New IT Amendment of India Fair or Not?

The Information Technology Amendment 2008 has been passed by Lok Sabha. Read more on this- https://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=1... This means our government can spy on ALL our online activities read our mails, find our password and more without our permission. What about free will and privacy? ofcourse watching adult movies is absolutely WRONG and is punishable. But it's also written in certain articles that if someone downloads 'stolen' computer reasources he will have to spend 5 years in jail along with 5-10 lakhs fine! well almost all indian internet users download pirated movies(like newly released ghajini and rbdj),softwares and games on a daily basis. So will ALL of them go to jail? most of them won't even have proper knowlegde about this new law and will download pirated stuff again....so will they immediately be sent to jail or fined 5 lakhs without any prior warning? If this is the case soon india will suffer from 'Jail Explosion' like Population Explosion. How pratical is this new Amendment which can be misused? Should the Govt be allowed to spy on us and take away our privacy?

The IT explosion has completely changed the face of the world in many ways. While the information age has definitely brought the world closer together, there are many illegal activities going on over the Internet. India is not the first country to work on such a law.

Many countries like China and Arab countries literally block sites and search engines. Many ISP's themselves put filters, censors and blocks restraining certain web activity. With piracy leading to the creation of DRM media companies actually receive a lot of leeway to literally spy on download and file sharing. The USA Patriot act expanded privacy invasion in all sorts of ways.

Spying online is really nothing new though. It has existed since the inception of the internet. ISPs and websites have always kept track of various levels of online activity for various reasons. Then there are hackers, pranksters etc who engage in various level of mischief ranging from minor pranks to major identity theft and fraud through a form of spying. Heck people spy on each other by looking at history/downloads etc.

However, this is not a justification for government authorized spying. There is something very big brother like when a government decides to authorize spying. It is a gross violation of privacy and should not take place and I am very much against it. But, I think it is the call of the times we face. Spying is a necesscary provision to counter some unsavory elements in society. To some people it is an integral part of the war on terror. For me I really hope that the governments can crackdown on child po*nography, human trafficking, smuggling and poachery that has skyrocketed due to the internet. When you look at it, it is not much worse than spying that already took place, now there just is a legal stamp on it. The Indian law is much better than the recent Australian law that completely blocks bit torrents.

Honestly, if all you are doing is downloading some movie online or songs there is nothing too much to worry about privacy invasion. It is only the media companies that bleat on about DRM and piracy. Honestly, most governments do not really care if Pappu down the street is cheating a Khan out of a few dollars more. These acts are intended for more serious issues.

Although as CPM pointed out that, it is hard to trust people who handle such data. The government can be incompetent. There will surely be misuse of data to harass, extort and blackmail people just to make a few bucks instead of focusing on the real issues.