[IP] Face to Face with the Great Firewall of China
Begin forwarded message:
From: Michael Geist <mgeist@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 2, 2005 7:21:16 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Face to Face with the Great Firewall of China
Dave,
Of possible interest - my regular Law Bytes column reflects on a
recent trip to China and the frustrations I encountered dealing with
censorship of the Internet. Despite similar appearances with
broadband access in my Beijing hotel, I found sites blocked, email
downloads short-circuited, and Google searches cut off.
The column (posted below) notes that the experience was a powerful
reminder that unfettered Internet access is far more fragile than is
commonly perceived. I try to connect the Chinese firewall experience
to recent events in Canada (including web-based disclosures of
information subject to publication bans and law enforcement
authorities for greater surveillance powers) and conclude that it
would be mistake to think that the North American Internet will
always remain as free as China's is censored. The challenge in the
months and years ahead will be to promote a vision of online freedom
through lobbying for greater access abroad and rejecting unnecessary
and potentially dangerous limits at home.
A freely available hyperlinked version of the column is at
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may22005.html
Toronto Star reg. version at
<http://geistchinafirewall.notlong.com>
MG
FACE TO FACE WITH THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA
May 2, 2005
Michael Geist
As the Internet was taking flight in the early 1990s, John Gilmore,
one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
leading online civil liberties group, is credited with having coined
the infamous phrase that "the Internet interprets censorship as
damage and routes around it." Gilmore's view has since been
regularly invoked whenever there are failed attempts to limit the
dissemination of information.
Beginning with a string of cases dating back to the Paul Bernardo
trial in the mid-1990s, the Internet has undermined court-ordered
publication bans in Canada with surprising frequency. The latest
incident occurred last month when a U.S. website posted evidence from
the Gomery inquiry that was subject to a publication ban. The ban
was lifted within days, however, as Judge Gomery acknowledged what
had become obvious to all - supposedly secret testimony was readily
available to anyone with Internet access.
While these events seemingly affirm the notion that the Internet is
beyond the reach of governments and courts, my recent trip to China
provided a powerful reminder that unfettered Internet access is far
more fragile than is commonly perceived. China, which boasts the
world's second largest Internet user base, is currently home to more
than 94 million Internet users, yet their Internet is far different
from ours.
These differences are not immediately obvious. My hotel in Beijing
featured high-speed Internet access much like that offered in hotels
throughout North America. Logging onto the network was a snap and I
quickly found that bandwidth speeds were comparable to those found at
home.
It was once I sought to access common news sites that I found myself
face to face with the "Great Firewall of China." Google News, a
popular aggregator of news stories from around the world, would not
load into my browser, apparently blocked by a filtering system that
employs 30,000 people to regularly monitor Internet traffic and
content. Similarly, while the BBC website would load, attempts to
access news stories on that site yielded only error messages.
My frustration increased when I attempted to download my own email.
While I was able to access my Canadian-based mail server storing my
messages, the download was short-circuited midway as I suddenly lost
the connection. Although I initially thought that perhaps the error
lay at the Canadian end, when the experience repeated itself, it
became clear that the Chinese system was filtering my email messages
and cutting off the connection.
Having experienced limits in accessing both news and email, it came
as little surprise to find that the search engines were subject to
similar restrictions. Searches for articles on circumventing the
Chinese filters yielded a long list of results, none of which could
be opened. Moreover, inputting politically sensitive words such as
the "Falun Gong" cut me off from the search engines completely.
While I found using the Chinese Internet exceptionally frustrating,
most people I spoke to were resigned to an Internet with limits.
They live with the fact that in recent months the government has shut
down thousands of Internet cafes, an important point of access for
many citizens. Many noted that the censorship "only" affected
political information, but that business could be conducted online
unimpeded. At one academic conference, Chinese law professors even
spoke of the desirability of increased content regulation and
supported government limits on search engine results.
As groups such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders
regularly seek to remind us, the Chinese Internet is not unique.
Countries throughout the Middle East and in parts of Asia employ
similar technologies to limit their citizens' access to a medium that
most Canadians now take for granted.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that the Canadian Internet
will always remain just as free as China's is censored. Canadian law
enforcement officials are actively lobbying for a series of "lawful
access" reforms that will provide authorities with dramatically
increased Internet surveillance powers. These include mandating real-
time network surveillance capabilities on Canada's biggest Internet
service providers and providing authorities with the right to demand
subscriber information without the need to obtain a prior court order.
While it would be unfair to characterize the lawful access proposal
as comparable to the monitoring and censorship used in the Chinese
Internet, my experience provided a sobering reminder of the dangers
inherent in increased surveillance and weakened judicial oversight.
The Internet may be accessible from Toronto to Beijing, yet people in
these two cities do not access the same Internet. The challenge in
the months and years ahead will be to promote Gilmore's vision of
online freedom through lobbying for greater access abroad and
rejecting unnecessary and potentially dangerous limits at home.
--
**********************************************************************
Professor Michael A. Geist
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law
University of Ottawa Law School, Common Law Section
57 Louis Pasteur St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5
Tel: 613-562-5800, x3319 Fax: 613-562-5124
mgeist@xxxxxxxxx http://www.michaelgeist.ca
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