Green Dam lawyer takes on Government minister
- Source: Global Times
- [00:57 August 04 2009]
- Comments
By Huang Jingjing
A Beijing lawyer has filed a lawsuit against Li Yizhong, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology minister, for infringing upon citizens’ freedom and privacy.
The audacious legal action has been brought by Xie Yanyi, a lawyer at Beijing Gongxin Law Firm, and is in retaliation to the government’s plan to install all new computers in China with a filtering software program which can monitor an individual’s Internet use.
The ministry announced in June that all computers sold in the country from July 1 would have to be installed with the Green Dam-Youth Escort software, a filter to weed out and block “unhealthy information” including pornography and violent content.
However, it postponed the mandatory installation on June 30 after a national outcry and international condemnation. But the controversial plans have not been scrapped and many fear the government is still intent on carrying them through.
“Porn-filtering to protect the young is just an excuse for spying on citizens. The software can also collect and send back the user’s information to the terminal, which means the ministry can spy on us and restrict freedom of speech,” Xie told the Global Times yesterday.
He said he filed his lawsuit against the minister to the No. 1 Branch of the Beijing Municipal People’s Procuratorate last Friday and was still waiting for a reply.
“By forcing the computers to install the software, Minister Li Yizhong is using his ministerial powers illegally to deprive citizen’s of their freedoms and privacy to leave messages, make comments and exchange ideas freely and privately,” Xie added.
He said that the ministry had failed to carry out a feasibility study or solicited public opinion before “throwing a large amount of public money in developing such an unpopular software.”
It is claimed that the ministry had invested 41.7 million yuan ($6.1 million) on the software.
“It not only wasted both public money and manpower, but has had a negative impact on China’s international image,” he said.
However, another lawyer said Xie’s charges against the minister were almost groundless.
“The minister has not committed any crime. The ministry launched Green Dam in the name of the State, which cannot be the subject of a criminal case,” Chen Tao, a member of the Criminal Law Committee of the Beijing Bar Association, told the Global Times.
He said Xie’s evidence was “weak and the charges were unprofessional.”
“The chances of the procuratorate starting the case are slim,” he said.
Public opinion over the software and Xie’s lawsuit are divided.
“I support Xie as the Green Dam would do great harm if it was installed into our computers,” Yang Lei, a computer engineer in Beijing said.
“The software would leak personal information,” he added.
“It would offer more chances for the hackers to intrude the private computers and steal important information like bank accounts,” he said.
Some believed Xie’s case was a stunt.
“Supervision of the Internet is necessary. Many nations have done so,” Zhao Zhenying, an assistant general manager of Jincheng NetEast Technologies in Beijing, said. “Such software is just like the speed cameras on roads, which are used to increase safety but not spy on people’s personnel activities,” he said.
