Maintaining a balance between civil liberties and
national security requirements is a difficult task. Countries across
the world, including India, are trying to achieve this mammoth task.
Similar is the case for reconciling the homeland
security and civil liberties in India. Equally national
security and fundamental rights must be reconciled in
India.
However, the bigger question is how to reconcile
civil liberties with national security requirements? There is no
second opinion that civil
liberties and national security must be reconciled in
India as soon as possible. Similarly, India must reconcile national
security concerns with due process requirements as prescribed by
Indian constitution.
The truth is that nations across the world are
ignoring civil liberties for the false claims of national security.
This is a disturbing trend especially when the United Nations is
silent on the protection
of human rights in cyberspace. This applies to India as
well that has draconian laws like information technology act 2000 to
violate civil liberties in cyberspace.
Unfortunately, UN has not been able to formulate a
universally acceptable legal
framework of cyber law and human rights protection in cyberspace.
The obvious result is that different jurisdictions have different
cyber laws. The only thing common in these cyber laws is that
virtually none of them is protecting human rights in cyberspace.
According to Praveen Dalal, managing partner of New
Delhi based ICT and techno legal law firm Perry4Law
and CEO of PTLB,
there is need to have “Reconciliation” between National Security
needs of India on the one hand and Protection of Fundamental Rights
on the other. I have also sent a communication in this regard to
Government of India in the past, informs Dalal.
It seems some segments of Indian government agree
with this “reconciliation theory” suggested by techno legal
experts of India. For instance, the Union Minister of Communications
and Information Technology, Shri Kapil Sibal has reportedly said that
adequate balance needs to be maintained between needs of “privacy
of individual” and “genuine security concerns of state” while
dealing with challenges of cyber security.
Another area that deserves the attention of Indian
government in general and UN in particular pertains to Human
Rights Protection in Cyberspace. According to techno legal
experts like Praveen Dalal, presently UN
and Human Rights in Cyberspace are two separate issues
although they need to be one. Similarly, we have no International
Cyber Law Treaty, International
Cyber Security Treaty, International Cooperation in Techno
Legal fields, etc, informs Dalal.
Interestingly, Kapil Sibal appealed to the global
community to collaborate and evolve global protocols in security of
information and network. Sibal assured that India stands committed to
contribute and cooperate with international community on this issue.
It seems at least Kapil Sibal is aware of the details of techno legal
issues and that is good news for India. However, we must not be
satisfied with mere declarations and we must actual achieve the
reconciliatory task as soon as possible.
Source: P4LO Blog.
