Law on Electronic and Information

As of this 1st of April, Indonesia will apply a new law on Electronic and Information transaction. What is this law? It is a law against pornographic site and hacker. A site which contains pornography will be banned and the owner or administrator could face a ten year time in prison or a maximum of IDR ten billion fine.


This new law has its own pros and cons. How do you categorize a site as pornography or not? If the site contain nudity then it must be banned. What if the site contains only articles but those articles are all for adults only. How can you filter them? The Indonesian government has launched a software to fight against pornographic contents. With the software Indonesian government will also make a list of all sites with pornography. Again, I honestly think that you can not list all sites on the internet. Moreover filtering is only applicable if you already know the url of the site. What about the newly created site? The list should always be updated then.

This law could also affects articles on the internet with health or articles related to doctor. Suppose you are a obstetrician or gynecologist, the articles you will look for will contain some words which can be categorized as pornography. If the software filtered those articles then how do you suppose find answers on the internet? This could lead really halt the development of information technology especially for doctors. I think the application of the law is a good intention from the government to fight pornography on the internet. But the government also should think about the wide range of affects that will be caused by the application of the law. Continuous studies have to be done to make this law complete.

Greetings

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Independence Day

In a few days (four to be exact), Indonesia will celebrate its 62nd independence day. First, I would like to congratulate my nation happy birthday. Second, I wish that our nation will be prosperous and united. Third, I would like to review some major problems that are still waiting to be resolved although we have been an independent nation for a while now. For some of you who doesn't have a well understanding about Indonesia, let me give you a brief lesson about our country. Indonesia is an archipelaga with around 17,500 islands. About 60% of those islands are uninhibited. With many natural resources such as oil, gold, silver, gas etc. found all over Indonesia, it is supposed to be a wealthy and prosperous country. But the fact is contradicted with the prediction. The development in Indonesia is well behind its neighboring country like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand. You can see it from the currency exchange, Singapore dollar, Malaysian Ringgit, Thai's Baht is more expensive than Indonesian Rupiah. Singapore got their independence long after Indonesia (in 1967 I think), the size of its country is probably the same like Bali, yet it has achieved so many. How can this happened? Well, I can not answer that and I will leave it to our government to review our problem and act based on it. I just hope that the government and the people's representatives will leave their political interests behind then cooperate and make this country their number one and most important issue. A lot of improvements have to be done. Here is a list of problem which I think needs attention:

• Politics: We need to resolved a few issues relating to separatism. A few weeks back there was an incident in Maluku when president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended the 14th National Family Day at Merdeka field, Ambon. Twenty five men were performing Cakalele dance which is a war dance in front of the president. They also hoisted the RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan) flag. This incident really upset the president.
• Economics: There are still many people who lived in poverty. Recent incident reported from Papua. At least 55 villagers from Yahokimo, Papua were dead because of starvation. Papua is a province that has many resources such as gold and silver, thus it should make them a wealthy province, yet it doesn't. In this case I remember an advertisement: "Tanya ken apa?".
• Public Transport: There are many recent incidents including air, land and sea transport. An aircraft has been reported missing when it was flying from Surabaya to Manado. 96 passengers were reported missing and it has not been found since it disappeared on 1st of January, 2007. Because of that and many other incidents, Europe has put a ban for any aircraft that fly from Indonesia. As for sea transport, it is all the same. I have lost count of how many ships that have been missing or drowned in Indonesian sea. And at last land transport: the latest incident involving KA Gumarang which was derailed 4 kilometers from Gubug station, Grobogan, Central Java.
  
  This was not the case of human error or anything, but it was a case of criminal. Someone has removed part of the track, can you believe it?
• Environmental: You must have heard that there is a mud flow in Sidoarjo, East Java. It was started almost a year ago as a result of gas exploration conducted by PT. Lapindo Brantas. It is still flowing muds up until now and there is nothing that anyone can do including the government.
  
  There are also cases of forest fires. Most of the cases happened because of the dry weather, but a lot of them caused by land exploration. People just set fires in the forest so they can use it for housing or agriculture.

Well, those are probably the biggest challenges that our government is facing right now, at least according to me. But who knows maybe the government has other ideas. Anyone want to add another possible issue to my list?

Authority In Indonesia

Are the authorities in Indonesia love to overshow their power? Lately, if you watched Indonesian news there were plenty of incidents involving the authority and common people. Click here to read about the most recent case between the people of Altas Tlogo village, Lekok, Pasuruan and the Navy. The conflict was started because of a land dispute. The Navy was going to use the disputed land as a military zone, but the Pasuruan people believed that they are the rightfully owner although they have lost in court.
What happened on 30th of May still make me confused. The authority, in this case the Navy, has a job and that is to ensure the safety of their people. But instead of maintaining the security they started shooting at the people. Four people are dead because of the ricochet of bullets fired by the Navy as a warning. The warning shot was fired because the villagers turned violence and started to throw small rocks at the patrolling Navy. At least that's what the Navy claimed. But the villagers said that they heard a series of shot aimed at their home. Only then they started to approach the soldiers and were mad because of the casualties.
From the neutral point of view, we don't know the real story. But engaging and shooting people who were unarmed is definitely wrong. The investigation is still going, and thirteen have been set as defendant. Hopefully whoever is wrong will be brought to justice eventhough that will not bring the dead back to life, at least it will make the family who lost their loved ones fill ease.
Another case is a real experience I have just experienced yesterday. I was driving with my wife and came into a junction. I was headed east and from my left or north side there was this car who was going to go north also. I have blown my horn, but the driver, who then said that he didn't see my car, just keep on going. I managed to brake and stir a little to right, thus I didn't hit his car. But unfortunately for me, my car was hit from behind. Now guess who was driving that car behind me. Yup, you guess it right. An authority man this time it's a policeman. He wasn't wearing his uniform so I guess he was already off duty.
After the collision, the three of us stopped at the side of the road. The policeman came out real quick, and he was even quicker saying that I was to blame. I, if you don't know me yet, am also a hot tempered man. I didn't like being blamed like that, I said to the policeman that the driver who was in front of me, cut my road. That's why I had to break suddenly and stirred a little bit to the right. Maybe my voice was also in high tone, he didn't accept being shout at. He threaten to bring this matter to court, he even said that if he was found guilty he will pay for all the damage. It was then an argument between me and that policeman, the guy who was the source of this problem was the middle man. He tried to give the solution and admitting that he caused this incident.
The reason the guy was in a hurry because he was trying to go to the hospital to see his brother who was sick. Hearing this reason and the fact that he already admitted his fault and his promise to pay half the cost of repairing the damage made me suddenly think. Why was I short fused back there? I found the answer to that later, I was not happy being blamed by the policeman. That's why I had the argument. At last, the matter was cleared and I told the guy that I won't take his money only if the policeman also didn't charge me with anything. We then had an agreement that it was merely an accident. Accidents happened right?
But still this show that there is an urge to show your power if you are a man of authority in Indonesia. I then shook the policeman's hand and not to forget telling him that I was a man of authority myself. Not authority with guns but I am responsible for the education of many people (I am a lecturer, am i not?).