Josh Wolf, who?

Well, not your fault. He is no celebrity, but he did become citizen-journalism’s first martyr when the US federal authorities decided to make him the first blogger to be jailed for blogging the naked truth. His offence is that he refused to testify before a grand jury and to share the unblogged video footage showing the clash between San Francisco police and anti-G8 protestors. Wolf posted the video showing the clash on his blog, which was later aired on a TV channel and Wolf was paid for it. The authorities want the whole of the video because they feel it might show how the protestors set their patrol car ablaze. Setting a police patrol car ablaze is a federal crime, the government authorities assert. Quite clearly, the government wants to justify the use of force against the protestors. They want to prove that they used force against unstoppable and uncontrollable violence.

Freedom of speech and expression is a ‘shield’ and so is ‘state regulation’ of such freedom. Both protect. And both can be - and are - misused. The misuse of freedom of speech and expression may cause defamation, incitement or contempt of court, which can always be controlled, curbed and punished for. But ‘State regulation’ is often used to muffle dissent and silence adverse criticism of the State authorities, which tantamounts to destroying the very spirit of democracy by denying the most precious of democratic rights - the right to speak one’s mind freely. Freedom of speech and expression ‘shields’ unfair and vexed criticism but promotes public dialogue. ‘State regulation’ of it ‘shields’ unlawful and illegitimate use of State’s ‘coercive power’ and promotes corruption and petty politics, which erodes the legitimacy of the government. Therefore, it is quite clear that if ‘unfettered’ freedom of speech is harmful, the ‘unfettered’ and ‘unchecked’ State regulation is much more so. This is not a choice between the devil and the deep sea, for both, the devil and the deep sea, are on one side - on the side of unfettered State regulation. Worst misuse of freedom of speech is far less damaging than the least overstepping of ‘State control’, for all individual deviations can be checked by the State rather effortlessly but State deviation is like a broad sword gone mad.

Back to blogging, the idea of making the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) responsible for the blog content any more than they already are is plainly dangerous because, as commonly understood, theirs is a commercial endeavour, which makes them easy preys. The bigger the endeavour, the greater the stake; the greater the stake, the better the arm-twisting works; and the more effective the arm-twisting, the more effective is the State control. In this case the ‘State control’ controls the dissemination of information, news and view, which is the lifeblood of any democracy anywhere. Making the ISPs accountable for. the opinions expressed or the information shared would be a serious blow to the right to speech and expression. There is every danger that it would open the floodgates for the suppression of unfavourable information and opinion-by the State in the garb of regulations. Such a danger is much too serious to be ignored
or to be overlooked even momentarily. It should be made mandatory for the ISPs to assist the investigation agencies by providing all relevant information they need to investigate or prevent a crime, but that’s where the line should be drawn. They should not be made accountable for anything published by individual bloggers. The individual bloggers should be they post. The libellous content may be blocked on court order, but ISPs must not be made to share the responsibility for it. Lies and gossip may be harmful but they do build a culture of dialogue and communication. Allowing State to interfere without a very reasonable cause would mean the end of free speech. And without free speech democracy has no meaning at all. We might seem to have choice, but actually we don’t have one. There is only one way - keep the State at a very safe distance. Shave with a razor, not a sword.

– Hem Raj Singh