Minister of ICT: Government Will Protect Internet Freedom, But...

First of all, congratulations to Minister of Information and Communication Technology on his new blog and Twitter account. After fifteen years the same person who first invented "Ask the Government", a web service which allowed citizens to ask questions to government officials and public administration, is focusing again on the social impact of technology.

"Social Media is a revolution that affects our lives and our knowledge", it was written in the brand new blog. No sooner said than done, Minister Marwan Juma started blogging and tweeting, and the fact that the "IT Minister" is not the first government official with a Twitter account in our tiny country is interesting; Foreign Minister, Minister of Energy and Mayor of Amman, as well as HM Queen Rania, are all well-known figures in the Jordanian twittersphere.

As it was expected, Juma talked about Internet Freedom in his "Hello World" post, he said he will defend and protect the freedoms of the cyberspace and its openness and integrity.

Juma was replying to the new decision of the Supreme Court of Jordan to equalize websites, blogs and any other electronic media with other type of publications and therefore applying to them the controversial Press and Publication Law.

"This decision was taken to organize the Journalists' work and to fill the legislative gap by providing the tools against irregular actions committed by electronic papers, like defamation and libel." he said. "The government does not want to interfere with the operations of these sites, to discourage people to interact with them or to decrease their level of freedom. On the contrary, the government supports the technological progress, as we understand its economical and social importance, with respect to others' rights and privacy. For this reason, the Government is finalizing the draft of the "Information Systems Crimes Act" to enhance confidence and safety in the use of IT and to address the gaps and lack of legislations related to the new crimes committed against Information Systems or crimes done on the Internet, as well as the traditional crimes committed by using Information Systems or the web."

A law to deal with cybercrimes can be accepted, but it should be widely discussed with civil society and IT experts. The fear comes from our expectations that government will have too much authority, power and it will be given the permission to telecommunications surveillance and monitoring. If an authoritarian process will be chosen, freedom of expression and privacy will be highly affected, in addition to more cases of web censorship and threats to human rights.

I believe the Minister is sincere, and the government will try to encourage a free Internet, but we cannot even imagine to have such a restrictive and unprogressive law. This is the right time to start with open source governance in the Ministry by asking civil society, IT professionals and citizens to participate.