You didn´t build that

The above quote from the American presidential election campaign, which stirred quite a lot of people, lead me to think further on the different perceptions of the origins of our successes. Of  course I don´t want to defend the exact wording here. The more correct sentence would be "You didn´t build that alone!"

So called self-made men (and women) all around the world tend to think that their achievements stem solely from their own efforts and decisions. In doing so, they disregard the influences other factors have for their success. It´s a simple truth that no wealthy person living today in one of the so-called developed countries could have become so without a whole bunch of premises being there in the first place. To give but a few examples:

- schools, colleges and universities for these people to receive an education as well as for the people they employ

- means of travel and transport for people to get around and to ship goods

- telecommunication and postal infrastructure as the basis for any communication

- a political and legal system which sets and enforces the rules we all act on and without which no business could operate

Now think of all the people involved in the areas mentioned, the teachers, professors, construction workers, engineers, truck drivers, train operators, pilots, postmen, politicians, judges, police officers and so on. So even before any business can operate, all these people have to be there and do their work and they have to continue to do so for as long as the business exists.

And this is just the institutional side of it. Think about all the persons who influence any one of us personally on our way through life: parents, grandparents, tutors, friends and so on. We all wouldn´t even be there if no-one cared for us when we couldn´t do so ourselves, which is true for quite a few years after we are born.

Add to that the people the business-owners employ directly and whose work is the basis for most of the revenues of businesses today.

And last but not least: contingency. Call it chance, luck, fate or providence; oftentimes all the difference between a successful and a failing business lies in opening it in a slightly different place or at a slightly different time.

Taking all this into account, how much of a person´s success is actually his or hers? It´s up to anyone´s guess, but I personally would put the number beneath the 33 % mark.

In direct consequence thereof, the often stated view that taxation is taking away what is rightfully the property of the one who "earned" it, is not feasible. Giving back to the society that enables us to do what we do is equally fair and necessary. Our ancestors with their efforts created the starting conditions for the present generation and it is our duty to preserve the society and thus in turn set the starting conditions for the coming generations. Besides that we also have the responsibility to care for the people who tried to get by just like us and failed. For there can be no free-market economy without people failing and companies going out of business.


To close with a quotation from Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: A proud man demands the impossible of himself, an arrogant one ascribes the impossible to himself.


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Cyber crimes

I have been asked to state my opinion on the new cybercrime law of the Philippines. As I am very interested in this sort of legislation that has been tried to set in effect worldwide lately, I agreed to do so. 

After reading this law, I realized that in order to assess it, I would have to regard it in the wider context of the Philippine penal law and the latter in the context of the culture, history and moral beliefs of the people which this legal system derived from. As you can easily see, this would mean months, rather years, of research, especially as I am, I have to admit, not really firm in my knowledge about this part of the world.

This being so, all I can do here is a comparison of this law to the one(s) of Germany and how I would feel if such a law would be enacted here. This may differ a great deal from your views because we belong to different cultures. Please bear that in mind and take my approach as the starting point of a discussion to which I hereby invite you. Use the comments for this.

I will comment on certain parts here that strike me as odd, in the order in which they appear in the law.

Cybersex (Sec 4 c 1)

Outlawing something like this speaks volumes of the cultural differences. Pornography was forbidden here until the 1970´s but this was dropped because the reasoning behind this, a mere moral one, seemed no longer legitimate. What goes on between two consenting adults should, in our view, be no matter of the state.

Libel (Sec 4 cc 4)

My first concern here is not the cybercrime law itself, but the definition of libel as given in the revised penal code articles 353 and 354 

Article 353. Definition of libel. - A libel is public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.
Article 354. Requirement for publicity. - Every defamatory imputation is presumed to be malicious, even if it be true, if no good intention and justifiable motive for making it is shown, except in the following cases: […]

This means, even if you say the truth about someone, when this truth has negative effects for this person, you would have to prove a good intention and a justifiable motive for doing so. I find this quite odd, to say the least. In our legal system, only persons (1)knowingly (2)making untrue statements (3)in public (4)which are suited to degrade the public opinion of another person are held accountable. Anything other/less than that is just the exercise of free expression, a civil right.

The cybercrime law itself now goes further on the question of punishment. Whereas a normal case of libel under article 355 would warrant a prison term between six months and six years, libel committed with a computer would mean a prison term between six and twelve years. This is simply outrageous. In comparison, the German law sets as the punishment for minor cases a prison term for up to two years, and for public libel, applicable for cybercrimes, a prison term for up to five years.

Traffic data (Sec 12)

Law enforcement authorities are authorized to collect or record traffic data as they see fit. Something like this would require a court warrant here. I would feel very uneasy law enforcement authorities could record my traffic without any external checks on their reasoning to do so.

Preservation of computer data (Sec 13)

Internet service providers are ordered to retain traffic data and subscriber information for six months. A similar law here was ruled unconstitutional by our supreme court. The main reason given was that the requirements formulated for law enforcement agencies to be granted access to this data were too lax. It was considered permissible only for the investigations of major crimes. In all other cases, the confidentiality of telecommunication for millions of people was viewed more valuable than the security to be gained from accessing this data. Especially so, as the law enforcement agencies could present to the court only few cases where access to this data was essential for solving a crime.

Restricting or blocking access to computer data (Sec 19)

The Department of Justice is authorized to issue warrants blocking access to data they find to be in violation of this law. This means the beginning of censure of the internet. In 2009 the German parliament established a law in effect similar to this one. It was enacted specifically to target child pornography by blocking the access to websites and instead displaying stop signs and registering the IP addresses of the people trying to access the sites. 

The problems with such measures are manifold:

-         Who decides if a site contains child pornography?

-         Only whole domains could be blocked, even if only some sub domains contain illicit material, thus blocking way more sites than are called for.

-         Who monitors the decisions? Who can legally challenge the decisions and how?

-         Persons with just a bit of computer knowledge will get access through proxies anyway.

-         Who can say what contents will be blocked next, when the infrastructure to do this already exists?

-         Last, but most important: This does nothing to combat child pornography, because the sites, although blocked for some, are still there. 

Therefore a massive public outcry demanded a real fight against child pornography, which means that the sites containing it have to be taken down. There was a campaign using the slogan “Löschen statt sperren” (see below) which translates equally to putting out/deleting instead of blocking. Evaluations showed that it takes only a few days from informing the hosting company to the sites being taken down. The law, although already enacted, never came into operation.

In conclusion, this comparison shows that the moral and legal system of Germany and the Philippines differs a great deal. It seems to be more legit to Philippinos that the state regulates private and public behavior for the sake of decency (pornography) or maintaining order (libel), while we regard our personal freedom as more valuable and fight attempts to infringe on it. In effect, these attempts led to the rise of the German Pirate Party, the program of which is centered on freedom of information. It remains to be seen if the protests against this cybercrime law will call into question just some parts, like the punishments for libel, or the fundamentals of it and thus narrowing the gap between the systems.