The Vi­en­na-based In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute (IPI) has jumped in­to the lo­cal de­bate over the Cy­ber Crime Bill pi­lot­ed last month by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith.The IPI re­mind­ed the T&T gov­ern­ment that "while we wel­comed their ef­forts to par­tial­ly de­crim­i­nalise defama­tion ear­li­er this year, we are deeply con­cerned about the steps to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion that may in­fringe on the rights of jour­nal­ists and oth­er civ­il groups in the twin-is­land na­tion."

It is al­so ask­ing Par­lia­ment to give the lo­cal me­dia more time to high­light their con­cerns with parts of the bill which, it said, if passed would af­fect their abil­i­ty to car­ry out their work.Grif­fith, in pi­lot­ing the bill, said it would make it a crime for any­one to en­gage in the unau­tho­rised trans­mis­sion or shar­ing of elec­tron­ic mails.Clause 21 is the cen­tre of con­cern for mem­bers of the me­dia and the Op­po­si­tion.

It states any­one who dam­ages the rep­u­ta­tion of an­oth­er per­son, or sub­jects an­oth­er per­son to pub­lic ridicule, con­tempt, ha­tred or em­bar­rass­ment, com­mits an of­fence and faces fines of $100,000 and/or up to three years in jail.The IPI, which had praised the Gov­ern­ment for par­tial­ly de­crim­i­nal­is­ing defama­tion last Feb­ru­ary, said the Cy­ber Crime Bill now crim­i­nalis­es defama­tion and is in breach of in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

"We are ex­treme­ly con­cerned that the wide net cast by this bill, the lack of a pub­lic-in­ter­est-de­fence clause and the in­clu­sion of some prob­lem­at­ic pro­vi­sions would lead not on­ly to the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of le­git­i­mate jour­nal­is­tic ac­tiv­i­ty but al­so dis­re­gard fun­da­men­tal jour­nal­is­tic rights and prin­ci­ples," said Al­i­son Bethel McKen­zie, IPI's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor.She said Clause 23, which im­pos­es li­a­bil­i­ties on the di­rec­tor, man­ag­er or sec­re­tary of a me­dia com­pa­ny, is al­so trou­bling.

"It would nec­es­sar­i­ly lead to in­ter­fer­ence in the ed­i­to­r­i­al process by me­dia own­ers and pub­lish­ers in breach of the fun­da­men­tal jour­nal­is­tic prin­ci­ple of ed­i­to­r­i­al in­de­pen­dence," she added.Part IV of the bill is al­so wor­ry­ing, the IPI said.Bar­bara Tri­on­fi, IPI's press free­dom man­ag­er, said: "It in­cludes much need­ed pro­vi­sions free­ing in­ter­net ser­vice providers from li­a­bil­i­ties re­lat­ed to in­for­ma­tion trans­mit­ted through Web sites they host but it al­so au­tho­ris­es the courts to or­der dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion.

"Un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances, this could force jour­nal­ists to re­veal their sources in breach of their le­gal right and pro­fes­sion­al eth­i­cal du­ty to sources con­fi­den­tial­i­ty." The IPI said Grif­fith had ap­proached a few mem­bers of the me­dia for their views on the bill just be­fore the re­cent long week­end and gave them un­til June 24 to air them.The IPI said: "That was not enough time. A process of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion be­fore a bill is in­tro­duced to Par­lia­ment is an im­por­tant step in any de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem.

"This al­lows stake­hold­ers and groups that will be af­fect­ed by the new leg­is­la­tion to pro­vide in­put and ad­vice and even­tu­al­ly leads to greater trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the law-mak­ing process."Two work­ing days is not an ac­cept­able time frame for such a con­sul­ta­tion, as it does not leave suf­fi­cient time for rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to de­vel­op an in­formed opin­ion and pro­vide rel­e­vant feed­back on com­plex draft leg­is­la­tion."

The IPI said one of the ma­jor con­cerns with the bill was that it en­tire­ly lacked a clear pub­lic-in­ter­est sec­tion."Jour­nal­ists must be able to col­lect and dis­sem­i­nate in­for­ma­tion about is­sues of pub­lic con­cern. The lack of a pub­lic in­ter­est clause ef­fec­tive­ly lim­its many forms of in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism," it not­ed.The T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) has called on Gov­ern­ment to re­draft and re­vise the bill, say­ing it could se­ri­ous­ly af­fect press free­dom.

The TTP­BA ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to be­gin a round of con­sul­ta­tion and work with stake­hold­er as­so­ci­a­tions.Op­po­si­tion MP Ter­ence Deyals­ingh said re­cent­ly the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion di­rect­ly tar­get­ed the me­dia.Grif­fith said the po­lice Cy­ber­crime Unit had wit­nessed an in­crease in the num­ber of cy­ber in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing on­line bul­ly­ing, at­tempt­ed do­main hi­jack­ing, Web site hack­ing and de­face­ment.He said muz­zling the me­dia was not the bill's in­ten­tion.

Ef­forts to reach Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Williams and vice-pres­i­dent Khamal Georges yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.