This is a useful summary of the situation. Because events move rapidly, it cannot help but become obsolete in a short time. A useful revision, while bringing the summary up to date, would prune it back very substantially, in order to develop an idea less perishable than one day's tour d'horizon.

One of the most complex phenomena for students of culture at the end of the 20th century was the process of nationalist modernization through which decolonizing societies passed, at what then seemed a very rapid pace. Now the transformation of all human culture by the Net is occurring in overlapping time with other forms of social transformation, no longer associated with the end of Euro-Atlantic worldwide colonization, but rather with the rise of new forces that replace it.

Transitions like the one now going on in Burma are therefore rife with anthropological opportunities, which lawyers, whose subject is social power, should want to see taken up by the best interpreters around. It seems to me, reflecting on what you've written, that there were such opportunities available here. Roads not taken, however, so far as this draft went.

Internet Freedom in Burma

-- By StephanieLane - 23 Dec 2012

Introduction

Legal Background: The Internet as a Source of Oppression

Over the last few years, amidst an array of liberal reforms, the government has released many political prisoners, including the VJs imprisoned under the Electronic Transactions Law. I was curious to explore whether, and to what extent, the political liberalization has extended to internet freedom.

The Internet Amidst Political Reform

In both 2011 and 2012, Freedom House labeled Burma “Not Free” in its Freedom on the Net report. In 2012, Reporters without Borders has listed Burma as an “enemy of the internet.” In the past year the USDP has taken some steps towards freeing the internet. For example, a number of previously blocked websites have been unblocked, including YouTube? , BBC, Reuters, and DVB. Despite these reforms, the internet is still largely controlled by the government, which owns the two main ISPs and retains control over international connections to the internet (Id.).

Though the release of the DVB reporters is a positive move towards liberalization, the laws under which they were convicted, including the Electronic Transactions Law, remain on the books. In fact, the government announced its intention to continue to use the open-ended law at its discretion. Although there has been some talk of repealing or reforming the law, no steps have been taken to do so.

Although parliament has passed (but not yet enacted) a new Media Law, the details of which remain secret, the USDP is keeping in place the legal structure that gives it the power to arbitrarily restrict internet freedom and severely punish internet users.

Although no journalists were jailed in 2012, for the first time since 1996, Sithu Zeya, one of the DVB journalists released this year, was granted release on the condition that he abide by all laws, including the Electronic Transaction Law, or risk being sent back to jail to fulfill his sentence. The regimes apparent willingness to continue to use draconian laws to restrict internet freedom

Before Freedom, Access

Cracks in the Floodgate

Although the use of circumvention measures is banned in Burma, even before the changes this year internet users were able to circumvent measures restricting access to content. Despite extremely low internet penetration is still, there are indications that internet freedom is picking up momentum.

The use of Facebook to protest the Myitsone dam project in 2011, which would have provided 90% of the electricity generated to China, is one such indication. Facebook users in Burma used the site to share information, news links, video files and post comments. The use of social media to protest a government project was a new development in the Burmese political landscape, making a company that is frequently berated for its abysmal privacy record in countries with relatively free, open internet a force of democratic change.

Considering the general design of the internet, which was created to be free and open and technological advances that allow for circumventing restrictions on the internet, the small changes the government has made towards allowing internet freedom may prove difficult to reverse. Even with these positive changes, the fact that restrictive laws, including the Electronic Transactions Law, remain on the books leaves the government with latent power to crack down on internet freedom. Though a crackdown might ultimately prove ineffective, until broad legal reforms are enacted, the fact that the old laws remain on the books encourage self-censorship and cast doubt on the sincerity of the USDP.

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