Statement on Indian Government censorship of the Internet
Pirate Praveen
Public
Seen by 116
--- Draft statement, please comment, before 9th Jan 2015 ---
Recently many sites have been blocked by many Internet Service Providers [1]. We, Indian Pirates, consider this as a violation of our fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the constitution.
Censorship is characteristic of undemocratic nations like China, Iran and Soudi Arabia, should be viewed in contrast with how the governments of Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Brazil and many more countries provide their citizens completely unrestricted Internet [2].
Censorship is bad because when you lose freedom of speech you lose individual opinions! Without the free flow of ideas and thought, we miss beneficial ideas. If you look at history great ideas from people like Martin Luther King, that changed society were considered bad in their time. If people like him were censored we wouldn't be having the freedoms we enjoy today.
Online Censorship laws allow authorities to block large amounts of content in secrecy, without adequate demonstration of necessity, and in a disproportionate manner. The rules for blocking provide little by way of rights safeguards [3]. We don't expect this government will listen to any of us, to uphold basic human rights. So we are left with only technical measures to exercise our fundamental rights.
We recommend using censorship free DNS services like opennicproject.org and dns.watch to continue browsing the internet without interruption.
We also anticipate more powerful censorship in the coming days, so we recommend everyone to start using tor (torproject.org). You may also use a vpn service like https://www.privatetunnel.com/ or https://vpn.autistici.org/ or https://help.riseup.net/en/vpn for faster browsing without local censorship but they are not fully anonymous (vpn service providers can track you and they may be legally required to track you and provide your information when asked). You can also setup a VPN service yourself if you have access to a server outside India using Free Software like OpenVPN (http://openvpn.net).
As a long term solution, we recommend getting involved in politics and stop expecting career politicians to stand up for our rights. Support groups and collectives that defend democracy and fight for human rights.
If you really think blocking websites will stop terrorism, you are in a fool's heaven. Almost all terrorists groups are sustained by state support. You can read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism for a list of terrorist groups supported by various countries.
Indian Pirates is a collective fighting for human rights and civil liberties. You can join us at pirates.org.in
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/indian-government-censorsht/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country
[3] http://www.thehoot.org/web/Online-Censorship-laws-needs-reform/8035-1-1-7-true.html
Pirate Praveen Sat 3 Jan 2015 3:08AM
@jacksonisaac that is impossible to achieve. If you are using https, all anyone trying to filter could see is the website address, rest of the url is encrypted. Terrorism is a political problem, without support from nation states terrorists cannot exist. If we really want to stop terrorism we have to stop the political support to terrorism. Also who is a terrorist is defined by people in power. So even with strong evidence, Amit Shah is declared innocent. You can never expect this government to ban RSS or Shiva Sena how much ever violence they unleash. Heck, we are ruled by fascists, how can you expect them to be fair in censorship?
Karthikeyan A K Sat 3 Jan 2015 5:16PM
+1 @praveenarimbrathod
Pirate Praveen Sun 4 Jan 2015 2:11AM
Add one more section:
If widespread use of technologies like tor is helping criminals and terrorists, the responsibility is squarely on the government, because they broke the promise of protecting free speech, making these steps necessary for people valuing their freedom.
Pirate Praveen Sun 4 Jan 2015 2:43AM
Add title "Prepare yourself for full internet censorship, learn ways to resist censorship today."
⚓⚑Arjun⚓⚑ Sun 4 Jan 2015 10:17AM
Or use vpns like tunnel bear and cyberghost.. It's free too!
Akshay Sun 4 Jan 2015 1:05PM
We should probably also be telling about how censorship is bad and how it is a common practice in restrictive countries like China and how it is considered a violation of their Constitutions in the West.
Pirate Praveen Mon 5 Jan 2015 6:57AM
@arjun thanks for the vpn idea, I'd prefer to recommend Free Software based solutions like https://www.privatetunnel.com/
Pirate Praveen Mon 5 Jan 2015 7:01AM
@arjun I'd still prefer to suggest only tor as VPN service providers can still track you and in many countries they are required to track you by law.
Pirate Praveen Mon 5 Jan 2015 7:02AM
@arjun see https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/5888/tor-vs-vpn/ for a comparison.
Jackson Isaac · Fri 2 Jan 2015 3:52PM
I would like to add that instead of completely blocking a website, they can block or filter out the parts that might be misused or are misleading.