate--building
legal systems that aren't able to accommodate the technological
changes, or worse, that we'll be creating eddies or
restrictions that force technologies to grow in a way other
than they would if they were living in unfettered and global
commonwealth of ideas.
I'd also like to point out the concept of a free movement
of ideas and how some of our trade laws and corporate and
commercial laws potentially act as restrictions to those kinds
of ideas, whether it's things like the commercialization of
human biology or the effects of the entertainment industry on
copyright.
In the space of a cultural commons and a global
commonwealth of ideas, innovation comes through the potential
to have access to other concepts and other communities of
ideas. And just as the technology has walls, we also have the
potential to put walls on our culture and walls on our
concepts. And I would urge that we think very carefully about
not creating those blockades in the process of responding to
special interests that may exist in this country or in other
countries in the OSCE region.
Lastly, I think that from the U.S. perspective, it's very
important, again, to lead by example. So we have the potential
ourselves to create in this country a set of--a basis for an
open and participatory network of communications. And that, in
itself, is potentially under threat.
So we see ongoing discussions about net neutrality, about
tiered systems for access. I'm not saying that those
discussions are necessarily clear in terms of what is right or
what is wrong. In some cases, policy is really unclear as to
what a best solution is. But the principle should be the
guiding--the guiding principle that each of us has equal access
is very, very important to sustain.
And lastly, as regards international engagement and the
question of legislation, I think it's very important to look
closely at the potentially contradictory roles that the State
Department and Commerce Departments and other kinds--other
departments and the military as well will play when thinking
about how we should be shaping the Internet. We aren't
necessarily, even within the United States government, in
accord. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much. Mr. Lee?
Dr. Lee. Thank you. I'll say that I think conclusion
statement that the Chinese people has been waiting for a, like,
commonwealth of the world for a long time. There have been more
than 160,000 uprising events in China last year against the
Chinese communist regime. It's horrifying, you know, in the
sense that so many people are living in such misery.
As to the U.S. government, I believe that U.S. has the
moral authority to lead the world to the land of freedom. And I
hope that when the U.S. government deal with the communist
regime in China, they don't forget this role.
And for--and also, I just want to echo on the--Mr.
Rohozinski's comments on the people's power because it's often
the people who can have the right value, the right sense of
judgment and what is right or wrong to lead world toward
freedom.
The ``Quitting the Communist Party'' movement actually has
led into this direction because, as I mentioned, these
countries in the--East European countries, mostly they are
former communist states. The technologization [ph] is extremely
important in these areas to really have a nice sense of, you
know, free--what is freedom.
So I hope that--actually, I want to just mention over here
that the day before yesterday, the U.S. Senate has introduced a
Resolution 232, which supports this --[inaudible]--the
``Quitting the Communist Party'' movement and supports the
human rights in China. So--[inaudible]--the U.S. government can
play a great role in supporting these peoples' power and the
move to the right direction in those dictatorship countries.
And also, for the global freedom--Internet Freedom
Consortium, it needs more support because a lot of people know
they're doing great things, but they left the resource--
actually, that Chris--Mr. Smith asked this question to the
first panelist already. So I--you know, this is my hope, that
things--actually, I believe that things will move to the
direction we want to see. Thank you.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much, Charles. Well, it looks
like the chairman is not going to make it back before the room
reservation expires. I would--I would just ask any of you if
you have some final comment that you'd like to make, some point
you've not been able to make yet in the hearing?
If not, then I will thank very much the witnesses for
coming and to everyone who joined us today. We're adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Good morning, and welcome to our witnesses and to everyone joining
us this morning.
Sadly, online censorship, surveillance, and the intimidation of
online speech is not restricted to countries where it's commonly
reported, like China and Iran. It is increasingly common in member
states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe--
broadly speaking, in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
With this hearing, we seek to draw the world's attention to the
arrest of bloggers, to the blocking of Web sites, the surveillance and
intimidation of peaceful political activists, to aggressive denial of
service attacks, and to violent intimidation by some OSCE member
states. For example, Belarus is blocking social networking sites as
Twitter and Facebook and temporarily shutting down opposition Internet
sites. Turkey is set to require a mandatory, nationwide Internet
filtering system on August 22--unprecedented in scope in the OSCE
region and compounding the already aggressive blocking of around 14,000
Web sites and broad restrictions on content. Kazakhstan, which already
blocks a number of popular blogs and media sites, is also in the
process of creating a national Internet, having recently decided that
all .kz domain names will have to operate on physical servers within
its borders.
No less disturbing is the violent intimidation of dissent in
Russia. Though Russia does not aggressively censor terms or
significantly block access to information on the Internet, it has its
own crude but effective methods for controlling the Internet: mafia
thugs in league with the government beat people and instill fear in
Russian bloggers and journalists. According to the Committee to Protect
Journalists, ``Online journalists in Russia and throughout the region--
whose work appears on the
Russian-language Internet known as the Runet--have faced physical
intimidation, attacks, and threats for far longer than has been widely
noted in either Moscow or the West.''
In a report issued by the Open Net Initiative, the authors (one of
whom is here with us today), concluded that Internet controls in the
Commonwealth of Independent States have evolved ``several generations
ahead'' of those used in other regions of the world. Runet controls are
not only mirroring past oppression, the authors said, they're
foreshadowing the future of Internet control worldwide. The prospect of
the Internet environment deteriorating to that level is frightening,
and surely is a call to action.
At the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, President Ford
stated that history will judge the signatories, ``not by the promises
we make, but by the promises we keep.'' This is as true now as it was
then. All 56 OSCE states have agreed to respect their citizens' human
rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression.
But some do not do so--and are not only not improving but even
backsliding. I look forward to a conversation on what we can do to turn
this around.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Co-Chairman, Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Mr. Chairman, the issue under discussion today is of great
importance, both for the present and the future. The Internet has
played a critical role in the events we've all witnessed in the past
few months in North Africa and the Middle East--it has become an
enabling tool for citizens to seek redress and seek change. When
governments tried to stop the protests by blocking or, most notably an
alarming Internet `shutdown' in Egypt, netizens found ways to get
around the obstacles and got their message to their countrymen, and to
the world.
The fundamental reasons behind the protests and the uprisings are
age-old, but the incredible communication and information tools
provided by the Internet to combat these problems is brand new. But
there are worrying trends where we see the incredible promise of the
Internet being thwarted by government intervention. It has become clear
that we as citizens and as governments must work to keep these powerful
tools in the hands of those who want to use it for freedom, not
suppression.
So as we discuss oppression on the Internet, I also hope we can
talk about the solutions--what are the best practices countries and
citizens can follow to keep the Internet safe for democracy? And how do
we accomplish that and also keep the Internet secure? From Wikileaks to
Anonymous, hackers exposed the weak links, both human and technical, in
our nation's information security web. These incidents beg the
question, ``how can we maximize our nation's cybersecurity without
sacrificing our citizens' Internet freedom?'' The reconciliation of
user privacy with effective cyber-security measures is certainly an
important question, but I believe they can be complementary. I
introduced a bill earlier this year, the Cybersecurity and Internet
Safety Standards Act, which would require our government and the
private sector to work together to develop minimum safety standards for
Internet users, with as few restrictions on personal freedom as
possible.
Any increase in Internet regulation and security there will follow,
however small, a decrease in the level of privacy, which imposes a
responsibility not to abuse the public trust for its own gain on the
government. As demonstrated in the former CIS countries, the
government's abuse of its regulatory power for often murkily-defined
security reasons often serves as a smokescreen for political repression
and comes at the expense of the rights and freedoms of its citizens. We
are vigilant against that here in the United States--and must remain
so--but with any regulation, there is the potential for abuse of the
public trust. And that is something that we have seen happen in some
OSCE countries, where governments employ many tactics, both visible and
covert, to stifle opposition and free speech. These range from
selectively enforced, ambiguous defamation laws to collection and
retention of sensitive user information and data to large-scale hacking
attacks on domestic and international targets. As participating States
of the OSCE, these governments pledged to uphold a higher standard of
human rights. Their open neglect of these responsibilities raises
serious concerns, and I look forward to discussing these with our
witnesses today.
I'm particularly pleased with our panel of witnesses today, as many
of them have contributed significantly to this debate by shedding light
on some troubling trends, as well as providing solutions for us to
follow. For example, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
has made extensive recommendations on best practices through a system
of transparent governance in Internet regulation. One of the ways
identified is to involve competent partners from civil society in order
to expand the responsibility of regulation and consolidate the diverse,
high level knowledge and competence required to do so.
I'm looking forward to hearing her thoughts, and others as well, on
where we stand today in the OSCE on this issue. Thank you.
Prepared Testimony of Dr. Daniel Baer, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Distinguished Members of the Commission, I
appreciate the Commission's affording me the opportunity to address an
issue with profound implications for the exercise of human rights in
the OSCE region and across the globe: ensuring a free and open
Internet. Your focus on this critical subject is emblematic of the
Commission's strong defense and dedicated promotion of human rights
principles enshrined at the core of the Helsinki Final Act and UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. States have an enduring
responsibility to respect these principles and their responsibility
extends into the Digital Age. In the 21st Century, men and women
everywhere are increasingly turning to the Internet and other
connection technologies to exercise their human rights and fundamental
freedoms.
I have valued the opportunity to work with Members of this
Commission and your superb staff. The Commission's efforts greatly
strengthen my hand and that of Assistant Secretary Michael Posner and
our colleagues in the State Department as we work with other
governments, civil society advocates and the private sector to defend
and advance human rights and democratic government. The defense of
Internet Freedom is integral to our efforts.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, first I will describe the Obama
Administration's global policy of support for Internet Freedom. Then,
as you have requested, I will highlight key trends and concerns
regarding a number of countries in the OSCE region. Finally, I will
describe what we are doing institutionally within the OSCE to ensure
Internet Freedom.
The U.S. Champions a Rights-Based Approach to Global Internet Freedom
The United States champions Internet freedom because it derives
from universal and cherished rights--the freedoms of speech, assembly,
and association. An open Internet gives people a neutral platform from
which to express their legitimate aspirations and shape their own
destiny. We believe that people in every country deserve to be able to
take part in building a more peaceful, prosperous, and democratic
society. In the 21st century, technology is a powerful tool with which
to exercise human rights and fundamental freedoms. In turn, ensuring
Internet freedom helps create the space for people to use technology to
``know and act upon'' their rights.
As Secretary Clinton has emphasized: ``The rights of individuals to
express their views freely, petition their leaders, worship according
to their beliefs--these rights are universal, whether they are
exercised in a public square or on an individual blog. The freedoms to
assemble and associate also apply in cyberspace. In our time, people
are as likely to come together to pursue common interests online as in
a church or a labor hall.''
As we all know, the Internet and other new technologies are having
a profound effect on the ability to organize citizen movements around
the world. And because repressive regimes understand the power of this
technology, they are redoubling their attempts to control it. It is no
coincidence that authorities who try to restrict the exercise of
fundamental freedoms by their people, impede the work of human rights
defenders and civil society organizations, control the press and
obstruct the flow of information, tend to be the same authorities who
try to restrict, impede, control and obstruct their citizens' peaceful
use of these new connective technologies.
Governments that respect their citizens have no reason to fear when
citizens exercise their rights. And governments that respect the rights
of their citizens have no reason to fear a free Internet. As President
Obama has said: ``suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go
away.''
Recently, in Vilnius, on the margins of the Community of
Democracies ministerial meeting, Secretary Clinton and I met with
activists-including several from the OSCE region--who spoke of the
surveillance, hacking, and harassment they face every day.
Mr. Chairman, we are not cyber-utopians who believe that the
Internet is the magic answer to the world's human rights problems.
Technology does not change the world; people must. Some governments are
using advanced technologies to chill free expression, to stifle
dissent, to identify and arrest dissidents. Through our diplomacy and
through direct support for embattled activists worldwide, we are
helping people stay one step ahead of the censors, the hackers, and the
brutes who beat them up or imprison them for what they say online.
At the same time, we will continue to speak out about the regimes
that resort to such behavior. And we will continue to point out that
cracking down on the Internet only undermines the legitimacy of a
government in the eyes of its own people--particulary young people.
Those who have grown up in the Internet age understand how critical it
is that all people everywhere can join in the global discussion and
debate. These young ``digital natives'' understand intiuitively the
dangers of an online world where citizens in one country receive only
censored information and so form a stilted view of the world. And they
understand intuitively the need to protect the promise and the
potential of a truly free and global Internet.
Around the world, our embassies and missions are working to advance
internet freedom on the ground. We are building relationships with
``netizens'' and advocating on behalf of imprisoned and arrested online
activists. Internet freedom is now a core part of many of our bilateral
human rights and economic discussions with a broad range of countries.
Fostering free expression and innovation is a core element of the
President's International Strategy for Cyberspace, released in May of
this year. As Secretary Clinton said in the rollout of the strategy,
cyber issues are a new foreign policy imperative. Accordingly, we are
integrating Internet freedom into our engagements on the broader range
of cyber issues.
Since 2008, the State Department and USAID have committed $50
million in direct support for activists on the front lines of the
struggle against Internet repression. By the end of 2011, we will have
allocated $70 million toward these efforts. Our programming responds to
the most urgent priorities we hear from activists on the ground--
including embattled democracy and human rights activists from OSCE
countries. A critical part of our efforts is support for circumvention
technology, to enable users to get around firewalls erected by
repressive regimes. But circumvention alone is not enough. Users do not
just need access to blocked content; they also need to be able to
communicate safely with each other, to organize, to get their own
messages out. For this reason, we are funding the development of better
communication technologies, including secure tools for mobile phones,
to empower activists to safely organize themselves and publish their
own material. We are funding trainings on cyber self-defense, to train
activists in person about the risks they face and how to protect
themselves online. And we are committing funding to research and
development, so that we stay ahead of the curve in understanding
evolving threats to Internet freedom.We also are working with the
private sector, to define the steps that governments and businesses
need to take to protect and respect human rights and fundamental
freedoms at a time when the technology and its implications are
changing constantly.
And, through our multilateral diplomacy, we are playing a leading
role in building a global coalition of governments committed to
advancing Internet freedom. To that end, we are working at the UN Human
Rights Council, in UNESCO, in the OECD, and, of course, within the
OSCE.
OSCE as a Pioneering Regional Platform for Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms in the Digital Age
Mr. Chairman, as you know, OSCE was the first regional organization
to recognize that respect for human rights, pluralistic democracy and
the rule of law are prerequisites for a lasting order of security and
prosperity. And OSCE was the first regional organization to acknowledge
the vital importance of civil society. The Helsinki process must
continue to be a pioneer for human dignity, civil society and
democratic government in the Digital Age.
Challenges to Internet freedom in the OSCE region are illustrative
of the issues we are addressing across the globe in our efforts to
support an open Internet. Let me now address trends and concerns
related to Internet Freedom in a number of OSCE participating States:
Belarus
In mid-2010, Belarusian authorities announced a new legal regime
designed to restrict freedom of speech on the Internet, and to harass
and intimidate individuals and organizations to deter them from
expressing their views through Internet postings, email and websites.
The law requires all website owners to register with the authorities,
and further requires them to maintain their sites on the government-
controlled .by domain. Citizens seeking to use the Internet at public
locations including Internet cafes must present their identity
documents, and Internet cafes are responsible for maintaining lists of
users and the websites they visit. Authorities routinely monitor emails
and Internet traffic, and at times block access to websites linked to
opposition political parties and independent media groups. On December
19, 2010, the day of the presidential election, authorities also
blocked access to popular global sites, including Twitter and Facebook.
The same day, denial of service attacks led to the disabling of over a
dozen popular Belarusian independent media websites.
In recent days, Belarusian citizens have mobilized via the Internet
to organize a series of ``silent'' protests designed to highlight the
government's continuing repression, the lack of freedom of speech, and
the country's deteriorating economic situation. Since June 8, such
protests--in which participants gather silently and clap their hands--
have taken place in at least 43 cities and towns across the country.
Authorities have responded by dispersing gatherings via heavy-handed
tactics and by detaining hundreds of people. Police have ordered the
closure of at least seven websites, and reports of denial of service
attacks and spear-phishing attacks have also increased. Finding
themselves unable to completely suppress free expression via the
Internet, Belarusian authorities have created their own Twitter
accounts to threaten protest participants, and have flooded the most
popular Belarus-focused news feeds with misinformation designed to
disrupt plans for further protests.
Yet the protests continue and demonstrators continue to express
themselves online. Over 216,000 people joined a group on Vkontakte (the
Russian-language equivalent of Facebook), calling for ``Revolution via
the social networks'' in Belarus. The page was shut down on July 3, but
a replacement page gained 20,000 members in two days. Bloggers and
Internet journalists have continued to post videos of police beatings
and harassment of peaceful demonstrators on YouTube. During a recent
public protest on July 3, police reportedly arrested nearly 200 people;
at least 15 journalists were also detained. During protests on July 13,
authorities blocked access to Vkontakte for several hours, but hundreds
of demonstrators still turned out to silently protest in locations
around Minsk. As Secretary Clinton has made clear, we will continue to
press for the human rights and democratic aspirations of the Belarusian
people. And we will continue our staunch support for those struggling
to make their voices heard both online and in the streets.
The Participating States of Central Asia
In the Central Asian region, we continue to be concerned by
governments' efforts to block websites, particularly when information
or opinions are expressed via the Internet that are critical of
government officials or policies. Media laws and registration
requirements are also used to target independent activists and
dissidents, which does not accord with the commitments that OSCE
participating States have made to ensure freedom of expression.
Internet censorship further aggravates the constraints on freedom of
expression and other fundamental freedoms that impede progress and
development in the Central Asian states. In order for the Central Asia
region to prosper, 21st century new media technologies must be
harnessed to facilitate citizens' vibrant ideas and contributions, not
governments' repression.
In Kazakhstan, we have long expressed our concern that the
Respublika news portal remains inaccessible to users of Kaztelecom, the
government-owned Internet service provider, along with dozens of other
independent sites that are intermittently blocked. In Tajikistan too,
we have seen the blockage of websites disseminating independent or
critical views. And in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, heavy monitoring of
Internet content and registration requirements continue to impede free
expression. In Kyrgyzstan, despite an end to official restrictions on,
or monitoring of, the Internet after the April 2010 change in
government, we were concerned by the Parliament's recent resolution
calling for the Fergana.ru site to be banned on grounds that it is
inciting ethnic hatred. We believe that full respect for freedom of
expression, including via the Internet, can undergird efforts at
reconciliation and accountability in Kyrgyzstan.
Russia
We welcome the Russian President Medvedev's statement at the World
Economic Forum in January that: ``Any attempts to limit the Internet or
stifle innovation will lead the world to stagnation. Russia will not
support initiatives that put Internet freedom in question.'' The spread
of the Internet undoubtedly has had a positive effect on Russian civil
society, providing new opportunities for grassroots organizations to
connect with citizens and new platforms to voice alternative viewpoints
and hold government accountable. However, problems associated with
press freedom for print media have begun to migrate to online media as
well. Russia is one of the countries ``under surveillance'' in the 2010
Enemies of the Internet report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Even when technical blocks or filtering are not deployed
systematically, if people are punished physically or through legal
action for peacefully expressing themselves online, Internet freedom is
constrained. The threats to Internet freedom in Russia range from
attacks on bloggers to criminal prosecutions of bloggers for
`extremism', to the blocking of specific sites by local service
providers, denial of service (DDOS) attacks on sites site of opposition
groups or independent media, and attempts by security services and some
regional authorities to regulate Internet content. For example:
In November 2010, journalist and blogger Oleg Kashin was brutally
beaten outside his home in Moscow. Leading human rights organizations
in Russia connect the attack with material he had published on his
blog.
The independent newspaper Novaya Gazetacame under a DDOS attack in
April, while a wide-scale March DDOS attack on LiveJournal, a blog
hosting site, began by targeting the blog of prominent anti-corruption
activist Alexei Navalny. Navalny has also been targeted for prosecution
for criminal charges alleging that he had facilitated a 2009 bad
investment for a regional government in his capacity as a legal
advisor. Rights groups in Russia believe that the charges are
politically motivated.
Regional authorities have acted to block sites or prosecute those
who produce content that they deem politically undesirable. Bloggers in
Oryol, Marii El, Syktykvar, and other areas of Russia have have faced
prosecution for posting insults to Prime Minister Putin or other
official persons in online forums. Local authorities have acted in
multiple cases to compel local service providers to block certain sites
that contain materials listed on the Federal List of Extremist
Materials--a problematic and expanding list of over 700 publications.
Regional providers have also temporarily blocked sites of the political
opposition, such as the site of the Solidarity Movement and
Kasparov.ru, and independent publications like the New Times.
Whistleblowers also face legal retaliation. For instance, Yuri
Yegorov, a blogger from Tatarstan and a former employee of the regional
government, received a 6-month suspended sentence in May for libel
after he alleged corruption and embezzlement on the part of Tatarstan
human rights ombudsman Rashit Vagizov. His reports of corruption were
later supported by other witnesses' testimonies, which were ignored by
the court.
Turkey
We are increasingly concerned by the restrictions that the
Government of Turkey places on Internet freedom. Turkish authorities
have blocked over 5,000 websites, many with content on sensitive social
and political issues. Much of this blocking is done in accordance with
Turkey's 2007 Internet law, which allows the government to prohibit a
Web site if there is suspicion that the site is committing any of eight
crimes. These restrictions have been criticized by prominent officials
within the Turkish government itself, including President Abdullah Gul.
This year has brought two new proposed restrictions on Internet
freedom. Turkish authorities announced a new ban on Internet domain
names that contain 138 words deemed offensive based on vague criteria.
In addition, the government announced that it planned to introduce a
nationwide filtering system to be implemented by Internet Service
Providers. The proposal was met with widespread criticism, from the
international community and from within Turkish civil society. Although
some Turkish Internet associations indicate this decision may be
postponed, yet the regulations are still scheduled to take effect
August 22. While we understand these restrictions are allegedly
designed to protect children from harmful content on the Internet,
banning words in an attempt to eliminate undesirable content from the
Internet cannot succeed. Major international Internet companies have
voiced concerns over operating in Turkey under such regulations. If
Turkey is to ensure a modern, prosperous, and peaceful society, it
cannot continue to constrain the potential of the Internet for the
exercise of human rights.
Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan, Internet access is not restricted. For example, the
government does not restrict web sites such as You Tube or Facebook,
both of which are very popular. The government's release of young
blogger-activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli last fall and newspaper
editor Eynulla Fatullayev this spring were positive developments.
We are concerned, however, that government officials appear to have
monitored certain types of online activity, including postings on
social media sites, in order to restrict freedom of assembly,
specifically the activities of youth and opposition organizers who used
these sites to organize anti-government demonstrations in March and
April. Several of these activists--presumably identified from internet
postings as organizers--were detained or imprisoned following these
events. For example, youth activists Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and Jabbar
Savalanli were arrested earlier this year after using the Internet for
pro-democracy activism. Hajiyev, a candidate in last November's
parliamentary elections, was detained on draft evasion charges pending
since 2010 after he was associated with Internet postings related to
March 2011 protests. International and domestic observers have alleged
that the authorities prosecute draft evasion selectively, and have
singled out Hajiyev because of his political activities. He was
convicted on May 18 of draft evasion and sentenced to two years
imprisonment. This is not the first time Hajiyev has encountered
problems with the government after utilizing the Internet for social
activism; in 2007 the authorities arrested him after he established a
web site to protest price increases. Savalanli, a young opposition
Popular Front Party activist, was convicted on May 4 and sentenced to
two and a half years in prison on drug charges considered to be
spurious by human rights groups.
Enduring Freedoms, New Apps
Mr. Chairman, as you know, in the past, the Helsinki process was a
major international platform for defending citizens expressing
dissenting views via samizdat and for protesting the jamming of radio
broadcasts. Two decades ago, in response to efforts by the Ceausescu
regime to restrict citizens' access to Xerox machines, an explicit
commitment was included in the OSCE's Copenhagen document pledging that
``no limitation will be imposed on access to, and use of, means of
reproducing documents of any kind.'' Today, email, social networking
and text messaging are new forms of samizdat as well as indispensible
tools of commerce, education, and global communications.
As the United States has done since the inception of the Helsinki
Process, so, too, in this new century, we stand with those in the OSCE
region who seek to peacefully exercise their fundamental freedoms and
promote and protect human rights, including via new technologies.
I commend Lithuania, which has made key themes of its Chairmanship
media freedom via old and new technologies and the safety of
journalists. We are particularly grateful for the tireless efforts of
the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Ms. Dunja Mijatovic and
her dedicated staff to ensure that fundamental freedoms can be
exercised via digital media, and I am delighted that she is here with
us today. Last week, she co-organized with the OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights a Supplementary Human
Dimension Meeting on Promotion of Pluralism in New Media. Her office is
working on a matrix representing Internet laws and policies in the OSCE
region to identify and encourage best practices and adherence to OSCE
commitments on freedom of expression. Additionally, her office provides
critical training to journalists in Central Asia and the Caucasus, as
well as legal reviews of OSCE participating States' legislation, to
advance broader respect for freedom of expression norms. Perhaps most
critically, Ms. Mijatovic has been a voice for bloggers, journalists
and other activists who are harassed or imprisoned for their work to
disseminate independent information that is essential for democratic
development.
Mr. Chairman, the Commission has long supported the vital role that
non-governmental organizations play in the OSCE process. I am pleased
to say that we are exploring creative ways that we can help connect
human rights and democracy activists across the OSCE region through new
technologies in order to enhance their ability to network with one
another and leverage the contribution of their ideas and insights to
the work of the OSCE. On her trip to Vilnius last week, Secretary
Clinton spoke at a ``tech camp'' we organized to help civil society
groups from the OSCE region and beyond use these new technologies most
effectively.
I want also to emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that cyber issues are
relevant to all three dimensions of the OSCE. As we partner with other
governments, civil society and the business sector on ways we can
safeguard against very real cyber security threats, we do so ever
mindful that the measures we take must be consistent with our human
dimension commitments to respect the exercise of human rights and
fundamental freedoms.
Mr. Chairman, last year, in the run-up to the OSCE Summit in
Astana, the U.S. advanced language for inclusion in the Summit Action
Plan stating that the participating States, in fulfillment of their
longstanding OSCE commitments, will permit their people to peacefully
exercise their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and
association through Digital Age technologies. The language did not aim
to create new commitments; rather it was designed to reinforce the
message that existing commitments to respect human rights and
fundamental freedoms apply in the Digital Age. The language represents
a conceptual breakthrough in that it recognizes that individuals and
members of civil society organizations utilize digital technologies not
only to exercise freedom of expression, but also to connect, network,
form organizations, and gather in both virtual and real space. The
language also highlights a key human dimension priority: defending and
supporting the vital role of civil society in human rights protection
and democratic development.
In Astana, our negotiators worked to advance our Digital Age
language along with highly compatible language from the European Union
related to freedom of expression.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Astana Summit did not adopt an
Action Plan. We intend, however, to renew our efforts to advance our
language on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Digital Age
with a view to its adoption at the OSCE Ministerial in Vilnius this
December. OSCE's adoption of the Digital Age language would, I believe,
mark the first time that any regional organization formally recognizes
that respect for the full range of human rights and fundamental
freedoms must extend to the use of new technologies.
The United States will take every opportunity to work with the
Lithuanian Chair, the EU, other participating States and civil society
to ensure that the OSCE sends a clear message from Vilnius on Internet
Freedom. If I were to distill that message into a tweet to the world,
it would be: ``Enduring Freedoms, New Apps.''
Mr. Chairman, when he signed the Helsinki Final Act 35 years ago,
President Ford famously said that: ``History will judge this Conference
not by what we say here today, but by what we do tomorrow--not by the
promises we make, but by the promises we keep.'' He was right then, and
his statement is even more true today. In this Digital Age, keeping our
promises greatly depends on ensuring that the Internet is open and
free.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now I would be happy to answer your
questions.
Biography of Dr. Daniel B. Baer
Term of Appointment: November 23, 2009 to present
Daniel Baer was sworn in as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for the
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor on November 23, 2009.
Dr. Baer's portfolio for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor includes the Office of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Office
of African Affairs and the Office of Multilateral and Global Affairs.
Prior to joining the Department of State, Dr. Baer was an Assistant
Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at
Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, where he taught
business ethics to MBA and undergraduate students. In 2007-2008 he was
a Faculty Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at
Harvard University.
From 2004-2007, Dr. Baer worked at The Boston Consulting Group
where he was a Project Leader and provided strategic advice to leaders
in the corporate, government, and non-profit sectors.
A Colorado native, Daniel Baer holds doctoral and masters degrees
in international relations from the University of Oxford, where he was
a Marshall Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard
University in social studies and African American studies.
Prepared Statement of Dunja Mijatovic, Representative on Freedom of the
Media, OSCE
1. Introduction
For centuries, the right to be heard has been seen as the
cornerstone of democracy--it enables other rights to exist. In the age
of the borderless Internet, the protection of a right to freedom of
expression ``regardless of frontiers'' takes on new and more powerful
meaning. The argument for freedom of expression on the web is a double-
edged sword and is a hotly debated issue. On the one side it is
upholding civil rights and on the other allowing governments and
censors to question people's own judgment. The Internet, at its best,
is a cyber experience on every single topic imaginable from personal
pages detailing the life and thoughts of a school child to
multinationals promoting their wares online.
Governments, however, have already begun to impose controls on the
Internet, threatening the potential of this new medium. As an
international community of users and providers of information, we are
at a dramatic turning point. The Internet will change the way people
live: it offers extraordinary opportunities for enhancing creativity
and learning, for trading and relating across borders, for safeguarding
human rights, for realizing democratic values and for strengthening
pluralism and cultural diversity. The change holds promise and it holds
challenges. One of the major challenges is to confront ways in which to
spread access to the Internet so that the whole world can benefit,
rather than creating gaps between the information rich and information
poor.
The individual decides what he/she does not want to see, not the
authorities. In a modern democratic and civil society, citizens
themselves should make the decision on what they want to access on the
Internet; as the right to disseminate and to receive information is a
basic human right.
The exploration of cyberspace can be a civilization's truest, most
challenging and also very controversial calling and adventure. The
opportunity is now before the mankind to empower every person to pursue
that opportunity in his or her own way. However, the exploration of
cyberspace brings both greater opportunity, and, in some ways, more
difficult challenges, than any previous human adventure.
The internationally distributed and interactive nature of the
Internet means that any attempt to deal with the Internet in isolation
from other countries will be very difficult to accomplish. National
actions must fit into a pattern of international understanding on the
best ways in which to deal with Internet content issues.
The Internet is the fastest growing medium ever. While it took the
United States, for example, 38 years to reach 50 million radio users
and 10 years to reach the same number of television viewers, it only
took 5 years in the case of the Internet. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Source: Morgan Stanley: The Internet Retailing Report, at:
http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/
inetretail_1997.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We already live in the digital age, a time in which we can create
truly democratic cultures with participation by all members of society;
and in only a few years from now this participation will virtually
include most of the world's citizens.
It will not be enough to provide citizens, particularly in rural or
less-developed parts of this world, with a connection and web-
compatible devices. For consumers to become what we now call
``netizens'' it is indispensible to understand the information, and
subsequently know how to critically assess, how to process and how to
contextualize it. The technological advancement in order to reach out
to all has to go hand-in-hand with education, with programs on media
literacy and Internet literacy.
But it remains true, that in our globalized world where education,
information, personal development, societal advancement and
interaction, and participation in political decision-making are to a
great extent realized through the Internet, the right to access the web
becomes a cornerstone for the fundamental right to freedom of
expression. The right to seek, receive and impart information not only
includes the right to access but presupposes it.
So, despite progress, some challenges and preconditions remain. The
first one is surely access to the Internet. Without this basic
requirement, without the means to connect, and without an affordable
connection, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the media
become meaningless in the online world. The second one is restricting
free flow of information on the Internet. I would even go so far to say
that the free flow of information is oxygen of cyberspace! Without it
the Internet becomes a useless tool.
Why do certain Governments try to block, restrict and filter this
flow? To protect us from terrorism, extremism, child paedophilia, human
trafficking and other forms of threats, and make our societies more
secure? All mentioned are legitimate reasons that should not be
challenged by anyone.
But to protect us from criticism, satire, provocative and shocking
comments, differing views, tasteless and controversial content? For
that they do not have permission. We as citizens that voted for them
never asked or obliged them to shape our minds and opinions.
There is no security without free media and free expression and, no
free expression and free media without security. These two terms should
come hand in hand and not fight each other like we see in so many parts
of the world; and there is no better place to discuss and fight for
both than in the OSCE. Security and human rights are both at the heart
of the Helsinki Process and the Astana Commemorative Declaration as
well as the OSCE principles and commitment that we share. So, why do we
still struggle and why are we afraid from words? Where dos this fear
from words comes from?
The Internet epitomizes the tremendous changes media has undergone
in the last few decades. Dramatic technological changes have resulted
in an unprecedented increase in the number of outlets and channels, a
dramatic reduction of distribution costs and even the emergence of
entirely new forms of journalism.
On the other hand, the very same technological changes that are
manifest on the Internet seem to undermine the traditional ways print
media use to finance themselves, erode the quality of journalism and
challenges readers, viewers and listeners to rethink their views on
what is quality media.
One requirement however, has not changed, namely the OSCE
obligation of governments to guarantee freedom of the media.
It is therefore important to recall the major OSCE Commitments
regarding pluralism, the free flow of information and the Internet,
including the Budapest Summit 1994, \2\ the 1999 Charter for European
Security, \3\ and the OSCE Permanent Council Decision No. 633 of 2004.
\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ At the Budapest Summit in 1994, the participating States
reaffirmed ``. . .that freedom of expression is a fundamental human
right and a basic component of a democratic society. In this respect,
independent and pluralistic media are essential to a free and open
society and accountable systems of government. They take as their
guiding principle that they will safeguard this right.''
\3\ In the 1999 Charter for European Security, the participating
States reaffirmed ``. . .the importance of independent media and the
free flow of information as well as the public's access to information.
We commit ourselves to take all necessary steps to ensure the basic
conditions for free and independent media and unimpeded transborder and
intra-State flow of information, which we consider to be an essential
component of any democratic, free and open society.''
\4\ In OSCE Permanent Council Decision No. 633 of 2004, explicitly
including the Internet, the participating States pledged to: ``. .
.take action to ensure that the Internet remains an open and public
forum for freedom of opinion and expression, as enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to foster access to the
Internet both in homes and in schools.'' ``. . .to study the
effectiveness of laws and other measures regulating Internet content.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our common goal of achieving the promises we made should be a free,
open and safe Internet. Very simply, when services are blocked or
filtered, users of Internet platforms everywhere cannot be served
effectively. While many governments have welcomed this trend, some have
recoiled at the new openness--and are doing their best to make sure
that the Internet is a restricted space.
Today, many governments disrupt the free flow of online
information. Popular tactics include incorporating surveillance tools
into Internet infrastructure; blocking online services; imposing new,
secretive regulations; and requiring onerous licensing regimes.
And with the development of the Internet, some new features never
considered before, such as blogging and citizen journalism have now
arisen. With this in mind, let me now give you an overview of the
situation regarding Internet freedom in the OSCE region.
2. Freedom of the Internet in the OSCE Region
There are an estimated 2 billion Internet users worldwide, 750
million of which live in the OSCE region. In order to bring more light
on Internet regulation across the region, my Office commissioned a
report by renowned Internet and media lawyer, Professor Yamam Akdeniz
of Bilgi University in Istanbul.
This first OSCE-wide study on content regulation was launched on
July 8 and it revealed, inter alia, the following:
1) A number of participating States introduced policies which could
be used to completely ``switch off'' Internet access during times of
war, in a state of emergency and in response to other security threats.
Although these countries, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria, for example, have
not made use of this legislation, it is, nonetheless, a cause for
concern that these ``Internet kill switch'' laws COULD be used to
suspend communication services for parts of or entire populations.
The ``Internet kill switch'' idea was also considered by the United
States, allowing the president to shut down critical computer systems
in the event of a national cyber emergency. I welcome the fact that the
U.S. Senate DID NOT act on the proposed measure.
2) Some governments already recognize access to the Internet as a
human right. This trend should be supported as a crucial element of
media freedom in the 21st century. Access to the Internet remains the
most important pre-requisite to the right to freedom of expression.
3) That freedom of expression and freedom of the media principles
equally apply to Internet-related content is not recognized by most
participating States. However, laws criminalizing content are
applicable to all media, including the Internet. Therefore, criminal
sanctions can be used to regulate online content and conduct. Content
regulation developed for traditional media can not and should not
simply be applied to the Internet. While rules and boundaries still
exist, enforcement of existing laws, rules and regulations to digital
content becomes evidently complex, problematic and at times difficult
to enforce.
4) In several participating States a legal remedy provided for
allegedly illegal content is removal or deletion of the offending
material. The new trend in Internet regulation seems to be blocking
access to content if state authorities are not in a position to reach
the perpetrators for prosecution or if their request for removal is
rejected or ignored by foreign law enforcement authorities. In some
participating States, such as in Belarus and the Russian Federation,
``prohibited information lists'' exist, allowing blocking if such
information appears on the Internet. Some countries, including the
Czech Republic, Moldova, Switzerland and the United Kingdom also have
developed state-level domain name blocking or seizure policies. State-
level blocking policies undoubtedly have a very strong impact on
freedom of expression. Participating States should refrain from using
blocking as a permanent measure, solution or as a means of punishment.
Indefinite blocking of access to websites and Internet content could
result to ``prior restraint''. Turkey provides the broadest legal
measures for blocking access to websites by specifying 11 content-
related crimes. Turkish authorities have not revealed the number of
websites blocked using this legislation.
5) There are definitional problems when it comes to terms such as
``extremism'', ``terrorist propaganda,'' ``harmful content'' and ``hate
speech''. These terms are vaguely defined and may be widely interpreted
to ban speech that Internet users may not deem illegal. Clarifications
are needed to define these terms.
6) The development of so-called ``three-strikes'' measures to
combat Internet piracy in a number of participating States is
worrisome. While the participating States have a legitimate interest in
combating piracy, restricting or cutting off users' access to the
Internet is a disproportionate response which is incompatible with OSCE
commitments on freedom to seek, receive and impart information.
Participating States should steadfastly refrain from developing or
adopting measures which could result restricting citizens' access to
the Internet. Also, an international discussion on whether or not the
current standards on copyright are up to date in our information
society might be necessitated.
7) Network neutrality is an important prerequisite for the Internet
to be equally accessible and affordable to all. It is, therefore,
troubling that more than 80% of the participating States do not have
legal provisions in place to guarantee net neutrality. Finland and
Norway stand out as best-practice examples with Finland having anchored
network neutrality in its laws while Norway, together with the industry
and Internet consumers, developed workable guidelines.
8) A considerable number of participating States have yet to
decriminalize defamation. Harsh prison sentences and severe financial
penalties continue to exist in defamation suits. In the Internet age,
decriminalization of defamation becomes a prerequisite for free media
to report without fear of criminal prosecution about issues of public
importance--beyond national borders and jurisdictions. In countries
where a free media scene is yet to be established, it is often foreign
correspondents who assume the watchdog function. If, however,
journalists face criminal charges for online publications where their
stories have been read or downloaded, the ability to report freely and
unhindered will be severely hampered.
9) Some participating States had problems submitting information
because applicable regulatory provisions or relevant statistics were
not easily retrievable. This lack of clarity makes it difficult for
users and legislators to understand Internet regulation regimes. Often
information, particularly pertaining to questions on blocking
statistics, was not available. Sometimes different governmental
institutions and ministries are responsible for the different aspects
of the Internet, hence internal co-ordination becomes complicated.
Almost no participating State had an institutional focal point on
Internet matters to fall back on. For the purpose of streamlined
national co-ordination, the avoiding of duplicated or contradicting
legislation, my Office proposes the introduction of governmentally
independent national Internet focal points. This might also facilitate
the maintenance of reliable information and statistics about laws and
regulations, their implementation and consequences related to freedom
of the media and the free flow of information.
3. Conclusions
Blocking access to the Internet or banning certain content has
proven to be ineffective. Even by trying to establish ``regionalized''
networks it will not be possible to gain full control over the
communication exchanged and information shared on the web. Any attempt
to hinder the free flow of information, to disproportionally restrict
the right to free expression, to block dissenting opinions or to
prevent critical voices from being heard will prove to be short-sighted
because a free Internet and independent media are a means and not an
end in itself.
I hope that the OSCE report on freedom of expression on the
Internet will serve the OSCE participating States as a valuable
reference tool in advancing free speech, media freedom, and media
pluralism online.
Internet as a source of pluralism:
The level of pluralism in the media is one of the major indicators
of what the OSCE stands for, namely promoting pluralistic societies
with democratic decision making processes, which by definition need
pluralistic views and opinions to be presented freely, especially, but
not exclusively, during election cycles. In this respect the Internet
is an achievement and a utility which needs protection, as traditional
media do. The relevant provisions and international standards, such as
Article 19 of the UN covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10
of the European Convention on Human rights and the OSCE Commitments
regarding freedom of the media are applicable to content on the
Internet. Often however, we see a trend in the opposite direction,
which includes targeted and specialized legislation to address and
restrict content on the Internet.
Access to Internet as a constitutional right:
Finland and Estonia introduced pioneering legislation which
established the access to Internet as a constitutional right. In
France, the constitutional court ruled in a similar way. In order to
pay tribute to the unique contribution the Internet has given to
participatory democracy, to freedom of expression and to freedom of the
media, it is only fitting to enshrine the right to access the Internet
on exactly that level where such rights belong, as a fundamental right
with a constitutional rank. Perhaps the time is ripe to turn a new page
in the history of fundamental rights and establish access to Internet
as a universal human right.
It would be promising indeed to see the number grow of OSCE
participating States which recognize this principle on a constitutional
level.
The Internet is a fantastic resource that has fundamentally changed
our societies for the better. It will continue to have a positive
impact--if we allow it. The lesson is simple: The Internet must remain
free.
Biography of Dunja Mijatovic
Dunja Mijatovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been appointed as the
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.on March 11, 2010
succeeding Miklos Haraszti of Hungary.
Mijatovic is an expert in media law and regulation. In 1998, as one
of the founders of the Communications Regulatory Agency of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, she helped to create a legal and policy framework for
media in a complex post-war society. She also was involved in
establishing a self-regulatory Press Council and the first Free Media
Helpline in South Eastern Europe.
Mijatovic was appointed Chairperson of the European Platform of
Regulatory Authorities in 2007, the largest media regulators' network
in the world. She held this post until her appointment as the
Representative.
From 2005 to 2007, she chaired the Council of Europe's Group of
Specialists on freedom of expression and information in times of
crisis. In that role, she was instrumental in steering a Declaration on
the protection and promotion of investigative journalism through the
Council's Committee of Ministers. She also played a key role in
developing guidelines on protecting freedom of expression and
information in times of crisis.
Mijatovic has written extensively on ``new media'' topics. She also
has served as a consultant on projects relating to media regulation and
new technologies in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
She is a graduate of the University of Sarajevo, the University of
Bologna, University of Sussex and the London School of Economics.
Prepared Statement of Sec. David J. Kramer, President, Freedom House
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, it is an honor to appear
before you today for a very timely discussion on Internet freedom in
the OSCE Region. As a former member of the Commission myself when I
served in the State Department as Assistant Secretary for Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor, I always appreciate the opportunity to return
to this Commission and participate in its important work.
Before delving into today's topic, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to
commend you for your leadership in securing passage last week by the
U.S. House of Representatives of the Belarus Democracy and Human Rights
Act of 2011. This is an extremely important bill that will reinforce
efforts of the Administration to pressure the Lukashenka regime and
support the opposition forces and civil society. The role you
personally have played on Belarus over the past decade, along with a
number of your colleagues, including Senator Cardin, has been critical
to showing solidarity with those who are trying to bring about
democratic change and an end to Europe's last dictatorship. Lukashenka
is unquestionably on the thinnest ice of his political life, and we may
be celebrating his departure from power--hopefully sooner rather than
later. Freedom House could then conceivably move Belarus out of the
``Not Free'' category that we use to rank countries around the world.
More on Belarus shortly.
Mr. Chairman, whether in Belarus or elsewhere in the region,
Internet freedom, like many other freedoms, is under duress in a number
of countries. Before the information revolution, regimes in the region
focused their efforts at maintaining control over television first and
foremost, but also newspapers, radio, and foreign broadcasting. The
Internet poses the latest and most promising challenge to break through
the iron grip that some regimes in the area seek to maintain. By its
very nature, the free flow of information poses a threat to such
regimes and challenges the very essence of who they are and how they
preserve control. Thus, whether via TV before or the Internet today,
repressive governments show their stripes online or offline; the
tactics may change, but the intent of such governments remains the
same. Not surprisingly, countries that rank ``Not Free'' in Freedom
House's Freedom of the Press 201 report receive similar scores when it
comes to Internet freedom. Their efforts to control and suppress
information through more traditional means extend to the newer forms of
communication as well. At the same time, it is worth noting that in
most cases, countries, even those ranked ``Not Free'', perform better
in Internet freedom than in press freedom-at least when we look at the
actual scores-in large part due to the fact that many governments still
have not started restricting online content to the same level they do
traditional media. This is slowly changing, however, and something
worth keeping an eye on.
A main difference from the past, however, is that citizens who are
denied freedom of expression now have new ways to express their
legitimate rights through the Internet. No longer do dissidents have to
resort to mimeograph machines or handwritten copies of sensitive
documents. These days, a modem and keypad will do the job, but one
should not be complacent about the ability to keep the flow of
technology free. Indeed, authoritarian regimes are adjusting quickly to
the new types of communications that are out there. Just because many
conversations are virtual these days doesn't mean they're free of
government efforts to control.
In April, my organization, Freedom House, released its latest
Freedom on the Net 2011 report assessing the degree of Internet freedom
in 37 countries in six geographical regions. At a global level, Freedom
House has worked over the last four years to document the state of
Internet freedom (our Freedom on the Net reports, among other ways);
improve access to a wide range of censorship circumvention technologies
in countries where the Internet is restricted; build indigenous
capacity to promote and support the use of anti-censorship tools in
highly repressive environments; provide technology developers with
ongoing assessment of the performance of anti-censorship tools; and
advocate to promote and support Internet freedom with national,
regional and international bodies such as the United Nations.
In focusing on states of the OSCE region, we see both opportunities
and challenges for states and citizens in the sphere of Internet
freedom. Filtering and blocking of political and social content by
governments are incompatible with freedom of expression and the free
flow of information, both of which are basic OSCE commitments. Freedom
House is encouraged by the role of the OSCE in pressing for
accountability among participating States for upholding commitments on
freedom of expression in the new media realm. I want to acknowledge the
very positive and active role of my fellow panelist, Dunja Mijatovic,
the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. She has done an
excellent job in raising the profile of media freedom issues broadly--
including with a conference last month in Vilnius, Lithuania on
protecting journalists that I was privileged to attend--and Internet
freedom specifically, and it's a pleasure to be with her here this
morning. I also want to recognize the solid work that Dr. Daniel Baer
and his colleagues in the State Department's DRL Bureau are doing in
this area.While much of the world's attention the past few months has
been focused on the volatile Middle East, citizen activism against
repressive governments, through the connective power of online media,
is spreading to the OSCE region. And so let me turn to some specific
countries and challenges that we face there.
Belarus
Arguably nowhere more than in Belarus do we see the competing
efforts of citizens fighting to preserve the openness of the Internet
to advance the cause of freedom and the government seeking to crack
down on everything, including the Internet and the free flow of
information. In recent weeks, Lukashenka's regime has been at a loss to
stop a growing number of young activists from taking to the streets to
protest against the country's economic crisis, for which Lukashenka
deserves full blame, and the Internet is the source for their
mobilization, with echoes of the Arab Spring reverberating. Over the
course of the last month, 1,800 have been detained in street protests
organized via online media (silent ``clapping protests'') namely,
Facebook and VKontakte.
Lukashenka has retorted that peaceful demonstrations are meant to
``sow uncertainty and alarm, to destroy social harmony, and.bring us to
our knees and bring to naught our hard-won independence.'' What is
clear is that the people of Belarus are signaling that they have had
enough of Lukashenka. And he is striking back against these
increasingly tech-savvy, peaceful, clapping citizens. My money is on
the citizens in this showdown, and our support should be with them
unstintingly as well.
The Belarusian government desires to suppress the free flow of
information, and the Internet is simply the latest frontier. The
authorities impose severe restrictions on all news outlets, and the
security services have increasingly attempted to introduce various
Internet surveillance technologies. A presidential decree signed in
February 2010 and subsequent regulations provide a legal basis for
extensive censorship and monitoring of the Internet. The rules
concerning using the Internet are quite restrictive. The users who
access the Internet from home, are subject to regular checks and can
easily be tracked by IP address. Going online from an Internet cafe one
must present identity documents. The administration of an Internet cafe
is obliged to keep the details of the user, along with the information
about the visited websites, social networks and other online activity
for a certain period of time; this information can be provided for
investigation upon request. Internet service providers must also ensure
state registration of their personal and their client's information
networks, systems, and resources in order to carry out activities
inside Belarus. For using wireless Internet (either through buying
Internet cards or going online from any public place that has free
wireless network), identification is needed beforehand. These
mechanisms are deliberately designed to eliminate anonymous use of the
Internet. Such Internet monitoring and filtering runs counter to OSCE
norms and commitments.
Nonetheless, in an effort to diffuse the impact of these latest
online calls to protest, the government has resorted to a number of
repressive steps via multiple tools such as spamming online threads
about protests; misusing hashtags; and creating fake Twitter accounts
to undermine actual activists. In this last method, pro-government
bloggers referenced messages on these fake accounts to help spread
disinformation. But old habits are hard to break, especially when your
security services are still called the KGB, and so the Belarusian
regime also relies on its tried and true methods of control by
harassing the VKontakte administrator and asking for users' passwords
(during the last month of protests).
The government's desire to suppress the free flow of information
was also on display during and immediately following the December 2010
presidential election: international connections were blocked and users
couldn't use Facebook, Twitter, or send secure Gmail messages. Fake
mirror websites were created to divert users from accessing independent
news sources. Opposition websites and news sites were hijacked.
While the Belarusian government has promoted the use of the
Internet for economic purposes--even though Lukashenka has been quoted
as calling the Internet ``trash''--the impact of the new medium in the
political sphere remains limited. In fact, the Belarusian Internet is
monopolized by a governmental provider--Beltelecom, which is
subsequently re-selling the traffic to other commercial providers.
Moreover, heightening the challenge digital activists face, according
to the OpenNet Initiative, 70 percent of all Belarusian Internet
traffic goes through Russia and is reviewed by the Russian mechanisms
for ``operational and investigative activities'' (SORM) and
``authorities for national security.'
Recent years have seen an increase in Internet use and mobile-
telephone penetration in Belarus. Some 27 percent of the population
uses the Internet and 93 percent of the population uses mobile phones.
However, state-imposed and other infrastructural restrictions
significantly constrain Belarusians' ability to fully access these
technologies and related applications. Internet costs in Belarus are
higher than in all neighboring countries
Online activists and web-based journalists face extralegal
harassment, mostly in the form of phone calls or intimidating messages.
Independent civil society is also subject to electronic attacks such as
distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS). Charter97 suffered a very
well documented DDOS attack after the 2006 elections. More recently
they have been subject to a very intense and prolonged DDOS attack over
the last 3 weeks. However, until 2010, physical attacks were not
common. For that reason, the death of the founder of Charter97, Aleh
Byabenin, prompted many questions among his colleagues and fellow
journalists. Byabenin was found hanged from a stairway at his summer
home in September 2010. Although the authorities declared his death a
suicide, most independent sources questioned the official version and
suspected foul play.
Belarus is ranked ``Not Free'' in Freedom on the Net 2011; it is
also ranked ``Not Free'' in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press 2011
report.
Azerbaijan
Although Azerbaijan's Internet usage has increased in recent years,
authorities have attempted to exercise greater control, particularly in
the wake of the Arab Spring. The government routinely blocks public
access to various websites that are critical of the government and
among the most targeted are the websites of the newspapers published by
the main opposition parties, as well as the Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty's Azerbaijani service (RFE/RL). It is widely believed that
surveillance of Internet communication, as well as SMS and phone
conversations is common practice, as demonstrated in the case of the
Ministry of National Security's interrogation in 2009 of 43
Azerbaijanis who voted for the Armenian song in the Eurovision contest.
Internet restrictions are particularly frequent in the autonomous
exclave of Nakhchivan, where the most severe restrictions on the
freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are reportedly imposed by the
personal order of the chief of the executive authority Vasif Talibov.
The recent jailing of online youth activists, such as Jabbar Savalan
(sentenced to 30 months, supported Arab Spring inspired protests) and
Bakhtiyar Hajiyev (a former parliamentary candidate, sentenced to 2
years), has a further chilling effect.
Yet the expansion of the online media is for now mostly limited to
the capital Baku and a few large cities, in part due to poor
infrastructure and the cost of Internet access in the country. The vast
majority of the population is not able to access the web, or has
service that is so slow it cannot enjoy Web 2.0's potential.
On June 22, the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party issued a statement
condemning the restrictions imposed by the government on Internet
access of key members of the main opposition party over the last three
months. The Party linked these attempts to the government's concern
over the increase in political activity. The violations referred to
include:
Websites of the main opposition newspapers were
experiencing several attacks and access restrictions in the recent
months.
The personal blog site of Mr. Ali Karimly, the Party's
chairman, was taken down by a hacker attack; even after it was
restored, he was unable to add new content, which was claimed to have
been caused by unknown restrictions imposed on his IP address.
Later, Internet access to Mr. Karimli's apartment cut off
for a month under various excuses.
Three of Mr. Karimli's deputies (Gozal Bayramli, Fuad
Gahramanli and Razi Nurullayev) also faced Internet restrictions,
including technical difficulties and reduced speed.
The government has also tried to suppress their activities in
social-networking sites. Mr. Gahramanli's Facebook page was hacked and
is being used to slander the opposition to this day. The Facebook page
of Natig Adilov, head of Party's press service, has been blocked twice
in the past few months due to a large number of false complaints/
reports.
Azerbaijan is ranked ``Partly Free'' in Freedom on the Net 2011; it
is also ranked ``Not Free'' in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press
2011 report.
Russia
In Russia, the Internet landscape is complicated, like the country.
Many view Russia as a ``country at risk'' given the likelihood that
authorities will look to consolidate control over means of
communication in the lead-up to the December parliamentary and March
2012 presidential elections. Citizens and bloggers are becoming
increasingly active online, and so is the government. Since the
Internet was first launched in Russia, the country has made significant
gains in the expansion of its information infrastructure. Most Russians
access the Internet from their homes (94 percent of users) and
workplaces (48 percent), and use of cybercafes has consequently dropped
off. Internet access via mobile telephones and similar devices has
gained popularity since 2006, and 9.4 million people report using this
method. Faster and more credible than conventional media, online
outlets are becoming the main information source for a growing number
of Russians, and certain websites have larger audiences than television
channels.
Where traditional forms of media are more actively restricted, the
Internet in Russia has become a space for relatively free speech and
discussion. Applications like the social networking site Facebook, the
Russian social networking site VKontakte, the microblogging platform
Twitter, and various international blog-hosting services are freely
available. Unlike, say, in China where Internet control is a repressive
blanket, in Russia, government leaders are using subtle control methods
not designed (usually) to prevent the transmission of information but
instead to shape and control it, often by disseminating propaganda and
by placing pressure on Internet access providers. Under the ideological
umbrella of managed democracy, the government is trying to have the
Internet suit its own purposes. President Medvedev is active as a
blogger and a tweeter. But there has been on-and-off discussion in
Russian political and security circles about the need to rein in
Internet providers. The Internet in Russia is regulated by the Federal
Service for Monitoring Communications, Information Technology, and Mass
Communications, whose director is appointed by the Prime Minister. It
is currently using a tactic that has been effective in spreading a
climate of fear among print journalists--it publicly goes after a few
known dissident voices and bloggers. Russian authorities have used
current laws against ``extremism'' effectively to punish dissenting
voices, including several bloggers who have been prosecuted under such
charges, and have checked several opposition news portals for
``extremist'' content.
Bloggers have been actively covering the citizen's movement to
defend the Khimki Forest from damaging construction of a highway that
would run through the forest. While bloggers were freer in their
ability to get the word out, they still faced the same repression after
expression; journalists and bloggers have been assaulted and arrested
for daring to contradict official interests in the forest. Several
journalists/bloggers who actively opined on the Khimki Forest issue
were savagely beaten--Oleg Kashin last November and Mikhail Beketov in
September 2008--and many more harassed and threatened. Their attacks
serve as brutal reminders of the dangers bloggers and digital activists
face from various interest groups, whether it be those in power
(locally or nationally) or business groups. And yet corruption issues
have broken through and galvanized citizen action. Blogger Alexey
Navalny is the most recent and public example: on his blog, he has
bravely exposed possible corruption in Russian oil companies, banks,
and government agencies, and he has also launched a site RosPil,
dedicated to exposing state corruption, where he invites readers to
review public documents for malfeasance and post their findings.
Suspicious government contracts, totaling millions, have been annulled,
as a result of Navalny's efforts. Yandex was forced by the FSB security
agency to hand over details of contributors to Navalny's website.
Notwithstanding government pressure, Navalny has persisted in his
online efforts; in a recent controversial blog, Navalny asked legal
authorities to investigate the legitimacy of the Russian People's Front
initiated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The Internet has also given voice to those who in the past had not
had a way to speak out. As is the case in Russia in the online and
offline world, freedom of expression is still always a dangerous
endeavor. The case of Aleksei Dymovsky, the Russian police officer who
triggered a political storm in 2009 by blowing the whistle on rampant
police corruption through widely viewed videos posted on the Internet,
is a perfect example. His courage earned him instant dismissal from his
job, a brief time in jail on fraud charges, as well as threats against
him and his family. By speaking out, however, he emboldened others to
do the same in a series of similar Internet postings in which fellow
law-enforcement officers described how police routinely extort money
from ordinary Russians. Most whistle-blowers eventually face
harassment, prosecution, or both. Unfortunately, in the new police law
which went into effect in March, there is a troubling provision in the
law banning police officers from discussing their superiors' orders
publicly or voicing their opinions in the media. It is tough to feel
hopeful in a country where speaking out rarely leads to an improved
situation.
Russia is ranked ``Partly Free'' in Freedom on the Net 2011; it is
also ranked ``Not Free'' in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press 2011
report.
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan's government has sought to make the Internet a new
source of economic strength and views it as a vehicle to build the
country into the information-technology hub of Central Asia. With that
goal in mind, the government has made modest efforts to liberalize the
telecommunications sector, promote Internet usage, and enhance the
Internet portals of state entities. At the same time, the authorities
also attempt to control citizens' access to information and seemingly
fear the Internet's democratizing potential. In recent years, the
government has blocked a popular blog-hosting platform and passed
several pieces of legislation that restrict free expression online,
particularly on topics that are deemed threatening to President
Nursultan Nazarbayev's power and reputation. Opposition blogs and
websites face particular pressure.
Even during its stint as OSCE chairman, Kazakhstan did little to
ameliorate the status of Internet freedom. According to Freedom House's
most recent Freedom on the Net survey, select Web 2.0 applications have
been blocked in the country, and the authorities regularly exercise
substantial political censorship. In an effort to restrict content from
government critics, state-owned Internet providers blocked the popular
blogging site LiveJournal in 2008 (it was open again only in November
2010, a few days before the OSCE summit), while the site Blogger.com
was restricted throughout much of 2010; in 2011, Kazakh providers
blocked Wordpress.com, another popular blogging platform. While the
Kazakh Center of Network Information was originally established as a
nongovernmental organization to manage the .kz domain, it reportedly
has 80 percent government ownership and regularly makes politicized
decisions on registering sites on the domain. In July 2009, President
Nazarbayev signed amendments that identified all online resources
(including blogs, forums, Internet shops etc.) as mass media with
judicial responsibility and blocked all resources that carry content
that could be used in an ``information war against Kazakhstan.'' Taken
together with the law that conferred Nazarbayev the status of ``Leader
of the Nation'' and attached criminal responsibility to public insults
to the President, these trends have only heightened the level of self-
censorship in the nation. While the ``For a Free Internet'' campaign
has organized flash mobs, monitored blocked websites, and filed 120
resultant lawsuits, the operating environment overall and government
restrictions in Kazakhstan are such that large-scale civic activism on
Internet freedom is not entirely feasible.
Kazakhstan is ranked ``Partly Free'' in Freedom on the Net 2011; it
is also ranked ``Not Free'' in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press
2011 report.
Turkey
Internet and mobile-telephone use in Turkey has grown significantly
in recent years, though access remains a challenge in some parts of the
country, particularly the southeast. The government had a hands-off
approach to regulation of the Internet until 2001, but it has since
taken considerable legal steps to limit access to certain information,
including some political content. According to various estimates, there
were over 5,000 blocked websites as of July 2010, spurring street
demonstrations against Internet censorship. (Note: some estimates are
much higher but those include pornography sites, not politically
oriented ones.)
In the latest public reaction to Internet censorship, tens of
thousands of people joined nationwide protests in May and June against
the current regime's decision to introduce a countywide mandatory
Internet filtering system that will go into effect on August 22, 2011.
According to a recent study commissioned by the OSCE Office of the
Representative on Freedom of the Media, if realized this decision will
lead to the first government controlled and maintained mandatory
filtering system within the OSCE region.
In Freedom on the Net 2011, Freedom House notes that government
censorship of the Internet, including some political content, is
relatively common in Turkey and is on the rise. The new mandatory
filtering system follows on the heels of Law No. 5651, widely known as
the Internet Law of Turkey, which the government enacted in May 2007.
One troubling provision allows the blocking of websites that contain
certain types of content, including websites deemed to insult Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's founding father. Domestically hosted
websites with proscribed content can be taken down, and those based
abroad can be blocked and filtered through ISPs. The procedures
surrounding decisions to block websites are nontransparent, creating
significant challenges for those seeking to appeal.
Turkey is ranked ``Partly Free'' in Freedom on the Net 2011; it is
also ranked ``Partly Free'' in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press
2011 report.
Hungary
While Freedom House did not include Hungary in its recent Freedom
on the Net report, it is worth noting that the Hungarian parliament
passed a controversial media law last year, portions of which (related
to broadcast media) went into effect on January 1. Other parts (more
relevant to print and the Internet) went into effect on July 1. The new
law gives authority to a newly created media agency to impose large
fines on any media outlet that violates ``public interest, public
morals, or order,'' all terms that are extremely vague. After an outcry
from the international community, the law was modified (e.g. online
media are no longer required by law to provide ``balanced coverage''
and very demanding registration requirements were relaxed, among other
things), but several worrisome and vague provisions remain--all media
providers need to ``respect human dignity,'' and ``self-gratifying and
detrimental coverage of persons in humiliating or defenseless
situations'' is prohibited.
As a result, just last week, at least one online news outlet
reported that it was under investigation for offensive comments its
users posted in the comments portion of its website. This has had a
chilling effect, and there are several online outlets that have
subsequently disabled the commenting feature on their website to
minimize their liability. One challenge is the difficulty among various
government agencies in interpreting the new law consistently. For
example, some claim that the law is not applicable to the comments
section of any website, only to the editorial content. On the other
hand, others see it differently as evidenced by ongoing investigations.
Recommendations
This Commission, government officials, activists, and
others cannot stress enough the message affirmed in the report by OSCE
Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic that open access
to the Internet is a fundamental human right of freedom of expression.
The Internet, after all, is a space for mobilizing citizen engagement,
holding governments accountable, and providing and accessing
independent information.
The OSCE, led by the Representative on Freedom of the
Media but with strong support from member states, should continue to
press all participating States to abide by their commitments on
fundamental freedoms in the digital age and call out those states that
fail to comply or go astray.
We must recognize that technology can also have a
negative impact on human rights and seek to remedy such negative
potential.
Companies should conduct transparent human rights
impact assessments to determine how American-made technology
can adversely affect the privacy of citizens in countries that
severely restrict freedom.
Congress should follow the lead of the European
Parliament in instituting an export control regime of products
that have a negative impact on Internet freedom.
We should also recognize that support for ``firewall
busting'' anti-censorship technologies needs to be complemented by
other measures such as:
Training: recognition of threats, reduce
vulnerabilities.
Urgent Response Mechanisms: To support activists in
urgent need humanitarian support needs to be coupled with
technology assistance.
Mr. Chairman, authoritarian regimes around the world are
coordinating their efforts at cracking down on the Internet, or
infiltrating it to go after digital activists. They share firewall
technologies, pose as activists, and threaten to shut down flows of
information when all else fails. Those of us in the democratic
community of nations need to do a better job in confronting these
threats, protecting the fundamental freedom of expression represented
through open Internet access, and standing in solidarity with those who
are looking to open space virtually in repressive societies. The
Internet affords huge opportunities for expanding freedom around the
world, not least in the OSCE region, but it also needs support and
protection against such threats. The communications revolution means we
live in a different world, and supporters of freedom and democracy must
keep up with these changes better than they have to date and certainly
better than authoritarian regimes. Thank you.
Biography of David J. Kramer
David J. Kramer is President of Freedom House, which he joined in
October 2010. Prior to joining Freedom House, Kramer was a Senior
Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
He was an Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School for International
Affairs at The George Washington University. Before joining GMF, Kramer
served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor from March 2008 to January 2009. He also was a Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, responsible for
Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus affairs as well as regional non-
proliferation issues. Previously, he served as a Professional Staff
Member in the Secretary of State's Office of Policy Planning. Before
that he served as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for
Global Affairs. He also was Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory
Commission on Public Diplomacy in Washington. Kramer received his M.A.
in Soviet studies from Harvard University and his B.A. in Soviet
Studies and Political Science from Tufts University.
Prepared Statement of Rafal Rohozinski, Senior Scholar, Canada Center
for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab, University of Toronto
Chairman, distinguished members of the Commission,
I'd like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to appear and
testify at today's hearing, which comes at a particularly important
moment. The Internet has precipitated perhaps the fastest and largest
expansion of rights in human history. And yet we are also at a
constitutive moment--where our actions, and leadership can lead to two
opposing outcomes. One promises a future of greater freedoms and
transparency; the other threatens a return to a darker, more
authoritarian past.
My name is Rafal Rohozinski, I am a senior scholar at the Canada
Center for Global Security Studies, and the CEO of the SecDev Group and
Psiphon Inc. For the past 10 years I've been a Principal Investigator
of the OpenNet Initiative, a collaborative international research
project between the University of Toronto, Harvard University,
Cambridge University, and the SecDev Group, which has studied and
documented the practice and policy of Internet censorship and
surveillance worldwide. We have published more than two dozen case
studies and thematic reports and are in the process of publishing our
third volume documenting censorship practices in over 70 countries
worldwide. The OpenNet Initiative has amassed the largest, most
complete profile of how countries seek to shape access to cyberspace
using a combination of regulation, repression, and technical means.
Just over 65 years ago, Winston Churchill warned an American
audience of the danger of an Iron Curtain falling across Europe--
casting a shadow of authoritarianism and depriving citizens of their
democratic rights. Churchill spoke in 1946, at a time when the United
States stood uncontested as a global power. He urged the creation of
norms and institutions that would safeguard freedom, and actively
oppose the forces of authoritarianism. For Churchill, the end of World
War II was a constitutive moment: the choices made by the victorious
Allies would have enduring consequences for the cause of freedom in
Europe, and elsewhere.
Today, we stand at the threshold of a similar constitutive moment
brought about by a revolution whose long-term consequences we are only
now starting to grasp. For the past two decades, the emergence of the
Internet and cyberspace has led to the largest sustained global
expansion of knowledge, rights, and freedoms. Over a third of all
humanity is connected to the Internet, and there are almost as many
cell phones in circulation globally there are people. Significantly, we
are now seeing the coming-of-age of the ``digital natives'' who have
grown up knowing only a connected world. Two-thirds of those currently
accessing cyberspace are under the age of 25, and over 80% use at least
one form of social media.
But the numbers do not do justice to the social significance of
this expansion. This revolution is so pervasive and so all encompassing
that it's difficult to see just how fundamentally it has changed the
exercise of individual human rights, how much it has added to the cause
of basic freedoms, and the ability of all peoples--no matter how
small--to make their voices heard. We need not look further than the
Color Revolutions of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or the
recent Arab Spring, to witness the extraordinary power of the networked
social movements.
But the tectonic plates of cyberspace are also shifting. The US--
once the heartland of the Internet--now makes up approximately 13% of
the global Internet connected population. Europe and the US together
constitute approximately 40%. The center of gravity is fast shifting to
the South and East. The consequences of the shift are of direct
relevance to today's proceedings.
A Digital Curtain is descending across the globe that threatens to
reverse the gains made possible through the emergence of the global
commons of cyberspace. Just over half of the world's Internet-connected
population live under one form on-line restriction or another, and that
number is fast rising. Since 2003, when we first documented the
emergence of the ``Great Firewall'' of China, more than 45 states
worldwide have adopted similar means for turning the Internet from a
global commons into a gated community.
Eurasia, and in particular the states of the former Soviet Union,
are a petri dish of experimentation in new forms of online repression
that deprive citizens of the means to demand transparency from their
leaders, accountability from their governments, and the right to seek
social and political change.
These new forms of restrictions, which we have documented as second
and third generation controls, leverage the ability of governments to
create restrictive legal environments that attempt to enforce self-
censorship through fear of punishment. They also include the
application of sophisticated technical means, just-in-time blocking,
disrupting access to critical information resources at times when they
are most needed, sowing disinformation, and otherwise manipulating
information flows--as well as the use of targeted online attacks,
denial of service, injecting false content, and sophisticated
information operations turned inwards at the domestic populations.
These controls are pervasive, but also applied selectively, such as
during elections, in order to discredit legitimate opposition groups
and deprive them of the right to free and unfettered speech.
In Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and notably in
Belarus, these techniques have been used with great success to silence
opposition groups, driving them and their followers offline. In fact,
the Internet is subject to some form of control in all post-Soviet
states. Indeed, the mechanisms for control are getting deeper and more
coordinated through regional bodies such as the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, as well
as via bilateral cooperation between governments and their security
services.
Tragically, perhaps, we are complicit in this growing trend towards
authoritarianism. Our own fears of cyber insecurity and terrorism make
it easier for others to appropriate these terms to justify political
repression.
The label ``terrorists'' can be applied to anyone inconveniently
opposed to the political status quo; and calls for changing the
Internet, introducing greater security, and the ability to identify
users--helpful in tracking down hackers and cyber criminals--find their
place in the arsenal of repressive regimes as a means of selectively
prosecuting human rights activists, journalists, or anyone seeking to
struggle for social and political reform.
Our emphasis on harmonizing laws on cybercrime and seeking global
solutions to cyber security paradoxically makes it difficult to assert
and demand respect for freedom of expression and access to information
online.And security is not the only means by which rights can be
suppressed. Net neutrality, copyright enforcement, and the empowerment
of telecommunications carriers to ``clean pipes'' are convenient means
for regimes with less than Democratic tendencies to offload and
outsource policing and ultimately repression.
There are no simple solutions to these challenges, only difficult
trade-offs. To paraphrase the words of the immortal Pogo, ``we have met
the enemy and he is at least partially us.''
So what is to be done?
Future historians will look back at this time and see it as a
constitutive moment. Before us are some hard choices--but also clear
norms and ideals that have been core to the Euro Atlantic alliance over
the past 50 years, and part of our shared cultural and historical
heritage.
Leadership comes from the courage to make the hard decisions in
pursuit of a greater common good. In this respect, a commitment to an
open global commons of cyberspace is by far the most important far-
reaching objective for the US and its like-minded partners worldwide to
support.
Security is an important obligation of the state, but must be
balanced against preserving the right to dissent, communicate, and act
online--even if it comes at some costs. This is especially true as the
new generation of digital natives find their own voice in the online
world. New forms of protest, whether they come in the form of making
public confidential information, as in the case of Wikileaks, or
``hacktavism'' as has been exercised by LulzSec and Anonymous, may be
the necessary friction for preserving a global norm that enshrines the
right to seek and access information. We carefully adjust our own laws
to accommodate some of the new forms of dissent that will emerge. Is
there a difference between picketing an employer during a labor
dispute, and making his website and Internet systems inaccessible
through a denial of service attack? These are important questions and
we must pause before we consider how to address them, as the rules we
apply will have repercussions well beyond their own borders. In a
global world, there is no such thing as a purely domestic policy.
In specific terms, at the highest level this Commission should
encourage our European partners to remain committed to a global commons
of cyberspace.
Calls such as those put forward by some members of the UN
to end the multi-stakeholder engagement on the governance cyberspace
should be strongly resisted.
Pressure should be applied through bilateral agreements,
as well as by organizations such as the WTO to ensure that restricted
access to content is also framed as a trade issue, with consequences
and sanctions against countries pursuing these practices.
Access to an uncensored Internet should become a basic
measure of freedom and democratic progress, and should be made a
condition for recipients of preferential US trade relationships or
development assistance;
Access to political content via the Internet should
become a central component of monitoring the freedom and fairness of
national elections--as important as the right to assembly, and
balloting.
Preserving the global Internet commons will not be easy, but the
costs of not doing so are greater. The rise of new superpowers in the
East is occurring just as the tectonic plates of cyberspace are
shifting to the same region.
The historical moment in which we live and which have expanded the
means for human expression made possible a quest for knowledge, and an
ability to network and act on a planetary scale--which risks becoming a
fading chapter in the future where the same technologies enable
surveillance societies that far exceed those which George Orwell's 1984
could imagine.
The future is ours to lose, and as in those March days of 1946 when
Churchill warned of the Iron Curtain, now is the time for us to
courageously make choices so that our constitutive moment--the future
of Cyberspace--furthers, rather than constrains, the universal values
of dignity, freedom, and the right to choose.
Biography of Rafal Rohozinski
Rafal Rohozinski is one of Canada's thought leaders in the field of
cybersecurity and Internet freedom. He is the founder and CEO of the
Secdev Group and Psiphon inc. His work spans two decades and 37
countries including conflict zones in the CIS, the Middle East, and
Africa. In 2010 Rafal was named by SC magazine as one of the top five
IT security luminaries of the year; and ``a person to watch'' by the
Canadian media. He is known for his work on cyber espionage, including
coauthorship of the Tracking GhostNet, and Shadows in the Cloud and
Kookface studies examining Chinese cyber espionage networks and global
cybercrime. Rafal is a senior scholar at the Canada Center for Global
Security Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto,
and previously served as director of the Advanced Network Research
Group, Cambridge Security Program, University of Cambridge. He is a
senior research advisor to the Citizen Lab, and together with Ronald
Deibert, a founder and principal investigator of the Information
Warfare Monitor and the Open Net Initiative.
Rafal is the author of numerous academic and policy papers. His
recent publications include, ``Stuxnet and the Future of Cyberwar''
(Survival, IISS, 2011), ``Liberation vs. Control: The Future of
Cyberspace'' (Journal of Democracy, 2010),``New Media and the
Warfighter'' and, ``Strategic utility of cyberspace operations'' (US
Army War College), and ``Risking Security: Policies and Paradoxes of
Cyberspace Security'' (International Political Sociology, 2010). His is
also a lead editor and contributor to Access Denied: the practice and
policy of global Internet filtering (MIT, 2009), Access Controlled: The
Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace (MIT 2010), and Access
Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace (MIT,
2011). His forthcoming book (co-authored with Ron Deibert), Ghost in
the Machine: The Battle for the Future of Cyberspace, will be published
by McClelland and Stewart in 2012.
Rafal's commercial ventures are active across the spectrum of
cyberspace. The SecDev Group provides clients in the governments and
commercial space with intelligence, toolsets, and investigations that
inform policy and address risk in the information age. Psiphon inc is a
leading content delivery network--delivering content and connectivity
for Voice of America, Radio Farda, Radio Free Asia and the BBC into
areas and regions where Internet broadcasts are censored or blocked.
The Secdev Foundation--a Canadian non-for-profit--provides support and
advanced research capabilities to university, public research and
advocacy efforts aimed at preserving the global commons of cyberspace.
Rafal's work and research frequently appears in such publications
as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Guardian, and he has
appeared as a commentator on the BBC World Service, Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, CNN, and other international media.
Prepared Statement of Ivan Sigal, Executive Director, Global Voices
Chairman Smith, Co-Chairman Cardin, and Commission members, thank
you for the opportunity to address the Commission, and the topic of
online freedom of expression in OSCE countries. I am Ivan Sigal,
Executive Director of Global Voices, a nonprofit organization and
community of bloggers, writers, and translators from around the world
who analyze and amplify the most interesting conversations appearing in
citizen media for global audiences. \1\ Global Voices has a team of
writers who cover issues of citizen media in Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union. \2\ They are also contributors to and authors of
several recent research documents that focus on online rights and
freedom of expression in countries of the former Soviet Union, and
examine the tactics that governments use to suppress online speech. \3\
Additionally, I lived and worked in the former Soviet Union from 1996
to 2004, primarily working with local media outlets on journalism and
program production and training, media law and regulation, and media
sector association building, with the media development organization
Internews. My testimony is informed both by the work of the Global
Voices community, and my own experiences.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ http://globalvoicesonline.org/.
\2\ http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/special/runet-echo/, http://
globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/ eastern-centraleurope/, http://
globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/central-asia-caucasus/.
\3\ ``Freedom on the Net 2011: Russia,'' Freedom House,http://
www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/Russia2011.pdf; Rebekah Heacock,
``Second- and Third-Generation Controls Rise in Russian Cyberspace,''
OpenNet Initiative, April 7, 2011, http://opennet.net/blog/2011/04/
second-and-third-generation-controls-rise-russian-cyberspace.
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While I am drawing upon work of the Global Voices community, the
conclusions, analysis, and recommendations are mine alone: Global
Voices community members hold a diverse range of viewpoints about the
U.S. government's foreign policy, international organizations, and
policies of other governments including their own.
The Global Voices mission reads in part, as follows:
We believe in free speech: in protecting the right to speak--
and the right to listen. We believe in universal access to the
tools of speech. To that end, we seek to enable everyone who
wants to speak to have the means to speak--and everyone who
wants to hear that speech, the means to listen to it. Thanks to
new tools, speech need no longer be controlled by those who own
the means of publishing and distribution, or by governments
that would restrict thought and communication. Now, anyone can
wield the power of the press. Everyone can tell their stories
to the world.\4\
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\4\ http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/gv-manifesto/.
Global Voices seeks to listen to and amplify the voices of many
people online, without specific advocacy positions on given issues.
Instead, we support basic principles for speech and access that
encourage civic participation. These concepts are in line with OSCE
Charter commitments, as well as with Article XIX of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
To that end, ongoing restrictions and suppression of the tools of
online speech in the OSCE region, the harassment, arrest, and
imprisonment of individuals for exercising speech rights that are
protected under OSCE and United Nations obligations, are a matter of
concern, and a subject of our website's coverage.
While attacks on mass media in the OSCE region have occurred for
years, and continue, with this document I am focusing mostly on attacks
on individuals, citizen media communities, and social media networks.
These targets have fewer resources, less experience, and face a
different kind of risk than traditional mass media, which have
institutional capacity, capital, and organizational standing, which,
while making them targets, also offers them relatively robust
protection.
Recent events have once again highlighted the disregard
demonstrated by several OSCE member states seem to have for the
protection of freedom of speech obligations expressed in numerous OSCE
documents. \5\ Specifically, we have seen restrictions and attacks on
access to online platforms and social media networks, in response to
protesters' use of those tools to organize. Prominent recent examples
include Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Turkmenistan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ The OSCE has commissioned an extensive report regarding the
legal and regulatory environments of OSCE member states by Yaman
Akdeniz titled ``Freedom of Expression on the Internet'' (http://
www.osce.org/fom/80723) that covers legal and regulatory practices of
OSCE member states in relation to the following documents: Final Act of
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Helsinki, 1
August 1975. http://www.osce.org/documents/mcs/1975/08/4044_en.pdf.
Budapest Summit Declaration, December 21, 1994. http://www.osce.org/mc/
39554. Lisbon Summit Document, December 3, 1996. Official text at
http://www.osce.org/mc/5869. Charter for European Security, adopted at
the OSCE Istanbul Summit, November 1999. http://www.osce.org/documents/
mcs/1999/11/4050_en.pdf. OSCE PC.DEC/633 on Promoting Tolerance and
Media Freedom on the Internet, endorsed by MC.DEC/12/04 at the OSCE
Ministerial Council in Sofia, 7 December 2004. http://www.osce.org/mc/
23133.
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Protesters in Belarus, for instance, in June and July 2011
organized, documented, and amplified protests using social media
platforms such as vKontakte. The membership in these vKontake groups
numbered in the thousands with at least one group with nearly 214,000
members. \6\ The size of these groups intimated the possibility of mass
protests in Belarus, in rallies initially set for June 22, 2011.
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\6\ Alexey Sidorenko, ``Belarus: Police Crack Down on Minsk
Protest,'' June 24, 2011, Global Voices Online, http://
globalvoicesonline.org/2011/06/24/belarus-police-crack-down-on-minsk-
protest/.
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The response of the Belarus government has been a creative mix of
hacking and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on vKontake
groups, disinformation campaigns via videos on YouTube and Twitter, and
intermittent blocking or slowing of access speeds to popular the social
network LiveJournal. \7\ Belarus authorities also went online, seeking
to dissuade group members from participating. The Belarus Ministry of
the Interior and the Minsk Police Department both launched Twitter
accounts (@mvd_by, @GUVD_Minsk), which they used to discourage people
from attending rallies and warning them of potential punishments should
they appear at protests. \8\
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\7\ Alexey Sidorenko, ``Belarus: Independence Day Clapping Protest
(Video). Global Voices Online, July 6, 2011, http://
globalvoicesonline.org/2011/07/06/belarus-independence-day-clapping-
protest/.
\8\ Sidorenko, ``Belarus: Police Crack Down on Minsk Protest.'' It
has been reported that people trying to connect to Vkontakte have been
redirected by Belarusian Internet service provider BelTelecom to
websites containing malware. From early May to early June, at least
seven websites were closed at the behest of the police, which was given
new prerogatives under a law adopted on 1 March. The journalists who
continue to be held in prison after covering protests are mostly
freelancers or reporters working for news websites that the government
does not register as news media (source: Reporters Without Borders,
personal communication, July 14, 2011).
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This kind of multi-layered response by governments seeking to
suppress or discredit online speech is increasingly becoming the norm
in several OSCE member states, particularly in the former Soviet Union.
While Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan practice extensive filtering, other
countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan implement
a range of responses that together serve to restrict online access to
information, participation, and content creation, and monitor and
surveil online communities. \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ OpenNet Initiative, ``Access Denied: Commonwealth of
Independent States profile,'' accessed July 14, 2011, http://
opennet.net/research/regions/cis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This mix of tactics of suppression and repression goes back at
least 10 years. A combination of filtering and hacking of websites,
physical threats and intimidation, propaganda and defamation,
burdensome legal and regulatory environments, market manipulation, and
the use of tertiary legal controls such as tax inspections worked to
threaten an earlier generation of online content providers.
It is no secret that many governments in the FSU have gained their
legitimacy through questionable means. Rigged elections, heavily biased
and government-controlled media, dependent and corrupt judiciaries,
opaque and vague laws and regulations, arbitrary implementation of law,
and extralegal responses to political opponents including violence and
killing are all too common. This has been true for some countries in
the region since the fall of the Soviet Union, and has given
governments a sense of impunity in regard to their behaviors.
Filtering and hacking of Internet content in the region now has a
long history. Targeting of individual websites, online publications, or
individual writers through a range of online and offline tactics is
also not a new story. The concern is that as internet access grows
across the FSU, governments will step up their restrictions, targeting
not just relatively elite communities of writers and opposition
politicians, but citizens writing and sharing multimedia content on a
range of user-generated platforms.
While tactics may change, the overall strategy of mixing the tools
of repression to achieve various ends remains in place. The ultimate
goal of this kind of harassing activity seems to be to systematically
suppress speech and media content that questions the legitimacy of
those in power, and particularly those who question how power and
wealth are gained and distributed. It is notable, as well, that some of
these practices are not restricted to non-democratic regimes. Recent
mass media laws in Hungary also treat websites as mass media, for
instance, and Italy's intermediary liability laws also function to
suppress speech.\10\
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\10\ ``An Open Letter from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union
(HCLU) to the European Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, regarding the
Proposed Amendments to the Media Law,'' One Million for Freedom of
Press in Hungary, March 8, 2011, http://freepress.blog.hu/2011/03/08/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tactics employed to suppress speech are varied, and explained
elsewhere in considerable detail. \11\ A short list of common tactics:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Access Controlled, The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in
Cyberspace, Edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal
Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain, April 2010, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal and regulatory controls
Media licensing and registration regulations which treat
websites as mass media, in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and most
recently, Hungary and online forums in Russia, which targets social
media networking sites
Legal access to data tracking online behavior of users
and data retention requirements based in security laws such as Russia's
SORM-II regulations and equivalents in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine,
and Belarus
Legal filtering and blocking of websites and webpages
Intermediary liability requirements for content on social
networking, search, and user-generated content websites
Improper use of laws that restrict ``bad'' speech--hate,
pornography, support for ``terror'', sometimes used to justify Internet
filtering \12\
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\12\ In June 2011, the Kyrgyz parliament adopted a resolution
issuing a legally binding instruction to the prosecutor general's
office, culture ministry and justice ministry to block access to the
independent online news agency Ferghana (www.ferghananews.com) because
of its coverage of last year's violence in the south of the country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use of intellectual property regulations to restrict
access to an entire website or type of website
Lack of due process for protesting blocked or filtered
content, lack of transparency about reasons for filtering, and lack of
clarity regarding who is blocked/filtered, and at what level
Imprecise language within law that leads to overly broad
application of restrictions, for instance against ``inappropriate''
content (Uzbekistan) or threats to ``public order'' (Kazakhstan) and
lead to self-censorship; lack of recourse or appeals processes
Secret laws and decrees that govern security agencies,
and provide permission to filter, block, or slow access to specific
services and websites.
Pressure on service providers
Monopolization or state control of Internet Service
Providers and telecoms
High tariffs for Internet access
Pressuring ISPs for data access, mandating expensive
filtering at the ISP level.
Extralegal responses
Filtering, blocking, hacking, and pressure on
intermediaries such as social networking sites
DoS, data-gathering for surveillance through traffic
monitoring, spyware, and other unacknowledged tactics for disrupting
access to or altering content. \13\
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\13\ On March 30, 2011, the social networking site LiveJournal
experienced a sustained DDoS attack. The target of the attack, in the
opinion of many experts, appears to have been user Alexei Navalny, who
is also the founder of the anti-corruption web platform Rospil. The
attack rendered LiveJournal inaccessible on that day, and a second
attacked achieved the same effect on April 4, 2011. Ashley Cleek:
``Russia: DDoS Attack on LiveJournal Has Russians Debating Internet
Politics,'' Global Voices Online, April 6, 2011, http://
globalvoicesonline.org/2011/04/06/russia-ddos-attack-on-livejournal-
has-russians-debating-internetpolitics/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Propaganda, misinformation, disinformation campaigns, harassment
Competing for influence in online forums, disinformation
and misinformation on web 2.0 platforms, sometimes through paid
networks of writers/bloggers or PR agencies
Defamation, libel, false accusations to damage reputation
\14\
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\14\ Authorities in Russia are harassing bloggers in the country,
urging them to remove content and threatening them with judicial
action. The Federal Security Service (FSB) asked the well-known blogger
Leonid Kaganov, through his hosting company, to remove an anti-Semitic
poem that he had mocked. Kaganov complied, but replaced the original
poem with a parody. The FSB reiterated its request. Finally, for fear
of further conflict with the security services, Kaganov decided to move
his blog onto a foreign server. (source: Reporters Without Borders,
personal communication, July 14, 2011). See also Alexey Sidorenko,
Russia: Famous Sci-Fi Writer's Blog Removed for `Anti-Semitism',''
Global Voices Online, May 29, 2011, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/
05/29/russia-famous-sci-fi-writers-blog-removed-foranti-semitism/.
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Harassment by security agencies to suppress speech.
Indirect methods
Use of alternative governmental agencies to apply
pressure, such as burdensome tax inspections, access to utilities,
building code violations, and military conscription \15\
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\15\ In May 2011, an Azerbaijani district court sentenced the
blogger Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, a Harvard graduate and former opposition
candidate, to two years in prison on a charge of evading military
service. He believes the trial is politically motivated and linked to
his online activities. http://supportbakhtiyar.com/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Physical and psychological pressure, threats to self and
family
Violence, destruction of property, arson.
It is worth noting that the growth of mobile internet access has
created another set of security, privacy, and information access and
creation concerns. Mobile phones allow tracking, monitoring, and
surveillance with relative ease. The fragmentary nature of privacy and
anonymity controls with phones that allow tracking by location, by
phone id number, by phone number, and SMS capture, make meaningful
privacy a challenge in all states. Phone companies in the many
countries have weak controls or ability to resist requests for data,
either legally or extralegally
Responses--what OSCE member states and the U.S. government can do
The documentation of these abuse tactics is reasonably well
established, as reports referenced earlier in this document show,
thanks to activist and freedom of expression watchdog activities. The
OSCE should continue to support and promote monitoring and
documentation of member states activities in this sector, both in their
own work and in the work of civil society watchdog groups. A deeper
question is the willingness of governments to apply political will to
create positive incentives for citizens to participate in public
spheres, pursuing both the letter and the spirit of commitments to OSCE
rights obligations and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Those commitments are not just about the economic or scientific
benefits of increasing Internet penetration, a concept that many FSU
governments support, but about the political and civic rights of
citizens. Without politically legitimate and accountable governance,
the political will to foster those rights is unlikely to appear. To be
clear--not every government in the former Soviet Union applies
restrictions on online speech of the same measure or kind--the picture
is varied across the region, with some countries working to meet their
OSCE and UN obligations.
Unfortunately, the tendency of several OSCE member states from the
former Soviet Union is in the direction of increasing control. A recent
Commonwealth of Independent States framework law on Internet
regulation, for instance, ``contradict[s] the principles of online free
expression and Net Neutrality by encouraging member states to exercise
excessive control over what is a privileged space for exchanging
information.'' \16\ This document, intended as a guide for national
parliaments in creating Internet regulation, seems to breech
internationally accepted standards promoted by the OSCE in Net
Neutrality and ISP data retention and access.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Framework Law No. 36-9 ``On the Bases of Internet
Regulation,'' ``Internet Regulation Should Not Curtail Freedom of
Expression,'' Reporters Without Borders, June 15, 2011, http://
en.rsf.org/europe-et-ex-urss-internet-regulation-should-not-15-06-
2011,40463.html.
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Responses to the failure of OSCE member states to abide by online
freedom of speech principles begin with ideas behind the original
Helsinki accords. Governments should be accountable to their own laws
and their commitments under international agreements and treaties, and
use legal, transparent, accountable regulations to manage internet
access and content restrictions. Some basic principles for removing
suppression of speech and discouraging self-censorship include:
If filtering is necessary, place filter systems at the
level of the user for maximum control; any filtering that goes on
should be done in a transparent and accountable manner, so that
citizens know who is responsible for it, how decisions about what is or
isn't filtered are made, there is a clear process for having such
systems reversed, and that there are clear political consequences for
officials who abuse the system, and regulatory consequences for
companies that abuse it \17\
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\17\ Some governments seek to justify filtering in response to
hate speech, child pornography, and terrorism. Several studies suggest
that filtering has a limited value in restricting this kind of speech,
in particular child pornography. See: Cormac Callanan, Marco Gercke,
Estelle De Marco, and Hein Dries-Ziekenheiner, Internet blocking:
balancing cybercrime responses in democratic societies Aconite Internet
Solutions, October 2009, online at: http://www.aconite.com/sites/
default/files/Internet_blocking_and_Democracy.pdf ``Child pornography:
MEPs doubt effectiveness of blocking web access'' European Parliament
official website, November 15, 2010, at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
en/pressroom/content/20101115IPR94729/html/Child-pornography-MEPsdoubt-
effectiveness-of-blocking-web-access.
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Presume that the response to ``bad'' speech is more
speech, and that restrictions on ``bad'' speech are proportionate and
focused on specific incidents rather than classes of speech
Ensure that restrictions and punishments are
proportionate to the concern (for instance, domain-based filtering that
also blocks legitimate content rather than the specific target is
disproportionate)
Apply laws consistently, without political or economic
favor
Avoid prior restraint measures such as indefinite
enforcement of filtering
Create clear legal terms for speech that is banned; there
needs to be clear legal processes to appeal bans or for the overturning
of bans. Banning must have a clear basis in the consent of the governed
and must avoid the pitfall of reinforcing tyranny of the majority, and
should be extremely rare
Rely on independent courts rather than administrative
bodies for enforcement
Preferably, there will be no intermediary liability; if
needed, clear rules of engagement, and response opportunities to
requirements
Encourage or even require corporate transparency with
users and customers about what sorts of government surveillance and
censorship demands are being made of them. The Google Transparency
Report, which lists the number of government requests for hand-over of
user information or deletion of content, is an excellent model \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/.
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Do not filter the ISP level for IP issues; intermediary
filtering of IP-related issues has negative speech freedom
consequences. \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ ``Intermediary Liability: Protecting Internet Platforms for
Expression and Innovation,'' Center for Democracy and Technology, April
2010, http://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/
CDTIntermediary%20Liability_(2010).pdf. Rashmi Rangnath, ``Civil
Society Walks Away from OECD InternetPolicy Principles,'' Public
Knowledge Blog, June 29, 2011, http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/
civilsociety-groups-refuse-endorse-oecd-inte; ``CSISAC Issues Statement
on OECD Communique on Principles for Internet Policy-making,'' June 29,
2011, http://csisac.org/CSISAC_PR_06292011.pdf.
Beyond that, however, there are positive reinforcements that OSCE
member states can follow, supporting both the letter and the spirit of
their commitments to speech freedoms. From the perspective of citizen
interests in online environments, this includes a focus not just on
access to information, but on the opportunity for online participation,
creation, and engagement. Online, in networked media environments,
speech rights precipitate assembly, movement, and all other rights.
Without the medium of speech, other rights are difficult to assert.
There has been in the past year an appearance of newly assertive
civic voices in several OSCE countries that have poor records on
government legitimacy issues such as free and fair elections,
corruption, and repressive security regimes. The use of information
technology tools and platforms that combine data analysis,
visualization tools, mapping, community participation in reporting and
mapping, and subject-specific expertise point to the creation of
projects that are specifically designed to highlight corruption, create
transparency, or demand governmental accountability. Examples include
Help Map, which allowed Russian citizens to volunteer information and
resources to fight fires in the summer of 2010, Roskomvzyatka, a
crowdsourced map on which citizens can document instances of bribery,
and Rospil, which crowdsources independent analyses of Russian
government procurements. These projects show the potential that
citizens in the former Soviet Union have to find creative solutions to
their own problems. Such projects demonstrate that drivers of change
often come from inside repressive environments, and that with greater
connectivity, opportunities to participate can create meaningful
change.
Supporting the continued openness and unfettered nature of the
internet provides projects such as these with a firm foundations for
the emergence of creative opportunities for people to express their
citizenship. The OSCE role is best articulated as asserting that its
members follow both the letter and the spirit of OSCE obligations.
The U.S. government role is best articulated as supporting the
continued openness and unfettered nature of the internet. As a first
step, the U.S. should consider how its policies on Internet freedom
will effect local communities that they purport to help. It should
follow a ``do no harm'' approach that is sensitive to local contexts
and concerns, and takes into consideration the personal security and
goals of online activists working in repressive contexts. \20\
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\20\ Ivan Sigal, ``Going Local,'' Index on Censorship, Vol 40, No.
1, 2011, p. 96.
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In addition to voicing support for access, advocates should
consider how to provide multi-faceted, diverse tools and resources that
help people both to get access to information in restrictive
environments, and perhaps more importantly, help people to create,
share, preserve, and build the tools and resources that they need to be
engaged citizens in their countries. Recent U.S. State Department
initiatives to support a wide range of tools and education on
information access creative content in countries that use extensive
filtering and blocking is an example of the right kind of approach.
Narrowly focusing resources only on information access to external
information, on the other hand, downplays the importance of locally
generated content, information technology tools, the opportunities for
communities in repressive environments to strengthen their own content
creation.
While building tools to help people participate freely online,
protect identity and privacy, and participate freely in the exchange of
information and knowledge is useful, it is ultimately not a substitute
for the application of political will on the part of all OSCE member
states to foster both legal environments and civic cultures of online
participation, to ensure that we protect and grow the Internet for
citizens first, rather than security agencies or corporate interests.
In this context, the U.S. has the opportunity to lead by example,
whether in supporting open government data, as with the recent launch
of the Open Government Partnership; \21\ supporting Internet policy
principles that represent the interests of citizens as well as
corporations and governments, in forums such as the OECD; or ensuring
that its cybersecurity policies do not impinge on the privacy and
rights of its citizens, as with the ongoing debates over the extension
of the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to
facilitate surveillance. \22\ \23\
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\21\ http://www.transparency-initiative.org/news/ogp-launch-
july2011
\22\ ``CSISAC Issues Statement on OECD Communique on Principles for
Internet Policy-making.'' See also Milton Mueller, ``Civil Society
Defects from OECD Policy Principles,'' Internet Governance Project,
June 28, 2011, http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/--archives/2011/
6/28/4847563.html. Full ``Communique on Principles for Internet Policy-
Making'' available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/21/48289796.pdf.
\23\ Greg Nojeim, ``Privacy and Security Are Not a Zero Sum Game,''
Center for Democracy & Technology, February 11, 2011, http://
www.cdt.org/blogs/greg-nojeim/privacy-and-security-are-not-zero-sum-
game.
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Finally, governments interested in supporting these commitments
should support information access, but also focus on creative capacity
and removing barriers to civic participation. As a set of tools to
respond to restrictive governments, removing both economic and
political barriers to access is just the beginning. Governments
interested in meeting the spirit of OSCE intent can offer many positive
incentives to use and participation. These include:
Internet infrastructure development
Tariff pricing schemes that ease access costs in
underdeveloped regions
State programs to ensure internet access exists in
schools, libraries, and other public contexts, and digital media
literacy opportunities in those same facilities.
Open government programs to systematically open
government data to public scrutiny, allowing citizens to understand and
track the workings of government.
Biography of Ivan Sigal
Ivan Sigal is the Executive Director of Global Voices (http://
globalvoicesonline.org), a non-profit online global citizens' media
initiative. Previously, as a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of
Peace, Sigal focused on how increased media and information access and
participation using new technologies affect conflict-prone areas. He
spent over ten years working in media development in the former Soviet
Union and Asia, supporting journalism, media regulatory reform, and
working on media co-productions. During that time he worked for
Internews Network, as Regional Director for Asia, Central Asia, and
Afghanistan. In that capacity he designed and implemented dozens of
media assistance projects, including helping to create more than thirty
Afghan-run radio stations and building an independent Afghan radio
network; a project to provide humanitarian information to victims of
the 2005 South Asian earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; a
post-2004 tsunami humanitarian information radio program in Sri Lanka,
legal and civil society reporting programs for Chinese journalists, and
numerous current affairs TV programs for Central Asian audiences. He
has a masters' degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
and an undergraduate degree from Williams College.
Biography of Dr. Charles Lee
Charles Lee is a Harvard educated medical doctor and citizen of the
United States who suffered mental and physical torture, brainwashing,
force-feedings and was forced to make products for export to the United
States while he was illegally held in a labor camp in China from 2003
to 2006. He currently resides in New Jersey and is married, and has one
daughter. He is now the spokesperson for the Global Service for
Quitting the Chinese Communist Party and the spokesperson for the
Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners. He works
actively to spread the truth about the Falun Gong and to promote the
movement of quitting the Communist Party and its affiliated
organizations.
Charles Lee was born in 1965 in Communist China. When Charles was
only nine years old, ``anti-revolutionary'' posters showed up at his
parents' work place. No ``culprit'' was found, and somehow Charles
became the scapegoat and was labeled a ``young anti-revolutionary
criminal.''
In the year of 1982, feeling depressed and frustrated by the manner
in which his professors taught, Charles started to teach himself and
promoted self-study research at the university in 1983. Charles then
began independent research work on campus when he was only 18 and
published his first research paper in 1986 when he was 21.
Charles left China in 1991 because he was extremely disappointed by
the CCP's crackdown on democracy movement in 1989. He came to the
United States to continue his study in neuroscience. In 1995, Charles
went to Harvard Medical School and passed the United States medical
board exams.
In 1997, Charles came to know the mind/body discipline of Falun
Gong. He quickly became enamored by its guiding principles of
``Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance'' and practiced these
principles wholeheartedly.
Since 1999, the Chinese communists started a crackdown on Falun
Gong. Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested and
thrown into jails with fabricated crimes. Millions of Falun Gong
practitioners were stripped of their natural born right to freedom of
religious practice and freedom of assembly. Many have been tortured to
death.
Because there was no way for the Chinese people to know the truth,
and because the persecution had been going on for such a long time,
Charles decided to go back to China to reveal the truth of the
persecution by tapping into the state cable TV system in the year of
2002. Charles was arrested in October 2002, though he managed to escape
from the detention center and get back to the United States.
Since Charles did not finish what he intended to do to clarify the
truth, he went back again in January 2003, though he was arrested upon
his plane's arrival.
In order to justify their unlawful persecution, they used all
possible means to force Charles to renounce Falun Gong. They designed
an unrelenting persecution program to keep him under continuous
physical and mental pressure.
The inhumanity and cruelty of the persecution conducted by the CCP
not only manifested in physical and mental torture, but also in its
total disregard for basic human values. During Charles's imprisonment,
they used his mother's health condition to apply more mental pressure.
He understood fully that yielding to the prison's pressures and
accepting their conditions would be a crime against his own conscious
and a loss of his very soul. In addition, it would cause tremendous
humiliation and suffering to both Charles and his mother, so Charles
refused to cooperate with them. Charles' mother fully understood and
supported him, but she was never able to visit him or see his release.
Charles is an American citizen and there were efforts being made
all around the world by Falun Gong and other human rights organizations
to protest his unlawful imprisonment and persecution. His finance' kept
constant contact with the U.S. Embassy and sprung into action
contacting policy makers and the press. Yet Charles was forced into
slave labor and suffered vicious persecution in the prison camp. He was
forced to make ``Homer Simpson'' slippers, Christmas lights, calendars
and other consumer products exported to the United States. The working
conditions were so harsh that he became sick frequently.
The forced brainwashing by the CCP lasted the entire three years.
Their goal was to replace all Charles's thoughts with their propaganda
by cutting off all outside information. He was forced to watch
brainwashing TV programs and listen to readings that slandered Falun
Gong. They also conducted frequent so-called ``condemnation sessions,''
in which he was surrounded by 15 inmates and prison officers who would
threaten, antagonize, and humiliate him.
The descriptions above are only a small fraction of what Charles
experienced in the Chinese Communist forced labor camp. The calculated
combination of mental and physical abuse he suffered was not carried
out arbitrarily. The goal was to transform Charles's spiritual belief.
The reason the Communist Regime is so threatened by those with true
spiritual and religious beliefs is because it directly challenges their
forced religion of Communist Party worship onto the people.
The true nature of the Communist Regime in China has been
thoroughly exposed in the Epoch Times groundbreaking editorial series
The Nine Commentaries. As a result, more people are realizing that as
long as the Chinese Communist Party is in power, it will be impossible
to truly improve the human rights situation.
The quitting the CCP ``TuiDang'' movement started then and people
who have quit the party and its affiliated organizations have reached
about 98,500,000 recently.
Charles has been dedicating much of his time raising awareness of
the persecution on Falun Gong, helping practitioners who are in need,
and advocating the Tuidang movement since it's the only way for Chinese
people to break away from the mind control by the CCP and get prepared
for the future and de-communization.
[all]
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