Governance 101: The Battle Between MCMC, Government And Us

(The next time, when the Government “guarantees” something, just remember it is not for real! Image source: http://www.doyleinteractive.com)

Update: The site (mt.harapanmalaysia.com) has been blocked too. Malaysia Today now can be accessed at a new URL – http://mt.m2day.org/2008/

When some less brilliant people are running the show, amazing things certainly happen!

As we all aware, Malaysia Today was blocked for obvious reasons but little the Government realised that blocking the site was only temporary “win”. Were they ignorant of the working of the internet & technology? Or were they continued to be arrogant so much so they have lost touch with reality?

Raja Petra Still Rocks!

Raja Petra comes back with another hard-hitting post on a new site – what he calls as the son of Malaysia Today (and of course, many are using proxy and other means to bypass the blockage).

Raja Petra said:-

Raja Petra Kamarudin no longer owns Malaysia Today. Raja Petra may have started the original Malaysia Today. But he does not own it any more. Malaysia Today has been replaced by the son of Malaysia Today. And the son of Malaysia Today is owned by the people of Malaysia.

The people of Malaysia are keeping the son of Malaysia Today going. It is now called MT Harapan Malaysia and you can access it at mt.harapanmalaysia.com

Spread this message far and wide. Tell all your friends and family that Malaysia Today has died. It died at 6.00pm on 26 August 2008, the time and day that Anwar Ibrahim won the Permatang Pauh by-election with historic results and which has now triggered his march to Putrajaya.

But also tell your friends and family that the son of Malaysia Today has taken over the fight of its father. And this son is called mt.harapanmalaysia.com. Also tell them that the fight is going to get fiercer. The son wants to avenge the death of its father. And don’t forget to also gloat to your friends and family: yeh, yeh, kita menang!

No matter what and why the politicians from BN and MCMC justify the blocking of access to Malaysia Today, at the end of the day, they have failed miserably.

As far as the online community is concerned, little has changed between them and the website known as Malaysia Today. The only change is the URL and perhaps the determination of RPK to blow more holes in the Government’s actions.

Cracked Bill of Guarantee

No damage to RPK, Malaysia Today and the online community but in doing the silly thing of blocking the website, the Government have scored another (of many) own goals. They have rescinded their promise on their Bill of Guarantee! And certainly, this did not go well with the ex-PM, the man who was at the helm of the country when the Bill came in force.

He says:-

1. When a Government makes a promise to the country and then reneges on its promise, then not only will the Government lose credibility but also any respect that the public may have for it.

2. I do not often agree with Malaysia-Today.net and Raja Petra Kamaruddin. He had been sometimes quite irresponsible. But court action had already been taken against him. He is not above the law and if he is found guilty there are already adequate punishment that can be passed against.

3. But to break a promise and to openly show that you can meddle with the security of the internet is to expose a degree of oppressive arrogance worthy of a totalitarian state.

That’s right, whatever little respect that the Government had before this has been flushed down the toilet when they decided to silent (without real success) dissent voices in the cyber world. It’s obvious that the Government have not learned from the recent elections.

MCMC who?

Jeff Ooi who wrote about MCMC lack of enforcement on the scam SMS offenders has all the right to call MCMC as placing the priorities on the wrong issues at the wrong time.

Their very actions, independence and professionalism are in serious doubt now. What they intend to achieve by blocking the website? Why they went ahead with Government’s calls to block the site, knowing technologically it is quite impossible to do so? If they did it to just satisfy the Government – did they know that what they did were illegal under the law?

Aisehman said:-

You cannot invoke Section 263 to legalise censorship because Section 3 says that you cannot construe any provision in the Act as permitting censorship. In other words, as far as censoring the Internet is concerned, no provision of the Act is open to such interpretation. Therefore, MCMC has acted outside of the law in instructing ISPs to block access to Malaysia Today.

The instructions themselves are illegal.

Illegal! If the instruction is illegal, who is going to take action against MCMC?

It does not look like the regulator is going to punish themselves for breaking the law. The Bill of Guarantee has been “sodomised” when we least expected but Raja Petra is still online and everyone is able to read and comment on his posts without much sweat.

We are waiting for another own goal and this is why we need a new Government.