In an entry on the micro-blogging service Plurk on Monday, Plurk founder Alvin Woon said the social networking site had recently received letters from the police and prosecutors seeking personal information on, and the IP addresses of, Plurkers.
In his entry, Woon wondered about due process and privacy laws in Taiwan.
After the news broke, some people quickly came to the government’s defense, saying the incident had nothing to do with the erosion of democracy that some of the government’s detractors claim has occurred since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came into office.
The group criticized those who took the report seriously, saying they were blowing the incident out of proportion in a naked attempt to turn an otherwise non-political matter into a political one.
Indeed, the matter should not be seen in terms of “blue” or “green,” but rather as “white,” which suggests intimidation. Both pan-blue and pan-green supporters would be intimidated if Netizens’ right to privacy is not respected.
Failure to treat the incident with the seriousness that it deserves could blind people to the fact that it may be a precursor of the shape of things to come — a new “white terror” in which freedom of speech comes under assault.
The case of Chinese journalist Shih Tao (師濤) is a vivid reminder of the need for vigilance in these times of uncertainty. Shih was sentenced to 10 years in prison after Beijing asked Yahoo to provide personal information on dissidents.
To be fair, combating online crime could be a valid reason for police and prosecutors to make inquiries with Internet service providers. However, with police refusing to provide any information on the case or justification as to why IP addresses were needed, one can speculate that the government, shaken by recent instances of Netizens using aggressive language to vent their dissatisfaction with the political situation in Taiwan, may have decided to act — even if this entails intruding on Web users’ privacy.
This has echoes of an incident in April last year, in which the Taipei City Government’s police department dispatched officers to a private gathering organized by the Taiwan Blogger Association. The officers asked the participants to show their IDs and provide cellphone numbers, and inquired as to what they were doing and who else was taking part in the gathering.
That incident sparked much public criticism, forcing the director of the department to apologize and assure that “any personnel found guilty of misconduct would be disciplined accordingly.”
Undermining Netizens’ privacy is a serious offense in a democracy. Until police and prosecutors provide a sound explanation as to why they needed personal information about Plurk users, it will be the responsibility of each and every one of us to make as much noise as possible to show that we will not allow our freedoms and liberties to be undermined illegally.
In too many instances the world over, people looked the other way while their freedoms were being gradually eroded by governments that thought they could get away with it. Isolated incidents may be just that, but when they are repeated one begins to see a pattern emerging. When that happens, alarms should go off, because such patterns often indicate intent.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS