Category: IT

While all right-thinking Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, agree that stern action should be taken against those responsible for the blog which insults Prophet Mohammad, many are asking why the authorities have been so tardy and laid-back in acting when complaint was first made many weeks ago.

Although Utusan Malaysia first reported about the blog last Saturday, 27th December 2008, with the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, responding on the same day by directing the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar and the police to act quickly against the blog over insults to Prophet Muhammad, in actual fact, the authorities had been aware of the blog concerned for weeks.

This was revealed by the Information Minister, Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek who said on Saturday that the woman in her 20s whose photograph and identify were used in the blog containing insults to Prophet Mohammed had denied owning the Internet domain and had in fact met him two weeks ago to ask RTM to help clear her name. Continue reading “Anti-Prophet Mohammad blog – Hamid, Shabery, MCMC should explain why so tardy in taking action”

No Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on its inquiry into the RM1.6 billion Eurocopter deal has been tabled in Parliament today although the PAC Chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid had promised last Wednesday that the PAC report would be ready to be tabled in two or three days.

More than a month had passed since Azmi announced on Oct. 14 that the PAC would investigate into three scandals which had shook Parliament and the country – the Eurcopter helicopter, Bank International Indonesia (BII) and the high speed broadband (HSBB) deals but there has been no inquiry into the latter two apart from a most unsatisfactory inquiry into the first.

This does not reflect well on the chairmanship of PAC by Azmi.

Why is the PAC reluctant to go full-steam to conduct investigations into the propriety, accountability and integrity of the HSBB and BII deals? Continue reading “No PAC report on Eurocopter and no PAC investigation into HSBB and BII scandals after more than a month”

“Are MCMC/Ministry dumb or just subservient to Telekom Malaysia?”

This is the question I posed to the Minister for Energy, Water and Communications Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor in Parliament at close to 11 pm last night when winding up the debate on behalf of his Ministry on the 2009 Budget debate.

I had queried Shaziman on why Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) was awarded the RM11.3 billion HSBB (High Speed Broadband) project, subsidised with RM2.4 billion of taxpayers’ money, when there was an alternative proposal by HSBT (High Speed Broadband Technology Sdn Bhd) offering to build a similar network without any subsidy?

I also challenged the government’s rationale in awarding the HSBB to Telekom when Telekom must bear the greatest responsibility for Malaysia’s failure to become a broadband power, left far behind in the past decade by other countries when Malaysia had started on an equal broadband footing with them.

South Korea has now a broadband penetration rate of 93 per cent and Hong Kong at 30 per cent, as compared to Malaysia’s 13 per cent (Shaziman corrected me and claimed that Malaysia’s broadband penetration rate is now 17%) which includes Malaysia’s most extraordinary “low broadband speed”! Continue reading “Are MCMC/Ministry dumb or just subservient to Telekom Malaysia?”

Why is Telekom subsidised with RM2.4 billion of tax payer’s money for the HSBB project when an alternative proposal do not require subsidy?

Why wasn’t there an open tender to choose the best proposal? Why does the government think Telekom is the best company to role out HSBB in spite of the fact that Telekom failed to achieve the national objective of high internet penetration after more than 10 years?

Simple economics will tell that a competitive environment will produce the results the country wants.

Besides failure to deliver the numbers (high internet and broadband penetration) and despite the fact that Telekom is a laughing stock because TMnet is well known for bad quality of service, the government persist to award the next generation broadband project to Telekom.

HSBT (High Speed Broadband Technology Sdn Bhd) has offered to build a similar network without subsidy. Even if the government deems HSBT inexperienced to carry out such a large project, wouldn’t the fact that their not requiring a subsidy tell them a subsidy may not be required? Continue reading “The RM 2.4 billion Telecom HSBB (High Speed Broadband) subsidy”

Tomorrow, 18 justice-and-freedom-loving Malaysians will collectively shave their heads in protest against the unjust, undemocratic and unlawful detention of Malaysia’s most famous blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin under the Internal Security Act.

The event, organised by DAP Selangor, is also to protest the arbitrary detention of the Hindraf 5 and all other ISA detainees currently languishing in the Kamunting Detention Centre.

Although I had intended to be in Penang till tomorrow evening, I am changing my travel plan to be at the KL-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall tomorrow morning for this head-shaving protest – in SSS (support, sympathy and solidarity) with RPK, the Hindraf 5 and all other ISA detainees.

Let us all gather at the KL-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall tomorrow, Sunday, 21st September 2008 at 10.30 am.
Continue reading “Free RPK, redoubtable and irrepressible cyber-warrior, under ISA”

In my interjection during the debate on the DNA Bill in Parliament this morning, I had raised the blocking of popular website Malaysia Today on the directive of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the violation of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Bill of Guarantees as “a gift to the world” of no censorship of the Internet by the Malaysian authorities.

I quoted it as the latest example of the rampant abuses of power by the government which explains why there is so little public confidence in the independence, professionalism and impartiality of the various enforcement agencies with the vast powers as proposed in the proposed DNA bill.

Almost all key institutions of the state, whether the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Police, the Anti-Corruption Agency or the judiciary have come under a grave cloud and lost the high respect and public standing they were held by Malaysians in the early years of nationhood.

The MCMC directive to block Malaysia Today and the violation of the MSC Bill of Guarantees must be roundly and unanimously condemned by all right-thinking Malaysians, and the reasons cannot be more eloquently summarised by Jeffrey in another thread: Continue reading “Malaysia Today blocked – MSC Bill of Guarantees Violated”

i have been informed that Raja Petra Kamaruddin has been ordered to surrender himself at the Jalan Duta magistrate’s court at 9.30 am tomorrow to be charged with sedition.

I have not been able to contact RPK to get confirmation.

Police going after Raja Petra Kamarudin again.

His computer was confiscated during a police search of his house in Sungai Buloh this morning connected to his recent posting on the Altantunya Shaariibuu murder case in his blog, “Let’s send the Altantunya murderers to hell”.

Malaysiakini has reported DSP Victor Sanjos of the cybercrimes division as saying that the police are investigating Raja Petra under the Sedition Act 1948 for incitement and also because he “commented on a case before the court made its decision”.

Any offence in the latter category would fall under “contempt of court” to be dealt with by the presiding judge for the Altantunya case. When did it become an offence under the Sedition Act?

The police action, coming immediately after the denial by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak through his press secretary of having anything to do with the murder of Altantunya Shaariibuu, smacks of an orchestrated response to Raja Petra’s blog – and must be deplored in the strongest possible terms.

by Dr. Azly Rahman

Now we are aiming to be a major player in the Information Age industry. For this we will welcome with open arms foreign investments. Those who have experience doing business in Malaysia know that we are ever willing to listen and to act to meet the multifarious needs of foreign investors. And so the Multimedia Super Corridor is created to become a giant test-bed for the soft and hard products of the cyber age.- Dr Mahathir Mohamad, speech to MSC investors, 1998

Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers. – Karl Marx, circa 1880s

In Sanskrit, the word “mantra” (mentera in Malay) means formula. Mantra is correlated to the idea of a grand strategy or a belief system in the form of political ideology that permeates the consciousness of the leader and the led or the author and the authored. Inscribed onto the consciousness of the people, via print, broadcast, and electronic media is the mantra of economic success rapidized by information technologies. The formula for success many developing nations, such as Malaysia, is undertaking is one characterized by the dependency on Informational Communications Technologies (ICT) particularly on the technology of the Internet/broadband to fuel the engine of capitalist development, relegating the state as a haven for cheap pool of labor in the microchips industry.

The mantra of success is one driven by the belief in the formula of “cybernetics.” I will discuss how the “cybernetic chant”, one orchestrated and broadcast by the government, permeates through the social environment. Let us first look at the geneology of “cybernetics”

I shall relate the idea and genealogy of cybernetics to the idea of what is currently known as “Information Age” or its varying and more fanciful terms such as “The Age of Cybernetics,” or “The Networked Economy,” or “The Digital Age.” I will then relate the idea of this “formula” of cybernetics to the notion of “inscription” of the ideology onto the landscape of human consciousness since the beginning of the second half of the twenty-first century. Continue reading “Mantra of the ‘super corridor’”

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was a poor witness yesterday at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam videotape scandal.

He was evasive, uncharacteristically forgetful as to be prone to sudden bouts of amnesia on certain crucial events which Mahathir had never been known to suffer from and broke his word that he would respond to all questions to the best of his ability.

Most of the time, Mahathir was evading questions to the best of his ability, including his resort to “prerogative” to refuse to answer questions for the reasons why he rejected the recommendation of the then Chief Justice Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah in 2002 for the appointment of the late Tan Sri Abdul Malek Ahmad as Chief Judge of Malaya, favouring instead of Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim.

Mahathir was downright wrong and irresponsible in pleading prerogative to refuse to answer questions why the recommendation of a Chief Justice who was most familiar with the best qualities of his brother judges was rejected.

While the prerogative of the Prime Minister under the Constitution to decide on who should be recommended for appointment to the various high judicial offices in the country is not challenged or doubted, it is wrong to equate of prerogative of a Prime Minister in a democratic system of government with the royal prerogative of divine rule.

This is because the prerogative of a Prime Minister in an elected system of government, while assuring the Prime Minister as having the final say in the decision-making, does not give the Prime Minister the immunity to disregard accountability, transparency and integrity in the exercise of the prerogative.

This is my second disappointment with the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape scandal. Two days ago, I asked why the Royal Commission of Inquiry had not subpoenaed V. K. Lingam to be the first witness to ascertain from him whether he conceded the authenticity of the 14-minute tape, especially as he has authorized his lawyer to say that the person in the tape looked and sounded like him Continue reading “Lingam tape RCI – Mahathir evasive, forgetful and irresponsible”

A thread with a title but no content has attracted 95 comments in the past 31 hours. Quite Amazing.

Undergrad is not the only person to think that I had deliberately left the thread blank to provoke comments.

But I did not. I had been struggling for the past 33 hours to upload my media comments in Sungai Siput during the second stop of my 2-day 14-place whistlestop campaign of Perak state over the weekend to spread the important campaign theme of “Good Cops, Safe Malaysia” for the next general election. But I had been stumped by the Samy Vellu jinx in the blogosphere.

Yesterday (Sunday 13.1.08) morning. After my failed attempts to upload the thread “Will Samy Vellu contest against in Sungei Siput” – my media comments in Sungai Siput on Saturday, 12.108 at 11 am – I decided to upload the title first, to be followed by the body of the thread.

The title was successfully uploaded, but there was no way I could upload the statement proper. I enlisted the help of Chong Zhemin to post the Sungei Siput statement from London after reading his exchange with Undergrad, another tried to post it from the Antipodes, but all to no avail. Continue reading “Samy Vellu jinx in blogosphere – how to exorcise it?”

Eureka! But no…

According to legend, more than 2,000 years ago, when Archimedes got into his bath and saw it overflow, he suddenly realised he could use water displacement to work out the volume and density of the king’s crown. Archimedes not only shouted “Eureka” – I have found it – he supposedly ran home naked through the streets of Syracuse in his excitement.

I was quite at a loss and almost given up the effort to try to understand why I could not update my blog and the signs of more and more of the WordPress functions breaking down, when I remembered a query by a poster whether I had configured the blog to reject the function embolding words. At the time, I did not really understand the query.

But this gave me a clue and I found that the use of the “bold” function in the WordPress 2.3.1 led to the rejection of the input, whether new blog or commentary. This led to other discoveries – the fatal role of most of the other WordPress functions in killing any update or new input.

This was why I was finally able to put up three blog items today, the latest article by Farish Noor on “The A, B and C of God” and two pieces of my media conference in Kampong Simee, Ipoh Timur this morning to launch “crime, law and order” as among the top general election themes in Perak state.

But I have not been able to use the WordPress functions whether to edit the blog like to “bold” or italicize passages, break up the blog, link to media reports, etc.

You will have to bear with the failure of the various WordPress functions until the WordPress glitches could be sorted out.

1 ) Penipuan melalui kandungan SMS

Saya merujuk kepada kenyataan Menteri Tenaga, Air dan Komunikasi bertarikh 5 September 2007 di mana menteri berkenaan menyebut hanya terdapat 23 kes daripada 176 aduan orang awam yang telah melanggar Garispanduan industri pembekalan kandungan SMS, dan hanya 9 syarikat pembekal kandungan SMS tersebut dikenakan penalti secara pembayaran kompaun.

Dalam pada itu, menteri berkenaan juga berkata semua syarikat telekom selular telah diarah untuk melaksanakan satu ‘Preventive System’ untuk menbanteras kejadian penipuan yang seumpamanya — dan tarikh penamatnya (deadline) ialah 30 September.

The New Sunday Times bertarikh 4 November telah melaporkan bahawa sebanyak 712,676 pengguna telefon bimbit telah menjadi mangsa penipuan SMS sejak Januari 2006, melibatkan duit aniaya sebanyak RM377,411.60.

Kami perolehi maklumat dari sumber industri bahawa sebilangan daripada syarikat pembekal kandungan SMS yang dikenakan kompaun masih belum menjelaskan kompaun mereka setelah melebihi tiga bulan.

Malahan, kita juga diberitahu oleh sumber industri bahawa salah satu syarikat pembekal kandungan SMS yang berkali-kali melanggar Garispanduan industri — iaitu Macro Kiosk Bhd — telah dilantik oleh two syarikat telekomunikasi selular menerusi sebuah anak syarikat yang bernama Toprole Network Sdn Bhd, sebagai pembekal dan pengendali ‘Preventive System” yang Menteri berkenaan telah janjikan. Continue reading “Wimax & penipuan SMS”

A Budget or a blueprint will only be as good as its execution. In the past decades, we have seen many ambitious plans announced by the Government. However, these projects have often ended at best, a qualified success without achieving its original objectives, such as the Multimedia Super Corridor project or at worse, an unmitigated failure such as the BioValley or the MSC e-Village.

In the past year, the administration has also launched several large-scale blueprints for various projects in Malaysia, including the Iskandar Developer Region (IDR), the Northern Economic Corridor as well as the East Coast Corridor. These efforts will all be in vain if they are not implemented with competence and integrity.

The focus of the budget has to be on substantially improving the competence and integrity of our civil service and delivery system to ensure that the benefits expected from Government initiatives will be enjoyed by all Malaysians. Continue reading “Improving productivity & competitiveness of delivery system”

Based on statistics made available by the Minister of Energy, Water and Communication as at 2006, broadband penetration rates for Malaysia is less than 3%, compared to more than 60% for South Koreans.

The BN Government’s National Broadband Plan target of 25% household penetration by 2006 and 50% by 2008, has clearly failed miserably.

In the larger national interest of achieving the above targets, and its importance towards building a generation of enterprising and innovative Malaysians, DAP proposes that the broadband market be liberalised to allow for foreign competition.

To promote the building of high quality and reliable broadband network, DAP proposes favourable tax treatment for telecommunication firms undertaking broadband investments:

* New broadband operators are allowed to deduct financing costs from their taxable income.

* Investors are exempted from paying taxes on interest income from bonds specifically ear-marked to finance these investments.

* Exemption from import duties for specific state of the art telecommunications equipment required for broadband infrastructures.

Continue reading “National Broadband Plan”

Thanks Jiun for pointing me to Kenny Sia’s free campaign video tip for Jeff Ooi.

As Jiun said, the blog www.kennysia.com has just put up a post on the recent crackdown on bloggers as well as a youtube video song entitled “jeff Oois campaign video”.

Jiun wrote:

“His (kenny sia) blog has a huge readership among the young of msia, recent net research shows he is among the top 5 bloggers in malaysia, while he has always posted non serious stuff, this is the first time he is posting a political piece

“hope you can spare some time to read the piece and watch the video, i find it hilarious and im sure the young voters of msia love it too”

I agree. Video most hilarious indeed. Very creative, Kenny. No hesitation to commend it to all and sundry. Over to Jeff.

Welcome, Jeff Ooi, Malaysia’s pre-eminent blogger to DAP and Malaysian politics!

Jeff has created waves in the Malaysian blogosphere. We await a tsunami from him in the political arena.

Jeff’s statement of the reasons for joining the DAP is an eloquent expression of patriotism of a Malaysian, illustrating that patriotism is an integral part of all Malaysians and not the monopoly only of those who hold office or high positions. This makes the 50th Merdeka anniversary particularly significant.

Recently, one political upstart said:

“It is the law of the jungle and we need to take action against one ‘monkey’.

“I think the other ‘monkeys’ will also get scared.

“They are not above the law.”

This upstart was referring to Malaysian blogs. Apart from his loyal following, he will not find much agreement from bloggers.

It is regrettable to see the use of such derogatory language and the debasement in the standard of public discourse.

Many however will agree if his description is applied to public and political life, especially with regard to corruption, crime and public accountability and transparency where the rule of law appears to have been replaced by the law of the jungle.

There will also be considerable agreement as to the identity of such “monkeys” in the law of the jungle of public life and politics.

But will any action be taken against one “monkey” so that the other “monkeys” will also get scared and the country can begin to see the restoration of integrity, efficiency and effectiveness in public and political life?

I do not want to use the “monkey” language but this will be one of the challenges of Jeff Ooi, together with others in the political arena, to fight back the creeping law of the jungle and to restore the rule of law in Malaysian political and public life. Continue reading “Welcome Jeff Ooi to DAP – let it be a catalyst for more bloggers to take political stand”

“Watch your blogs, warns PM” was the headline of Sunday Star on the warning by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Kuantan on Saturday that bloggers are not immune from the law, whether their websites are hosted overseas or otherwise.

Does this warning apply to the Prime Minister himself, in view of disclosures on the blogosphere that the Prime Minister’s official website had hosted a very incendiary and seditious article inciting racial hatred, ill-will and animosity among the Malays and Chinese in the country?

This article, written in Bahasa Malaysia and purported to be by one “DR. NG SENG”, clearly an “agent provocateur” camouflaging as a Chinese, had been on the Prime Minister’s Office website for more than 20 months since Nov. 14, 2005 on the “ucapan takziah” for the late Datin Paduka Seri Endon Mahmood archive.

Blogger Ronnie Liu will be lodging a police report on the seditious and inflammatory “DR. NG SENG” article today.

Although the seditious article, together with the entire “ucapan takziah” archive, has been removed from the Prime Minister’s Office website this morning, the fact remains that the seditious article had been publicly available on the website for over 20 months and a grave crime had been perpetrated.

Who must be held responsible for the seditious article on the official website of the Prime Minister?

Is Abdullah strictly liable for seditious postings on the Prime Minister’s Office website to the extent that he could be charged and tried for sedition?

This would appear to be the implication from the comments of Abdullah, who appears to be declaring the principle of strict liability for bloggers and website principals. Is this the position of the Prime Minister and the government?

Will the Police haul up Abdullah to record a statement following Ronnie’s police report? I am not suggesting that Abdullah should be arrested, charged and tried in court for the seditious “DR. NG SENG” article on the website of the Prime Minister’s Office, although these would be the logical results if under the law there is the principle of strict liability for the seditious materials which are posted on the official website of the Prime Minister’s Office. Continue reading “Is Abdullah strictly liable for seditious postings on PMO website?”

Totally incredible! Webmaster of popular news portal Malaysia Today, Raja Petra Kamaruddin questioned for eight hours by the police yesterday but not a single question about the articles that he had written and all about the comments posted on the blogs!

The question everybody is asking is: Hasn’t the Police more important things to do than to harass Raja Petra and bloggers like reducing crime and eradicating the fear of crime — or investigate Raja Petra’s detailed allegations in his many articles about power abuses and high-level corruption by political leaders and public officials?

Is the Police an independent and professional service to uphold law and order to catch criminals without fear of favour including the high-and-mighty in politics and government or is it just an instrument of the powers-that-be to carry out its dirty work to victimize and harass critics and dissent?

At a time when public confidence have been greatly shaken by the failure of the police to control crime or to eradicate the fear of crime which have spiraled out of control in the country, the spectacle of the police wasting scarce resources to harass Raja Petra and bloggers while staying scrupulously clear of showing any interest in Raja Petra’s many serious allegations of corruption in high public places is not calculated to enhance the police’s public standing or image.

Can the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, the Police, the Anti-Corruption Agency and the Attorney-General explain why no investigation whatsoever had been launched into the myriad of corruption allegations on the Malaysia Today news portal, which would have justified the opening of scores or even hundreds of corruption files?

Less than 24 hours of an assurance by the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak that the government has not made a “special decision” to clamp down on bloggers, two pronouncements were made contradicting it and heralding such a clampdown.

One was made by Najib himself and the other by the “de facto” Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz who declared a war against bloggers in the last sitting of Senate yesterday during the winding up of the debate on the Electronic Government Activities Bill 2007.

Declaring that “The time for talk is over, now is the time to act”, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri said the government would be taking legal action against bloggers who flagrantly belittled Islam or the Yang di Pertuan Agong.

He said that apart from the three laws that could be used against the bloggers, the Internal Security Act, Sedition Act and Section 121b of the Penal Code, the government was also looking at formulating new laws allowing it to monitor and act against offending bloggers in areas not provided by these legislation.

Speaking at the Malaysian Press Institute Press Awards Night, Najib said the government was deeply troubled by the growth of “irresponsible” alternative media.

It is sad that the Senate yesterday was turned into an anti-bloggers forum marking an administration which is unable to live up to the 2004 general election pledge of an open, accountable and transparent governance.

Why was there not a single Senator yesterday to stand up to caution restraint, moderation, reason and sanity instead of allowing the blogging bashing to run full steam, with the Umno Information chief, Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib who had lodged a police report against Raja Petra Kamaruddin, webmaster of the Malaysia Today news portal, singing an anti-bloggers duet with Nazri?

Has the Malaysian Parliament become the world’s No. 1 anti-bloggers Parliament?

Apart from taking action against bloggers for flagrantly belittling Islam or the Yang di Pertuan Agong, what are the other “offences” which would be regarded as fair play for the blogging clampdown? Continue reading “Malaysian Parliament now the world’s No. 1 anti-bloggers Parliament?”