From: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 05:49:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Singapore Global Action Alert (8/29/96)
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960829113101.14221C-100000@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain





August 29, 1996

                          *** GLOBAL ACTION BRIEF ***

*	Please redistribute this document widely with this banner intact
*	Redistribute only in appropriate places & only until 30 September 1996

Singapore Government Curtails Online Freedoms

The government of Singapore recently established strict controls on all
Internet Service Providers and many World Wide Web pages. ISPs and content
providers will be licensed, and required to adhere to a rigid set of content
guidelines which apply to political speech, ethnic and religious remarks
including satire, and public morals including "contents which propagate
permissiveness or promiscuity."

We believe that the licensing policy and broad content guidelines will
effectively chill the free flow of information not only in Singapore, but
worldwide.  Because the Internet is global, transcending geographical
bounds, we are convinced that censorship within any nation or state, whether
implicit or explicit, poses a threat to all users of the global network.  We
therefore encourage the government of Singapore, and other governments
implementing or considering policies of content control, to stress education
rather than regulation.

Singapore's approach, like the Communications Decency Act that was passed
but quickly rescinded in the U.S., applies a broadcast regulatory standard
to the Internet.

The application of broadcast-inspired, "one-to-many" regulation to this new
*many-to-many* medium indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature
of the Internet.

Unlike television and radio broadcasting, the Internet does not push
material at the viewer, but simply makes material available on demand - not
unlike a rapid inter-library loan.  And unlike broadcasting, the Internet
does not present the views of a limited few privileged speakers, but allows
all participants to publish, comment on, and even refute, what they read.

Recognizing that every culture has its own standards regarding what is or is
not appropriate, the undersigned organizations recommend that Singapore's
government allow its citizens to use Internet filtering  tools, with which
they can block out any material that is offensive to them, rather than
embark upon a closed-border approach that will cut Singapore off from the
new global online library.

Support of individually customizable filtration services, instead of a broad
top-down censorship effort, would enable Singapore to participate in a  more
positive and effective way in the evolution of this new open medium, and
would indicate trust in the ability of Singaporeans to choose what is right
for Singapore and for themselves.

***

WHERE TO FIND MORE INFORMATION

For more information on the Singapore censorship situation, and other global
efforts to abridge the flow of information over the net, see these web sites:

http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/index.html
and
http://www.io.org/~sherlock/doom/threat.html

Human Rights Watch's letter to George Yeo, Singapore Minister for
Information and the arts, is located on HRW's gopher, at
gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:5000/00/int/hrw/asia/asia/4

WHO TO CONTACT

The following organizations have issued this advisory:

ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * 
   http://www.nexus.it/alcei.html
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) *
   http://www.aclu.org
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) *
   http://www.cdt.org
CITADEL-Electronic Frontier France * 
   http://www.imaginet.fr/~mose/citadel
EFF-Austin * 
   http://www.eff-austin.org
Electronic Frontiers Australia * 
   http://www.efa.org.au
Electronic Frontier Canada * 
   http://www.efc.ca/
Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier  Norway) * 
   http://www.sn.no/~efn
Electronic Frontier Foundation * 
   http://www.eff.org
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) *
   http://www.epic.org
HotWired * 
   http://www.hotwired.com
Voters Telecommunication Watch (VTW) * 
   http://www.vtw.org

Please choose an organization above and visit their web site for contact
information.

A copy of this advisory is available on the World Wide Web, at
http://www.well.com/~jonl/singapore.html.