Show Notes for 7/19 Cyber Law and Business Report

1. REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES
REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS
• Reporters Without Borders
(RSF) founded in 1985 in Paris.
• It is an independent NGO with
consultative status with the
United Nations, UNESCO, the
Council of Europe and the
International Organization of
the Francophonie (OIF).
• RSF has foreign bureaus in 10
cities including Brussels,
Washington, Berlin, Tunis, Rio
de Janeiro, and Stockholm.

2. LAUNCHED IN
2008
• RELEASES ANNUAL
“ENEMIES OF THE
INTERNET” LIST

3. ENEMIES OF
THE INTERNET
• AZERBAIJAN
• BAHRAIN
• CHINA
• CUBA
• IRAN
• KAZAKHSTAN
• MALAYSIA
• QATAR
• RUSSIA
• SAUDI ARABIA
• TURKEY
• TURKMENISTAN
• UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
• UZBEKISTAN
• VIETNAM

4. CHINA
• Mass blocking of foreign websites,
spying on cyber-dissidents, using
social networks for propaganda
purposes and “digital bonfires” of
Uyghur sites – China continues to
have one of the world’s most
sophisticated systems of Internet
surveillance and censorship. Its
mechanisms for filtering and
monitoring online content are
collectively known as the Great
Firewall of China.
• Launched in 2003, it can filter
access to foreign sites and block
keywords such as “human rights,”
“Tiananmen” or “Liu Xiaobo.”

5. NOBEL PRIZE
WINNER
• Liu Xiaobo has been a strong
spokesman for the application of
fundamental human rights also in
China.
• He took part in the Tiananmen
protests in 1989; he was a leading
author behind Charter 08, the
manifesto of such rights in China
which was published on the 60th
anniversary of the United Nations'
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, the 10th of December
2008.
• The following year, Liu was
sentenced to eleven years in
prison and two years' deprivation
of political rights for “inciting
subversion of state power“
• LINK

6. CHINA TOP
JAILER OF
JOURNALISTS
• Twenty-eight years after the
ruthless crackdown on pro-
democracy demonstrations in
Tiananmen Square on 4 June
1989, China’s prisons currently
hold more than 100 journalists,
citizen-journalists and bloggers,
including a Nobel peace laureate
and three winners of the
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)-
TV5 Monde Press Freedom Prize.
• LINK

7. CASE STUDY: MEXICO
• PEGASUS COULD OBTAIN CONTACTS, EMAILS, TEXT
MESSAGES, THE DETAILS AND CONTENT OF CALLS,
AND CONVERSATIONS ON WHATSAPP, SKYPE AND
EVEN TELEGRAM, WHICH IS REPUTED TO BE SECURE.
• Discovered through University of Toronto’s citizen lab.
• “The illegal surveillance of journalists constitutes a
grave violation of the freedom to inform and the
confidentiality of sources, especially in a country in
which it is already particularly difficult and risky to
cover corruption.”
LINK

8. NETIZEN AWARD
WINNER
RAIF BADAWI
• Winner of 2014 Netizen Award
• Blogger was arrested in 2012 on
charges of insulting Islam through
electronic channels
• Sentenced to 10 years in prison
and 1000 lashes.
• Received first 50 lashes in 2015

9. HOSTING
BLOCKED
WEBSITES

10. PRESS
FREEDOM
BAROMETER

11. JOINED JULY 12
DAY OF ACTION
• “The neutrality principle
has made the Internet
an open, creative and
free space, but this is
already under threat
from the world's
authoritarian states, led
by China and Iran. It
would be disastrous if
the United States were
to give it up as well.”
• LINK

12. WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX
SINCE 2002

13. TOP TIER
• NORWAY
• SWEDEN
• FINLAND
• DENMARK
• NETHERLANDS
• COSTA RICA
• SWITZERLAND
• JAMAICA
• BELGIUM
• ICELAND

14. THE BLACK LIST
161 EGYPT
165 IRAN
166 YEMEN
168 SAUDI ARABIA
173 CUBA
175 VIETNAM
176 CHINA
177 SYRIA
178 TURKMENISTAN
179 ERITREA
180 NORTH KOREA
CC BY-SA 2.0: Stephan North Korea — Pyongyang, Arirang (Mass Games)

15. WE’RE #43
16 GERMANY
22 CANADA
39 FRANCE
40 UNITED KINGDOM
42 BURKINA FASO
43 UNITED STATES
147 MEXICO
148 RUSSIA
155 TURKEY
LINK

16. FIRST AMENDMENT
UNDER INCREASING
ATTACK
• US press freedom, enshrined in the
First Amendment to the 1787
constitution, has encountered
several major obstacles over the
past few years, most recently with
the election of President Donald
Trump.
• He has declared the press an
“enemy of the American people” in
a series of verbal attacks toward
journalists, while attempting to
block White House access to
multiple media outlets in retaliation
for critical reporting.
• LINK

17. WAR ON
WHISTLEBLOWERS
• The Obama administration waged a war
on whistleblowers who leaked information about its
activities, leading to the prosecution of more leakers
than any previous administration combined.
• To this day, American journalists are still not
protected by a federal “shield law” guaranteeing their
right to protect their sources and other confidential
work-related information.
• And over the past few years, there has been an
increase in prolonged searches of journalists and
their devices at the US border, with some foreign
journalists being prevented from any travel to the US
after they covered sensitive topics such as Colombia's
FARC or Kurdistan

18. ALARM OVER
TURKEY
• Turkey is one of the most alarming cases
in the 2017 Index. Ranked 155th after
falling four more places in the past year, it
has fallen a total of 57 places in the past
12 years.
• The coup attempt in July 2016 swept
aside the last restraints on the
government in its war against critical
media. The ensuing state of emergency
has allowed the authorities to disband
dozens of media outlets at the stroke of
pen month after month, reducing
pluralism to a handful of low-circulation
newspapers.
• More than 100 journalists have been
detained without trial, turning Turkey into
the world’s biggest prison for media
professionals.

19. MEXICO’S DECLINE
• Mexico is another country that stood
out last year. Ranked 75th in RSF’s
2002 Index, it has fallen almost 75
places in the past 15 years and is
ranked 147th in the 2017 Index after
10 more journalists were murdered in
2016 (and another spate of killings in
March 2017).
• It is riddled by corruption and violent
organized crime, especially at the
local level. In the states of Veracruz,
Guerrero, Michoacán, and
Tamaulipas, it is extremely dangerous
for journalists to cover sensitive
subjects, especially as impunity for
crimes of violence against the media
feeds a vicious circle that continues
year after year.

20. OVER 800
JOURNALISTS
KILLED SINCE 2005
Media outlets,
journalists, NGOs and
prominent figures on
every continent have
joined in calling for the
appointment of a
“journalists’ protector”
with the position of
special representative to
the UN secretary-general
for the safety of
journalists.