Desperately Seeking BLOGGING

Orders to block around 15 other sites, not on blogspot.com, were also sent to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on the same day. However, this is where the government order started running into trouble. The ISPs had mixed results delivering this gag order. Some managed to block the errant websites only, while others blocked the entire blogspot, typepad and geocities.com domains, citing ‘‘technological constraints.’’

Swiping at Internet laws, speaking up for free speech

‘‘So no one could see any blogs at all, simply because the government wanted to block four blogs? How can this hilarious scenario be accepted without even tying to find out who was responsible?’’ says Sarbajit Roy, an online activist who is planning legal action against the government and ISPs over this case.

There are no signs yet that the Department of Telecom (DoT), which imposed this ban, is likely to lift it, but a barage of Right to Information pleas are also being planned and executed. These are aimed at finding out why the government wanted to block these websites and the exact chain of command that led to the gag orders.

Though anyone who has ever blogged is complaining about a violation of rights, many, however, are now also pointing at the inadequacies in the legal infrastucture set up for the Internet in India. On July 19, the government decided to re-emphasise the July 13 gag order, to make it clear that the ban was not intended to keep people out of blogging, but only to stop a few offensive posts.

The impact of this second order was even more startling, legally. For the bloggers, it ‘‘proved’’ that the government and ISPs can be held liable for hacking under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2006. It also proved that though the Indian government wanted selective blocking of ISPs, many of these ban requests would have to be taken to Internet sites located outside India, which would be tough to execute.

‘‘You can ask an ISP in any other country to block a website, but they don’t have to follow our laws. This is specially tricky in the US’ case, because they have prior rulings which say that an American company is only to be governed by US laws in such cases,’’says cyber lawyer and SC advocate Pawan Duggal.

Neither side has checked if the other cares

Although the government has stayed silent throughout the crisis, except to reaffirm the ban, it now appears there was talk of banning only one weblog to start with, before the Mumbai train blasts happened. The incident smacks of mismanagement.

‘‘There are typos in the government’s official order which had first asked for these sites to be blocked on July 13, which could have led to the wrong sites being blocked. Besides, the ISPs did not seem to think they had an important job to do by blocking only the asked-for sites,’’ says a government source.

But with the DoT now almost threatening legal action against ISPs that block more sites than they were asked to, ISPs have changed the technogical-constraint line. They now say that the ban has been followed completely, and that bloggers do have access to all legal sites. However, since this is not the case according to 20,000-odd bloggers, this dispute may have to be sorted out in court. Or, as some hope, the status quo will be quickly restored and everyone can get back to blogging.