From: Harish Pillay <harish@brokat.com.sg>
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 17:36:34 +0800
To: pethern@inet.uni2.dk (Peter Herngaard)
Subject: Re: Singapore
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9712060147.A24259-0100000@inet.uni2.dk>
Message-ID: <199712070918.RAA05254@brokat.com.sg>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Peter Herngaard shaped the electrons to read ...

<deleted>
> If the German people desired  to abolish the Radikalenerlass they could  
> do so simply by changing their goverment precisely as U.S. citizens could 
> abolish use of capital punishment against minors.
> Is there any difference?
> Finally, it's unfair to lump Germany, whose privacy laws are better than 
> the Danish, in with a dictatorial police state like Singapore.

"Dictatorial police state"?  I take it that you are well informed.  Statements
such as yours do not warrant a response as you are so totally wrong that no
amount of rational discussion can change your viewpoint - or can it?

> In Germany you can in fact criticize the goverment without risk of 
> prosecution for seditious libel, that you cannot in Singapore.

You *can* critise the SG govt.  The idiots who claim to be the SG govt are
however very sensitive (i.e. have very thin skins) to anyone who makes false
criticisms.  That is the way they have choosen to play the game.  The SG
govt would not allow say the National Enquirer to publish stuff that attack
the govt especially if none of it is backed up with facts.  We are on a fine
line here.  In the US, the general principle is that once you are in the
public domain, you are fair game.  Anything can be thrown at you.  Here,
however, that is not the accepted rule-of-thumb.  Yes, the person may be in
public domain (holding public office), but these politicians will want to make
sure that what ever is out there about them or their policies are truths 
(partial or full as the purpose may be), but once they sense utter untruths,
they run behind the courts and sue people.  

What I have said so far is in the ideal case.  Lately, Singapore govt has 
become more and more tolerant to criticisms and are now willing to discuss
the reasons behind the criticisms to see if there are misconceptions that 
can be addressed.

> I also suppose that the standard for privacy protection is lower in 
> Singapore than in Germany.

Our privacy laws are a joke.  I do know that there are moves by the same
govt to put into place good solid privacy laws in the next year.

> Germany does not practice a blocking regime on the InterNet 
> similar to  that Singapore does, since that would be in contrary to the 
> constitutional ban on censorship.

Which has been circumvented by using alternate proxies or www.anonymizer.com.
Check www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html for more info.

> Yours sincerly

Regards.
-- 
Harish Pillay                             	  h.pillay@ieee.org
Singapore      *** Ask me about Linux *** http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish