BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

09/03/2007

Belarus Security Introduces Blanket Monitoring of Internet Surfing

Excerpt from report by Russian external TV service NTV Mir on 9 March

[Presenter] Blanket monitoring of Internet users has been introduced in Belarus. All specialized cafes are now registering not only the names of the users but also all the sites they visit and for how long. At the same time, nobody knows for sure what is included in the forbidden list. The customers are outraged, the proprietors of the cafes are facing losses while security service staff describe this as a necessary preventive measure. Viktor Kuzmin reports from Belarus.

[Correspondent] The security bodies maintain that monitoring is necessary as a preventive measure. If earlier the Belarus Internet cafes knew who has come, from now on they will know where people go, or, in plain speak, what sites the customers visit. All this is called prevention of possible offences.

Internet-cafes have been monitored in Belarus already for several years. Quite recently each of them had to diligently maintain such log books.

[U/i man, presumably from cafe staff, shows a log book] We used to enter here the man's name, his passport, the office that had issued the passport and when. It could also be a student ID card.

[Correspondent] But now the sites that the client visits are being registered too. It was a decision by the Belarusian Council of Ministers. And the log book is now not on paper but in an electronic form. It must be kept for at least 12 months. This electronic log must be made immediately available to security or state control bodies at their request. If the administrator notices that a customer commits something illegal when using the computer, he must report it.

[Igor Chernenko, chief of directorate for resolving hi-tech crimes of the Belarusian Interior Ministry] When a person logs on to a computer he must realize that if he commits a crime, he should be ready to accept the fact that some time later he will hear a knock on his door and he will be asked to give explanations on legal grounds.

[Correspondent] The situation is under control, the security bodies maintain. The owners of Internet-cafes, however, are almost in panic. They anticipate falling profits. Customers are unhappy about the monitoring too.

[Passage omitted: vox pop]

[Correspondent] The bureaucrats are justifying their decision in the following way: there will be less violence and cruelty if the wrong sites are banned. The Internet-clubs, however, are wondering why a list of forbidden sites cannot be published. What is the point of comprehensive control?

Source:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/864937/belarus_security_introduces_blanket_monitoring_of_internet_surfing/index.html?source=r_technology