Philippine Cybercrime Law: Police are allowed to watch people' private Skype Yahoo FB video conversation

A new cybercrime law in the Philippines that could see people sentenced to 12 years in jail for posting defamatory comments on Facebook or Twitter is generating outrage among netizens and rights groups.

 

The stated aim of the cybercrime law is to fight online pornography, hacking, identity theft and spamming in the conservative Catholic nation amid police complaints they lack the legal tools to stamp out Internet crime.

 

However it also includes a blanket provision that puts the country's criminal libel law into force in cyberspace, except that the penalties for Internet defamation are much tougher compared with old media.

 

It also allows authorities to collect data from personal user accounts on social media and listen in on voice/video applications, such as Skype, without a warrant.

 

Teenagers unwarily retweeting or re-posting libelous material on social media could bear the full force of the law, according to Noemi Dado, a prominent Manila blogger who edits a citizen media site called Blog Watch.

 

"Not everyone is an expert on what constitutes libel. Imagine a mother like me, or teenagers and kids who love to rant. It really hits our freedoms," Dado told AFP.

 

Compounding the concerns, those teenagers or anyone else who posts a libellous comment faces a maximum prison term of 12 years and a fine of one million pesos ($24,000).

 

Meanwhile, newspaper editors and other trained professionals in traditional media face prison terms of just four years and fines of 6,000 pesos.

 

While harsh criminal libel legislation remains in force in other parts of Asia, Dado said the Philippine law sent the wrong signal in a country that overthrew the military-backed Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship just 26 years ago.

 

Dado, a lawyer's wife known in the local online community as the "momblogger", is among a group of bloggers and other critics of the libel element of the cybercrime law campaigning for it to be repealed.

 

Brad Adams, Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the law was having a chilling effect in the Philippines, which has one of the world's highest per capita rates of Facebook and Twitter users.

 

"Anybody using popular social networks or who publishes online is now at risk of a long prison term should a reader -- including government officials -- bring a libel charge," Adams said.

 

About a third of the Philippines' nearly 100 million people use the Internet, with 96 percent them on Facebook, according to industry figures.

 

Five petitions claiming the law is unconstitutional have been filed with the Supreme Court.

 

Senator Teofisto Guingona, the lone opponent when the bill was voted on in the Senate, has filed one of the petitions to the Supreme Court.

 

"Without a clear definition of the crime of libel and the persons liable, virtually any person can now be charged with a crime -- even if you just re-tweet or comment on an online update or blog post," Guingona told the court.

 

"The questioned provisions... throw us back to the Dark Ages."

 

The five petitions all say the law infringes on freedom of expression, due process, equal protection and privacy of communication.

 

University of the Philippines law professor Harry Roque, who filed one of the petitions, said the Philippines was one of a shrinking number of countries where defamation remained a crime punishable by prison.

 

Part of the penal code that was drawn up 82 years ago, it goes against the trend in many advanced democracies such as the United States and Britain where defamation is now punished with fines rather than imprisonment, Roque said.

 

Amid the public backlash, some of the senators who voted for the cybercime law have started to disassociate themselves from it, even claiming they did not read the provision on libel.

 

However presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda has defended the cybercrime law.

 

"The Cybercrime Act sought to attach responsibilities in cyberspace.... freedom of expression is always recognised but freedom of expression is not absolute," he told reporters on Thursday.

 

Nevertheless, Lacierda said the law could still be refined.

 

He called for critics to submit their concerns to a government panel that will issue by the end of the year specific definitions of the law, such as who may be prosecuted.

 

Dailystar

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USA upholds and provides advanced surveillance capabilities to the Philippine Territories

 

Because the Philippine constitution bans U.S. troops from direct combat, the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines plays mostly an advisory and training role in the battle against transnational terrorist groups.

 

But perhaps the most important U.S. military contribution has been advanced surveillance capabilities to track down terrorists in dense, remote jungle.

 

The high-tech equipment remains under U.S. control, according to Col. Mark Miller, the JSOTF-P commander.

When the Armed Forces of the Philippines requests information, Miller said, "we take their information requirements and we try to answer within whatever means we have over here in country."

 

That includes aerial surveillance, which provides full-motion video.

 

The high-tech gear has been used to locate terrorists, with the U.S. providing crucial information to Philippine ground forces in capturing or killing several high-ranking Abu Sayyaf leaders.

 

In one well-publicized case, a tracking device was planted in a backpack of supplies that was known to be heading to the group's main spokesman, Abu Sabaya. The device was used to guide the Philippine military to a boat as it was leaving land with Sabaya on board, and an aerial surveillance craft provided video of the ensuing clash at sea back to the presidential palace.

 

The AFP would like to have more hands-on access to surveillance equipment used by the U.S, said Lt. Gen. Noel Coballes, commander of the Western Mindanao Command, which covers most of the area in which the terrorist groups operate, such as the islands of Jolo and Basilan. They would ultimately like to possess advanced surveillance capabilities, he said.

 

While Miller empathized with Coballes' desire for so-called intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance equipment, he said it was not within his power to do so because that's a "bigger U.S. government decision on how they want to do that — if they're going to do that at all."

 

How long the U.S. military will remain in Mindanao to provide such surveillance remains uncertain.

 

"I can't say whether or not we're going to stay," Miller said. "Someone above me will make that decision."

 

Joy Yamamoto, the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, said that the troops would "absolutely" leave Mindanao — "in the same way that eventually we will end providing development assistance."

 

Philippine troops will likely be working with more U.S. troops overall, however, as the two countries continue to conduct joint exercises.

 

Yamamoto said the U.S. has been in discussions with the Philippines about increasing the presence of American troops and equipment in the country and positioning supplies for humanitarian disaster relief.

 

There are no plans, however, to re-establish the likes of Clark Air Force Base or U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, which once were linchpins in America's presence in Southeast Asia. Both closed in the early 1990s as a result of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and mounting Philippine opposition to extending leases.

 

The unmanned surveillance drones are capable to strike anytime as it equipped with advanced missile technology. Many believes that this advance Surveillance capability would also capable to provide real-time full motion video for china's incursion in the Philippines territory in the west Philippine sea.

 

Stars and Stripes (USA)

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