[Reader-list] ON THE ROAD

[Rudradep Bhattacharjee]

Greetings fellow Fellows (and everyone else who's
listening in),

Yes, I've finally hit the road. Writing in from
Bangalore.

The day I reached the city, I came across a front-page
article in TOI titled 'Curbs on entry of under-14s
into cyber-cafes on cards'. The Karnataka govt., the
writer informed us, was seriously scrutinising a
proposal to bar children below the age of 14 from
entry into cyber cafes and 'any other establishment
which provides computer services to the general public
for a cost', unless, of course, they were accompanied
by an adult. The move was aimed 'to curb the harmful
influence of Internet on children'. The writer also
added that cyber cafe owners had, apparently, welcomed
the move.

A few days later, the Kavya Vishwanathan case happens.
Sunil Sethi appears on NDTV 60 Minutes, and with him
two senior English professors (I surfed in too late to
get their names). On being asked whether they came
across cases of plagiarism in the writings of their
students, one of the ladies remarked that plagiarism
was indeed prevelant. She added that the coming in of
the Internet had further intensified the problem as
young, aspiring writers would copy and paste from
various sources and by the end of it not even remember
what was original and what was not.

The very next day, Apache Indian (remember him?), in
an interview on one of the FM stations, blames piracy
on the Net for harming the careers of singers like
him.

And the next day, the news channels are full of this
Indian chap who, in his postings on the Net, was
exhorting Iraqis to kill George Bush and rape
Anglo-saxon women.  This case, as the channels
repeatedly mentioned, is particularly interesting
given the sanction of free speech by the First
Amendment under the US Constitution. It would be an
interesting case on where you draw the line on free
speech.

I will move on here, but please feel free to make the
connections between the above four stories here. In
fact, write in.

In Bangalore, the first person I had to meet (of
course) was Lawrence Liang. Many on this list would
know Lawrence, either personally or through his
frequent postings. 

Lawrence is a legal researcher with the Alternative
Law Forum in Bangalore. In 2000, Lawrence wrote a
fascinating article titled 'Regulation of Cyber - A
Space or a Medium?'

While stating that "every technological revolution has
brought with it a new spate of legal issues and legal
problems which have to be addressed either through the
modification of existing laws or the introduction of a
new legal paradigm", he argues that 'the real issue
for us to discuss, however, is whether the Internet is
merely another technological medium or is it truly a
"space". 

The fascinating bit about this is the whole idea of
how law conceptualises a subject (cyberspace in this
context) and the following insight that it is this
very concept of the subject that determines how law
and thereby civil society (or most of it, at least)
will view it. In his words, Lawrence argues that 'law
is a constituitive discourse ie. it not merely
describes a particular phenomena but through such a
description goes on to create the very phenomena
itself."

The norm in legal circles is to think of the Internet
as 'a lawless frontier where anarchy prevails'. And
hence the legal solution to regulate the Internet.
Lawrence believes that there is something
fundamentally wrong about this. Instead, he believes
that cyberspace should be conceptualised as an actual
social space and hopes that 'standards of behaviour
will emerge within the context of virtual communities
which can be enforced contractually as opposed to
using criminal laws to enforce aceptable behaviour."

Before going in to meet Lawrence, I went to an ATM to
withdraw some money. As I stood there in the queue, I
couldn't help wondering that somehow my bank and
Lawrence represented two extremes of my story. While
Lawrence argued for an unregulated (or rather
self-regulated) cyberspace, my bank was probaly
spending millions trying to come up with stronger
security measures on its gateway. While I had a weak
spot for Lawrence's arguments, I also liked the
convenience of Internet banking. So, here was the crux
of my film. How do I reconcile the two? Is there a
meeting point at all?  

I asked Lawrence the same question. But for that, you
have to watch the film!!!

So long....

Deep


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