Michael Geist
May 2005
Appeared
in
the Toronto
Star, May 2, 2005
FACE TO FACE WITH THE GREAT FIREWALL
OF CHINA
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.
Michael Geist is the Canada Research
Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He
can be reached by email at mgeist@uottawa.ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.