The Skeptic الشكاك

387 An Impossible Burden

Readers interested in Middle Eastern politics will, I hope, forgive a brief digression into the world of Internet geekiness. This Belgian court’s ruling poses an interesting legal question, one that has some bearing on the laws used to censor the Internet in Middle Eastern countries.

July 23, 2007 (IDG News Service) — A Belgian Internet service provider has appealed a ruling that it must block illegal file-sharing on its network, in a case that tests two European Union directives concerning copyright and the extent of responsibility that ISPs have for transmitted content.

The appeal contests a ruling in June by Belgium’s Court of First Instance against Scarlet Extended SA, an ISP formerly owned by Tiscali SA. Scarlet Extended was ordered to install within six months filtering technology made by software vendor Audible Magic Corp. The company makes software that can identity and block copyright content based on the characteristics of a file, which it calls “digital fingerprints.”

The ruling has brought into focus two EU directives, which EU member states are required to incorporate into their national laws.

While the EU E-Commerce Directive says that ISPs are mere conduits and not liable for monitoring content on their networks, the court disagreed, ruling that filtering is not the same as monitoring.

“It’s a distinction that the judge makes with very little explanation,” said Struan Robertson, senior associate with Pinsent Masons and editor of the legal Web site Out-law.com. The judgment “simply says the mere conduit defense is irrelevant in the circumstances.” [Full article…]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: To hold ISPs presumptively liable for all content they host or carry would pose a regulatory burden on providers that would drastically reduce and slow the flow of information—if the burden could be carried at all. ISPs are data carriers, akin to telephone companies, and typically serve merely as conduits of information, offering the technical means for users to receive and disseminate information.

Would you fine Vodafone because someone conducted a drug deal using their network? Would you require AT&T or Orange to listen to every telephone call on their networks to make sure nothing illegal was ever discussed?

I can’t see a problem with holding ISPs liable if they’ve been notified that material they host violates copyright, for example, and they refuse to remove it. But ISPs should not be pressed into service to monitor data they carry for illegal content.

It’s not an academic question. Regulations on the Internet promulgated by Iran’s Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, for example, make ISPs “liable for the content they distribute on the network” then forbid a long list of online activities, including “Publishing material that is against the Constitution or which affects the independence of the nation; Insulting the leader; Insulting religious sanctities, Islamic decrees, values of the Islamic revolution or political ideologies of Imam Khomeini; Material that will agitate national unity and harmony; Causing public pessimism about the legitimacy and efficacy of the Islamic system; Publicizing illegal groups or parties.”

Granted, no such regulations exist in Belgium, and I’m not equating pirated music with speech that “runs contrary to the political ideologies of Imam Khomeini.” The issue in both cases is that the ISP is pressed into service as a censor.

Right. Scheduled programing will now resume. (And thanks to John Palfrey at the Open Net Initiative for flagging this one. Watch ONI’s blog for better commentary on this issue.)

386 ‘Gaza: Safe, clean and green.’

Subhanallah! That was quick.

Charles Levinson, noting Hamas’ charm offensive, passes on this email invitation to foreign correspondents:

Dear Madams/Sirs,

More than a month ago, the Palestinians reclaimed the Gaza Strip from not only the full organized anarchy but also from the insecurity state and the lawlessness. Gaza now is in a new shape, Gaza is looking forward to promising and prosperous future, regardless of the obstacles that encounter the people in Gaza. On behalf of the provisional government and the people of Palestine, the Prime Minister Ismael Haniya is honored to invite you to visit the Gaza strip with other journalists, to see the new face of Gaza: Safe, clean and green.

Read on at Conflictblotter.

384 WSJ: ‘To Check Syria, U.S. Explores Bond With Muslim Brothers’

The Wall Street Journal has an article by Jay Solomon today designed to raise alarm that the United States is considering strengthening links with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Or that’s the headline. In the fine print, it turns out that the Brotherhood is one partner in the National Salvation Front, a ragtag group of exiled dissidents, including former vice-president Abd al-Halim Khaddam and Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanuni, exiled head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

The article also notices U.S. contact with Egyptian, Jordanian, and Iraqi Brothers.

A few errors here:

1. “The U.S. has traditionally avoided contact with the Brotherhood across the Middle East.” Not so. In 2005, Secretary Rice inadvertently made it policy not to talk to the Brotherhood in an unscripted response to an Egyptian reporter. Previously, the United States regularly met with Brotherhood members of Parliament. Two years later, U.S. congressmen are again talking with Brotherhood MPs.
2. “Today, the Brotherhood’s relationship to Islamist militancy, and al Qaeda in particular, is the source of much debate.” OK, true, but only on such reputable Web sites as Frontpagemag.com and on Israel-first blogs. The Brotherhood likes to portray itself as a bulwark against Al-Qaeda. For young Muslims with a generally jihadi outlook, it’s a nonviolent alternative. Either they accept the Brotherhood’s gradualist approach and start talking about reform, or, in rare cases, they leave the Brotherhood in frustration for one of the violent groups.

Syrian readers, or the khawagas who study Syria, might be able to identify further errors. If I were in the business of advising the U.S. government (and thank God I’m not), I’d counsel the USG to be wary of contacts with the Syrian Brothers.

1. They were destroyed after they waged war against Hafez, and so are of limited utility to anyone who’d like to topple the Syrian government.
2. They used violence a lot more recently than their Egyptian or Jordanian counterparts. Egyptian Brothers will today tell you that they believe their Syrian counterparts were in error when they took up arms (though it’s unclear whether they believe it was a tactical or an ideological error—certainly the outcome of their actions has shown them to have been a tactical error).
3. Contact with the United States discredits opposition movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood. As Jay Solomon notes, today it is the Brothers who are most wary of contacts with the United States. Here in Cairo, the government press tarred them for meeting with U.S. congressmen. Akef felt obliged to issue a string of proforma anti-U.S. rants to prove the group’s bona fides. The group’s constituency is staunchly anti-U.S. because of U.S. support for nasty (Israeli and Arab) regimes in the Middle East and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

383 ‘Benghazi Six’ Freed, Sudanese Migrants Shot

Following the release of the ‘Benghazi Six,’ Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov has pardoned and released them. He’s also granted citizenship to the Palestinian among them.

In unrelated news, two more Sudanese migrants have been shot trying to cross the border into Israel.

382 Non-Event News Story of the Year

Al-Masry al-Youm wins first prize for its story on what didn’t really happen, much, yesterday (See, also, the normally insightful Baheyya‘s breathless endorsement). In its way, Al-Masry‘s news piece is more revealing than Dr. Ibrahim’s reflections on the 55 years since the revolution from the same edition.

My personal experience of the country today, 55 years and one day after the revolution:

• An old lady throwing trash at two veiled (Saudi-style) women and insulting them. They giggled. A Dudley Doright type interceded on their behalf.
• A fight over cutting in the line/throng at a window at the Mugamma that actually came to blows (or headbutts, anyway). As the closest non-involved male to the action, I was eventually compelled to play Dudley Doright, though secretly I was glad for the entertainment. The guilty party eventually repented and put his arm around the guy who’d just given him a fantastic dressing-down, brought him next to him, and let him thrust his money through the window first. This is why I love Egypt.
• Computer systems down at the Mugamma. No one doing anything about it beyond sleeping on the keyboards in the heat. Around the corner, electric typewriters working just fine.

Business as usual… as, alas, with the recent arrests of Brothers in Marsa Matruah and Agami. Poor Brothers can’t even go to the beach. Didn’t I read the same story almost word for word last year around this time? As one wire reporter memorably quipped sometime maybe six months ago, “I’m going to write a ‘No Brothers Arrested Today’ story. Now that would be news.”

In fairness to the government’s continued dynamism, I should note Al-Ahram‘s top story today: new investment zones! More capitalist repression, Hossam will say. More environmental degradation, Amr will say. More jobs, more development, more investment, Mubarak will say. More favors to be bestowed and received, everyone will agree. God bless them all, I say.

379 ?? ???? ? ???? ?????

Happy 23rd of July.

(Thanks, M)

378 Weekend Miscellany

Good quotes recently in the news:
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates quotes G. Behn and tells a Marine Corps dinner about the “pleasure” of returning to Washington, “where there are so many lost in thought because it’s such unfamiliar territory.”

“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” —Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy (1848), quoted in a Wall Street Journal commentary by Bob McTeer.

???
My favorite WWII postal acronyms:
B.U.R.M.A. Be Upstairs Ready My Angel
N.O.R.W.I.C.H. (K)nickers Off Ready When I Come Home

???
My favorite deaths of Burmese kings:
Theinhko: Killed by a farmer whose cucumbers he ate without permission (931 AD). Theinko’s queen, fearing civil disorder, smuggled the farmer into the royal palace and dressed him in royal robes. He was proclaimed King Nyaung-u Sawrhan, and was known as the “Cucumber King.” He later transformed his cucumber plantation into a spacious and pleasant royal garden.

Anawrahta: Gored to death by a buffalo during a military campaign (1077).

Tabinshweti: Beheaded by his chamberlains while searching for a fictitious white elephant (1551). Good to pull out the next time someone refers to any “white elephant” project.

And, my favorite, Nandabayin: Laughed to death when informed, by a visiting Italian merchant, that Venice was a free state without a king (1599).

377 Ancient Darfur Lake ‘Is Dry’

French Geologist Alain Gachet thinks Dr. El Baz‘s lake is dried up. But that water from further south could solve Darfur’s problems.

375 Trapped Palestinians Riot in Arish Airport

This is too disgraceful not to note. Al-Arish is full of massive, empty hotels on the beach. Put them to use, even if you feel you need to keep them under lock and key.

374 Traffic, Religion, and the Latest 9.11 Rumor

Michael Slackman’s story about traffic and chaos in Cairo does a nice job of evoking the essential miracle of Egypt: that somehow it survives, and with grace. Cabdriver voxpop interview taboo, eschew, aatchoo—it’s a good story, despite what my wife says. Here’s the germ:

No one is saying the traffic is responsible for the Islamic revival in Egypt, but some people say the burden of the street, like the struggle of daily life, has reinforced a conviction that God’s hand must be helping people get through their day.

Meshi. The only way to cross the street is to put your faith in God and your fellow man and “step boldly off the curb,” as the New York Times headlines. This rings true. I myself have prayed aloud as a taxi driver reversed 100 meters down the fast lane of a six-lane highway while microbuses sped toward us at 130 km/hr, horns wailing.

But more often I’ve seen Cairo’s traffic make men (and women) forget their religion and yell about the religion of their brotherman’s mother.

Which brings me to another essential truth about the much-discussed Islamic revival in Egypt. It’s a mix of sincere religiosity, yes, but also politics, identity, and (yes, though I choke to say it) disempowerment. With a healthy dose of astounding hypocrisy thrown in.

<digression>It’s also made in Saudi Arabia, and (if you take the hijab, the sibha, the little Allah trinkets hanging from rearview mirrors, even the Ramadan lanterns, as its primary expressions) in China.

I have no problem with sincere religiosity (or Chinese goods). I’ve seen many friends find religion in the past seven years. They’ve quit smoking. They’ve stopped drinking. They’ll unostentatiously head off to prayers at the appointed times. They now have happy marriages, and a lovely clarity and serenity in all their relations. They’re better off now. And Chinese goods are affordable.</digression>

But on the hypocrisy, politics, and disempowerment bit: One morning, oh, two weeks ago, I was in a cab on my way to work. As four lanes of traffic merged contentiously into two (and a half), the driver called the guy in the car next to him a son of a fucked woman. He then turned to me and told me about the Quran, and specifically how it predicted the massacre of civilians in New York on September 11, 2001.

“Really? That’s interesting. What surah?”

Hesitation, then: “Al-Hadid. Iron.”

“Hmm, I’ll have to check it out.” (I did; it didn’t check out, but I have to give him credit for being a good bullshitter. Iron, indeed.)

A few days later, another driver started to tell me the same story. I told him I’d heard this from another driver, that I’d gone to look it up, but I couldn’t find the surah. Pressed, he admitted he didn’t know where, exactly, the prophecy was to be found: “The second surah. Or somewhere near the beginning, anyway. Have a look.”

This came up in conversation the other night as a group of reporters was trying to figure out what was fueling the (capital ‘I’ capital ‘R’) Islamic Resurgence. What makes people want to believe that 9/11 was foretold in the Quran in the first place? And why is it not the respectable bureaucrat moonlighting from the ministry to make ends meet who fills your ear with this garbage as you’re stuck in traffic? Why is it not the kind-of-fishy-but-honey-sweet Islamist with a beard down to his stomach who’s been everywhere from the Philippines to West Africa doing “dawa?” (And how, by the way, did this guy not wind up a lab rat for the latest “enhanced interrogation techniques” in a secret dungeon in Bulgaria or Romania or whatever?)

Why is it the totally normal guys from working-class neighborhoods who feed you the latest 9/11 rumor?

“It’s anger,” one reporter said. She reports on a lot of political repressions. She also doesn’t think very highly of Michael Slackman and his essential-truths-about-Egypt stories.

But these guys weren’t particularly angry. No more than your next guy, anyway. Most of the taxi-cab or cafe preachers (9/11 rumor peddlers or not) just seem like they feel the need to cloak themselves in the mantle of religious authority else you might not politely listen to their opinions. Like the only way to get any opinion heard is by invoking God through a megaphone.

My reflexive response to amateur preachers is to tune out and agree to everything they say in the hope that this will make the conversation over so we can get round to Al-Ahli’s last game. (It doesn’t work, but it does lower the cab fare if you’ve made the driver feel like he’s a great mu3alim and like he’s done a good deed by enlightening you.)

Shame on me for my patronizing attitude. Let’s take cabbie number one at his word: What in the Surat al-Hadid foretells 9/11? Here it is in English and Arabic. And what opinion is it that’s wearing a religious cloak?

I'm Reading: