Datacom watchdog set up in India -------------------------------- The Forum for Rights to Electronic Expression (FREE) has been formed in India as a body dedicated to extending fundamental rights to the electronic domain. FREE owes its creation to an attack on Indian datacom by the Indian government, in the form of exorbitant licence fees (a minimum Rs. 1.5 million = US$50,000 each year for a BBS, much higher for e-mail). The Indian government also dug up the 1885 Indian Telegraph Act, a legacy of our British colonial masters, and used it to reserve for itself the right to uplink to a satellite, as well as to require the provider of any telecom value-added service to ensure that no objectionable or obscene messages are carried on the network. Value added services covered under these guidelines include e-mail, voice mail, BBSes, video conferencing, etc. Any specially authorised officer of the government, "if satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so" in the interests of security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, or for preventing incitement to the commission of an offence, may also tap into the system. As yet, FREE does not have any office bearers or staff. All discussions are carried out by the entire membership on the FidoNet echo FREE. Posting to the echo makes you a member of FREE, unless you specifically ask not to be made one. Decisions on what may be published as a FREE document are taken by consensus. The first document that FREE published was a letter to the Indian government making suggestions relating to telecom policy. All published FREE documents and related material are available by Gopher to mahavir.doe.ernet.in and will soon be available at the EFF Gopher/Web/FTP site: gopher://gopher.eff.org/1/Groups/FREE http://www.eff.org/pub/Groups/FREE/ ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Groups/FREE/ To get the FREE echo on FidoNet or for any other correspondence with FREE, send mail to free@arbornet.org. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab@dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA