Opinion Poll: S Korea's Internet Censorship

There are a number of web sites, including Korea WebWeekly and the US Government News Service, which carry N Korean news and information. Our S Korean readers may be violating the NSL if they viewed the North Korean Central News postings or pro-North articles and links.

It is interesting to note that S Korea is in good company with China and Vietnam which impose strict rules on use of the Internet. North Korea has no private servers and no official code is required to keep its citizens off the Internet.

Date: Wed,  3 Jul 96 09:00:25 CST
From: Hal Barker 
Subject: Censorship
To: Hal Barker , "ysk" 
Bcc:

Dear Dr. Kim,

I read the stories on censorship relating to NK information.

Since I host the Paul Bakker North Korean Travelogue, I wonder if I
will become the subject of problems.

It would be rather ironic if the founder of the Korean War Veterans Memorial were to be censored by South Korea. Only time will tell. From my travels in South Korea, I don't find any sympathy for the Northern regime. All I found was a South Korea which de

eply desires to end the many years of discord. Without a shot being fired, or a life lost.

Hal

Hal Barker, Dallas, Texas  B.A. History, N.C.S.U. 1973
Honorary Life Member - 23d Infantry Regiment, Korean War Branch
Founder - Korean War Veterans Memorial, Wash. D.C.
hbarker@onramp.net     Amateur Radio WD0HTG, ex WA4AQE

Korean War Project
http://www.onramp.net/~hbarker
Korean War KIA / MIA Database
http://www.netpath.com/~korea/cgi-bin/kccf_search.cgi

CNN reported that last week that South Korea declared David Burgess' Internet WWW site subversive. The government required 14 local computer networks with links to the Internet to block the public's access to it.

South Korean authorities also said that they would 'punish' anyone accessing North Korean web sites. For the Canadian university student, the site was merely an informational library on an otherwise mysterious nation; but for the South Korean government, it was a threat to national security.

Burgess' web page consists mostly of pamphlets and tourist information he collected while on a recent visit to North Korea. The documents include recurring references to the 'Greatest Genius Mankind Has Ever Known, Comrade Kim Jong Il', 'South Korean pupp et reactionaries' and 'US imperialist war maniacs'.

While the first statement above is laughable and the last debatable, the action taken by the South over this issue lends credence to the second statement. I think Burgess himself sums it up best in an e-mail message sent to the Associated Press. 'South K orea has hypocritically committed the same actions it criticizes North Korea for -- non-promotion of democratic values and open choices'.

South Korea's strict national security law makes it a serious crime to 'manufacture, import, copy, possess or distribute data that can benefit, eulogize or encourage the enemy'. In light of modern technology, enforcement and prosecutorial difficulties as well as my belief in the ability of most humans to make informed decisions for themselves utilizing all information available, I believe it is time to reassess the need, effectiveness and rationale for the national security law as it is currently written and interpreted.

First, information technology has advanced so far and at such a pace as to run circles around any effort to control, censor or manipulate it. Whether the target is child pornography, con games, Neo-Nazi propaganda, software piracy or nuclear weapons tech nology; the media, in general, and electronic media (such as the internet and World Wide Web), in particular, have proven to be a modern day hydra. Censorship and injunctions cut off one head of the beast just to see another one grow back in its place.

Governments and tyrants had it easier in the old days of print-only media. Books, newspapers, magazines, etc. ... generally needed a rather cumbersome overhead to be distributed widely enough to be 'subversive' or to make a lasting impact. Print media al so has a physical being that can be burned, torn and/or shredded easily. These factors made censorship of any ideas thought unwholesome or in opposition to the ideas of those in power fairly simple to eradicate. Even so, underground newspapers, newslett ers and the like were very effective in spreading alternative thoughts throughout history despite the effort to stop them.

Electronic media, on the other hand, (web pages, BBSs, news groups, etc...) exist in the nether world of the internet -- a network designed by its makers to withstand global thermonuclear holocaust. Their very nature oftentimes difficult to define. Mos t web pages and news groups (BBSs are a slightly different animal) reside on some host computer or another. More often than not, this host system has absolutely nothing to do with the content, information or ideas within the documents beyond collecting a yearly or monthly fee from the page's creator. Do you make system managers responsible for every page that their system contains? If you do, people will just use their home computers to publish their ideas on the web. Another head of the hydra...

Or, what about the action taken by the South Korean government against Burgess' homepage? On the surface, it seems effective. Underneath, however, it's an administrative nightmare of the highest order. Right now there are at least 23 pages on the web ( I conducted only one search using only one search engine to turn up that many pages) that I can access from the comfort and relative safety of my home using my Mac and Bora Net. At least 23 more heads...

Second, as you can see from the above examples, enforcement of breaches of the South Korean national security law is almost impossible and prosecution for the same are difficult at best. For example, if I accessed one of those North Korean pages from my home computer using Bora Net (I'm not saying I did, mind you, I don't need black suited riot cops breaking down my door) who should/could be prosecuted, why and how? Me? Maybe, but what if my dog hit the keyboard, or my girlfriend, or it was a link fr om another page that I mistakenly clicked my mouse on? Bora Net? Possibly, but how can they possibly know let alone control access to every web page in existence now or in the future? The webpage or news group author? Not likely, because chances are i t's someone outside South Korea. Even if it is a South Korean national, there are ways to post things anonymously, believe me.

Third, I think the government is selling its citizens short if they think that the best or only way to protect them is to keep them stupid or spoon feed them only the information that is 'appropriate' for their little minds. Not only is this behavior und erestimating the population, but it's dangerous. Without the free flow of ideas (including those in agreement with and those opposed to the majority ) there can be no evolution of the thinking process, no well-reasoned solutions to the difficult problems this divided country faces.

Maybe the powers that be feel that they are the only ones capable of fathoming, mapping and solving the current and future problems with which this nation is and will be challenged. Judging by the endless traffic jams, rule-bending and the occasional exp losion or collapse, I find that conclusion hard to defend. If the South Korean government continues to treat its adult population as mindless children unable to know right from wrong, fact from fiction or good from bad and as being inadequately equipped to form a logical, thought out opinion on the basis of all the facts; the citizens will remain as such with no hope of improvement -- personally, nationally or globally.

Quite apart from the concerns raised by Daniel Pinkston, I was very distressed by the original agreement to block it in that this appeared to be aimed at maintaining the split in Korea at a time when Korea could be moving toward reunification. Only throu gh mutual cooperation and understanding (meaning openness) can reunification be achieved peacefully. If much of the world is denied access to information about one party, it will only lead to misunderstandings and easy manipulation of the public, and vio lent reunification would be virtually guaranteed.

On a personal level, I was offended by the decision to offer access only to certain individuals (intelligence analysts, business people, "scholars", journalists, and political "leaders") on the grounds that some information may be "pro-North Korean". Tho se who wish that the rest of us believe that this is a problem also wish us to believe that "pro-North" means "untrue" and thus might damage our ability to think clearly about Korean issues. Setting aside the question of whether this equation is valid, i t is an insult to any educated person to suggest that only a certain class of people, most of whom have a political stake in a certain limited view of Korea, are able to evaluate information and are not susceptible to manipulative lies.

As only one example, it is particularly galling that someone may think that most of us have less of a capacity for critical thinking than journalists. Anyone who carefully follows the news media in the U.S. knows that many members of that profession use official ideological models for evaluating information, often solely for the purposes of saving print space or broadcast time--hardly a practice that merits their inclusion in a special privilege of access to restricted information.

I hope in the future that Web servers resist attempts to restrict access to information. The World Wide Web and the Internet are the world's last hope for universal and free access to information, and ultimately for freedom from governmental control.

Well, it looks like the South Korean government is actively trying to control the flow of information on the internet. Recently, a Canadian student set up a web page on North Korea, but the South Korean government instructed all internet providers in South Korea to block access to the site. Therefore, I was unable to access the site directly, but was told by a friend that it was nothing but the same "tired" DPRK propaganda story that hasn't changed for decades. Now I've been told the student "voluntarily" removed the site from the web this week because the Agency for National Security P lanning (Angibu) made him an "offer he couldn't refuse."

Korea Web Weekly (a web page with various links and information on Korea) now says it is setting up a section on the DPRK, but the information will be restricted "in deference to South Korea's National Security Law and in response to an informal appeal from the South Korean government." But the Korea Web Weekly lists its snail mail address as a P.O. Box in Columbus, Ohio. So my question is: Since when does the South Korean National Security Law apply to the internet? And to the United States of America? This smacks of extraterritoriality and the exportation of South Korea's neo-Fascist National Security Law.

Korea Web Weekly claims that "access will be limited to the press, intelligence analysts, scholars of the North Korean issues (sic), businessmen and political leaders--of any country (North Korea included)." I guess I would qualify for access and "should feel privileged." To the contrary, this kind of elitism resembles the "caste system" of the DPRK, which classifies people according to "regime loyalty" and is against basic human rights principles. And even if the Angibu let's me have access to this information, what information might they deny me next week?

I thought things had really changed when Capt. Lee Chol-su recently defected with his MIG-19. The press had immediate access to Lee in an unrehearsed press conference. This was strikingly different from previous high profile defections, where the defectors were marched out to a choreographed "press conference" a bout 2-3 weeks after their defection. The defectors usually looked very nervous, as if they might forget "their lines" or the "correct answers." But this time we only had to wait five days for Lee to hold a formal press conference, whe re he informed us of the DPRK's plan to invade the ROK and complete the invasion within a matter of a few days. That "plan" was probably sitting on the shelf next to the plan for a manned mission to Jupiter. Everybody has plans for all kinds of things, but unless Captain Lee is the Oliver North of the DPRK, I doubt he was making many "war plans" or much foreign policy.

The point is that the game is over and the DPRK has lost. I would think the ROK would want as much information revealed about the DPRK as possible. However, just when it appears that ROK paranoia is starting to subside we can always count on the ROK government to "protect us from subversive information" and use people like Lee Chol-su to spread bogus information for political reasons.

Sorry for getting up on a soap box, but it fires me up (maybe I've been in Seoul too long!).