HORROR: NTA sent a letter this week to ISPs, warning of stiff punishment
if they didn't fulfill conditions for operation that include filtering
pornographic and 'horror' content.

The cabinet's new Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), set up last
month, has already come under fire for being overzealous, and violating
constitutionally guaranteed privacy laws in going after Internet Service
Providers (ISPs).

The new 'FBI-style' unit was set up by the
government two weeks ago in response to a nationwide rise in abductions,
financial scams, cyber-crime and call-bypass syndicates. The
high-powered and well-resourced force works under the direct control of
the chief of police and is designed to act immediately to counter
organised crime.

However, by targeting Nepal's ISPs, the CBI has
stirred a hornet's nest among IT companies, constitutional lawyers and
consumer advocacy groups, who say the unit is overstepping its bounds.

Sirish
Karmacharya of the internet provider Namche was arrested this week and
jailed for having provided bandwidth to customers who were allegedly
using it to bypass calls. Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) sent a
letter this week to ISPs, warning of stiff punishment if they didn't
fulfill conditions for operation that include filtering pornographic and
'horror' content. NTA wants material that 'incites racial and religious
hatred' and is against the 'national interest' filtered.

"The
conditions are too broad and ISPs can't be held responsible for what the
subscribers use the internet for, it's their private business,"
explains Binay Bohara of the ISP Association. "In any case, filtering
content is very expensive, cumbersome and difficult."

Constitutional
lawyer Satish Kharel goes a step further and says NTA's conditions for
use also violate the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy. "Only
parliament can pass laws restricting fundamental freedoms, it can't be
done by NTA or the police," Kharel says. "This is an infringement of the
constitution and also goes against the right to privacy under
international human rights instruments to which Nepal is a signatory."

Kharel,
who specialises in telecommunications, says if the government is
serious about going after those misusing Voice over Internet Protocol
(VOIP), it should investigate the real culprits and not those who are
simply selling the connection.

Following
the NTA directives to the letter would effectively shut down YouTube,
Facebook, popular Nepali portals like cybersansar.com, mysansar.com, and
even nepalitimes.com, because some of the comments in the feedback
section could be construed to be objectionable.

Minister of
Information and Communication, Shankar Pokharel, said the government was
losing billions in international call-bypass and was forced to act
against operators with VOIP. "The state needs information on who is
using excessive bandwidth at all times of the day, without this data it
is difficult to catch the culprits," Pokharel told Nepali Times. "All we
are asking is for the ISPs to pass on this information."

The
police say they have been handicapped by their inability to access
mobile phone and internet usage data in going after criminals. DIG Arjun
Singh Bhandari says, "Our main concern is to ban VOIP calls as it
becomes difficult to trace criminal activities, and organised crimes
have been carried out using VOIP. We have requested ISPs to help us in
our investigation."

But Karmacharya's arrest and the fact that
he has been presumed guilty until proven innocent has sent shockwaves
through the ISP community, and lawyers are aghast at the lack of due
process in the case. This has led to suspicion that the police are
themselves involved in extorting ISPs. "It now seems to be our turn to
be milked," said one cyber café owner in Thamel.

Kunda Dixit