My nightmare in 2016, a snooping government

One of my favourite hits from The Police begins with this.

Every single day,

every step you take,

every move you make,

every breath you take,

every word you say,

every game you play,

I’ll be watching you.

As good as it sounds though, 2016 could be the year the government is watching us.

On November 5, the Malaysian government – and 11 other countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) – decided that privacy is not important.

And that they will play the roles of global police and watch over us, much like the lyrics by The Police.

But privacy is extremely important.

When I send a text or an email to someone, I do so believing that only the person on the other end of that line can read my text, besides me.

We all do that.

If we so much as feel someone lurking on our shoulder looking at the text we are typing, or that picture received, we – most of us – go berserk.

That is precisely why November 5 will prove to be one of the most important days in recent history.

A day when the Malaysian government decided that:

1. It is okay to read and store our emails

2. It is legal to keep our photos

3. It is perfectly fine to collect our emails – and any attachments in that email.

4. It is right to stockpile conversations anyone has, using an Internet connection.

Essentially, the TPPA has potentially created many peeping toms around us.

No government in its right mind would allow something as outrageous as this.

More importantly, such a law does not have anything to do with a trade agreement.

But it has been shoved through the backroom under the Internet service providers label in the TPPA’s most contentious chapter, Intellectual Property Rights.

An Internet service provider – the likes of Unifi, Maxis, P1, Celcom and others – function’s as a bridge to connect people.

The business of storing the communication of people is wrong.

While supporters of the TPPA say that this law will expedite the process for an Internet service provider to remove something which I may have posted online, it also opens the door to that very Internet service provider prying into all my communications.

More worryingly, any Internet service provider will be forced to turn over this information to the government simply because the TPPA has forced them to store it.

Currently, there is no law in Malaysia which allows Internet service providers or the government to collect information of Malaysians online.

However, there have been allegations that the government has purchased tools from Hacking Team to spy on us, but this was denied in Parliament last month.

The TPPA though has now made spying by governments through Internet service providers legal.

To safeguard my privacy, I have one of two choices to make; Stop using the internet or stop the TPPA.

I choose the latter. – December 30, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.