THE CYBER CRIME BILL IS REPULSIVE AND MUST BE WITHDRAWN

May 06, 2018 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The controversial Cyber Crime Bill No.16 of 2017 is profoundly undemocratic. Its fundamental premise, is perverse, namely that social peace will be secured by protecting the reputation of elected officials from public scrutiny by criminalizing opinion, destroying principles of plurality, freedom of expression and the human right to access the internet.
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) believes this Bill should be withdrawn in its entirety.
Although public attention has focused on the revival of ‘sedition’ as a crime in Clause 18 of the Cybercrime Bill, it is only one of many obnoxious features. Rather than protection of the principles and benefits which cyberspace offers to advance a richer enjoyment of rights by all citizens, the Bill is uniformly negative, dangerously vague and discretional and views cyberspace as a zone populated by people with a threatening agenda.
The genuine issues the Bill seeks to address – grooming of minors, financial crimes, cyber-bullying and vindictive misuse of personal information to humiliate people could be largely and more effectively grafted into existing legislation.
In addition to the penalties outlined below, this Bill suppresses the right to freedom of expression, encourages censorship and self-censorship, eliminates content, blocks internet sites, prompting parallels with role of morality police associated with the most repressive regimes.
The draconian character of the Bill is established in the first substantive Clause, which states:
3. (1) A person commits an offence if the person intentionally, without authorisation or in excess of authorisation, or by infringing any security measure, accesses a computer system or any part of a computer system of another person.
(2) A person who commits an offence under Subsection (1) is liable –
on summary conviction to a fine of three million dollars and to imprisonment for three years; or
on conviction on indictment to a fine of five million dollars and to imprisonment for five years.
The sweeping negative character of the Bill is sustained throughout. Clause 30, for example, states:
30. (1) A person who has knowledge about the functioning of a computer system or computer data storage medium, or security measures applied to protect computer data, that is the subject of a search warrant shall, if requested by the police officer authorised to undertake the search, assist the police officer to access the computer….
30(2) A person who fails, without lawful excuse or justification, to comply with Subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of three million dollars and to imprisonment for one year.
The infamous Clause 18, which has dominated public comment on the Bill states:
18. (1) A person commits an offence of sedition if the person….
(a) brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in Guyana…..
1(d) encourages, incites, induces, aids, abets, counsels any person to commit or to conspire with another person to commit any criminal offence against the President, Prime Minister or any Minister of the Government established by law in Guyana…
In between anyone interfering with any computer and anyone knowledgeable being compelled to help the police, internet service providers and other intermediaries are to become censors of the activities ( and opinions ?) of their users. Clause 21 (2) states: (a) Where a body corporate commits an offence under this Act and the court is satisfied that a director, manager, secretary, or other similar officer, of that body corporate-
(a) consented or connived in the commission of the offence; or
(b) failed to exercise due diligence to prevent the commission of the offence, that director, manager, secretary, or other similar officer commits an offence.
According to Clause 21 (2) summary conviction on any of these offences renders both the ‘body corporate’ and individuals who commit an offence to a fine of five million dollars and to imprisonment for three years; and on conviction on indictment to a fine of eight million dollars and to imprisonment for five years.
It seems not to have occurred either to Government or Opposition parliamentarian involved in the Special Committee that reviewed this Bill that ‘exciting disaffection’ and ‘contempt’ has been a central feature of Guyanese politics thanks in no small part to the contributions made by both major political parties.
Were this Bill passed into law any form of ‘disaffection’ expressed by militants in their ranks in a tweet, a post, or other form of public social media statement, could trigger application of the above penalties to themselves and their party leaders.
Cyberspace is not some form of disease that needs to be ‘cauterized’ lest it becomes rampant and destroy us all. On the contrary, it is both an expression and a reflection of today’s reality and that of the foreseeable future as well.
Draconian legislation of the kind being proposed in the Bill will have little if any impact on this reality. A more enlightened approach is required – one, which does not begin by seeking refuge in what will inevitably become a legislative quagmire in an already unstable criminal justice system.

Executive Committee
Guyana Human Rights Association

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