"The case for press freedom on the internet" - an interview

• © Leslie Harris

As press freedom advocates and media organizations were meeting to discuss challenges to press freedom and the new media at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, the Bureau of Public Information asked Leslie Harris, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (Washington D.C.), whether the internet has been delivering on its early promise of providing universal freedom of expression to all people everywhere?

The vision of a truly open internet with free expression for all is partly realized, but there is a lot left to accomplish before the medium reaches everybody in every country. There is a trend in authoritarian countries to reshape the internet as a tool of control, building walls that stop content from coming in and developing surveillance on a massive scale. They use technology to follow dissidents on the internet, to control who they are in contact with and monitor the content of internet sites and communication

What about the countries generally regarded as democracies?

The early belief that democracies would have no need to legislate or regulate the internet has proved false. But regulation is often not written with any understanding of the medium and how it is different from other media that came before it; that legislation or regulation that was designed for traditional print media, is sometimes difficult to translate for the internet. You cannot cut and paste laws from the offline media to online media Measures aimed at law enforcement often have unintended consequences when applied to the internet. For example, in the U.S., a law that was intended to require internet service providers to block certain IP addresses, in fact led to the unintentional blocking of thousands of other sites. One has to understand something about how the internet is set up technically to find solutions that will not limit freedom of speech or the protection of privacy.

What about the effect of legislation aimed at protecting national security?

This has been the great driver in governments' interference with the internet. The European Union has adopted legislation mandating storage of Internet data and the United States is considering far broader data retention mandates. There are enormous free expression implications in maintaining databases of information that might include not only which IP address one contacted but possibly content of communications. We have not yet thought through the legal standards that are to apply to let governments access this information. In the United States, the case law on government access to personal information held by third parties dates back to the 1970s when such data tended only to consist of information about buying and selling goods. The data bases that are being created today comprise of much more extensive information -- the content of emails, the pictures that one posts online, the discussions on a blog -- and a low legal standard for government access puts privacy at great risk.

But is privacy essential to freedom of expression?

Absolutely, privacy is fundamental. In an environment that does not respect privacy journalists are unable to keep their sources confidential and if the promise of confidentiality cannot be respected, a lot of information will not be made available to journalists. Also, journalists may not feel that they are keeping data on line, but if they communicate by email, all the information in these emails constitutes a data base, it continues to exist and, can be retrieved. Press freedom is not just about keeping the principles but also about developing the policy framework that is conducive to its respect.

Editors and publishers have traditionally fought for press freedom, in your experience, are internet providers willing to take up the fight?

Internet providers do not start out with journalistic principles. They do start out, however, with a commitment to the free flow of information and I think they are becoming increasingly aware of the connection between freedom of expression, press freedom and the free circulation of information. I think it is going to be important for the internet industry to set up guidelines to face the challenge they're facing not just in dealing with authoritarian regimes but also in democracies. Legislators also have a cultural problem. They often seem not to have grasped fully the fact that the internet has no geographical borders. Restrictions adopted in one country or for one country, actually impact everybody. Some countries wish to block hate speech, others wish to block pornography or child pornography, gambling etc and this can lead internet providers on to a race to the bottom, where they will seek to block that maximum number of sites just to stay on the safe side. This means that we must not only focus on the restrictions imposed by autocrats, but also look at the damaging restrictions asked for laudable reasons by democratic regimes. Often, the content restrictions imposed by the US and the European Union are cited as a justification for truly repressive action by repressive regimes. We know that they are not the same because we have robust rule of law, but that distinction is lost on countries that seek to use the internet to control political debate.

Who do you think is going to win in the end?

I certainly worry about a fragmented internet. We can ultimately defeat the censors but for that the internet must remain global; closing off the internet in one country, diminishes its value for all. I think the rise of online media and the migration of traditional media on line is having a very positive effect and if the media engage in the policy debate, freedom may prevail.

• Author(s):Bureau of Public Information
• 16-02-2007