In an entry on the micro-blogging service Plurk on Monday, Plurk founder Alvin Woon said the social networking site had recently received letters from the police and prosecutors seeking personal information on, and the IP addresses of, Plurkers.
In his entry, Woon wondered about due process and privacy laws in Taiwan.
After the news broke, some people quickly came to the government’s defense, saying the incident had nothing to do with the erosion of democracy that some of the government’s detractors claim has occurred since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came into office.
The group criticized those who took the report seriously, saying they were blowing the incident out of proportion in a naked attempt to turn an otherwise non-political matter into a political one.
Indeed, the matter should not be seen in terms of “blue” or “green,” but rather as “white,” which suggests intimidation. Both pan-blue and pan-green supporters would be intimidated if Netizens’ right to privacy is not respected.
Failure to treat the incident with the seriousness that it deserves could blind people to the fact that it may be a precursor of the shape of things to come — a new “white terror” in which freedom of speech comes under assault.
The case of Chinese journalist Shih Tao (師濤) is a vivid reminder of the need for vigilance in these times of uncertainty. Shih was sentenced to 10 years in prison after Beijing asked Yahoo to provide personal information on dissidents.
To be fair, combating online crime could be a valid reason for police and prosecutors to make inquiries with Internet service providers. However, with police refusing to provide any information on the case or justification as to why IP addresses were needed, one can speculate that the government, shaken by recent instances of Netizens using aggressive language to vent their dissatisfaction with the political situation in Taiwan, may have decided to act — even if this entails intruding on Web users’ privacy.
This has echoes of an incident in April last year, in which the Taipei City Government’s police department dispatched officers to a private gathering organized by the Taiwan Blogger Association. The officers asked the participants to show their IDs and provide cellphone numbers, and inquired as to what they were doing and who else was taking part in the gathering.
That incident sparked much public criticism, forcing the director of the department to apologize and assure that “any personnel found guilty of misconduct would be disciplined accordingly.”
Undermining Netizens’ privacy is a serious offense in a democracy. Until police and prosecutors provide a sound explanation as to why they needed personal information about Plurk users, it will be the responsibility of each and every one of us to make as much noise as possible to show that we will not allow our freedoms and liberties to be undermined illegally.
In too many instances the world over, people looked the other way while their freedoms were being gradually eroded by governments that thought they could get away with it. Isolated incidents may be just that, but when they are repeated one begins to see a pattern emerging. When that happens, alarms should go off, because such patterns often indicate intent.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS