reduced and recycled

Dear sirs,

It has come to my attention, belatedly, that there seems to be a concerted effort at exploring means and methods of extending certain rules and regulations into the realm of the virtual. I personally applaud this move, as I find all these pronouncements very stalinist, and therefore very endearing. I’d like to extend my assistance in examining some useful views about extending said regulations into cyberspace.

There are appears to be several useful ways to exert some brute control over the internet. The PPPA, almost always a blunt instrument, but effective nevertheless, could be wielded with wild abandon in this instance. I suppose insisting that any Malaysian-owned/used portal wishing to broadcast news, or discuss the news, should apply for a license or face consequences. But I fear that presents some very interesting problems.

I suppose recognized sites like Malaysia-Today (the target of one your statements, it seems) can be bludgeoned into submission; if they refuse to apply for a permit, then beat their servers to a pulp [⁽¹⁾].

Though.. well, seeing as how bloggers are an unpredictable lot, you can’t tell when one of these fellas will start making comments about newsbits, so.. you might have to impose a blanket requirement that all bloggers apply for licenses to blog, even if they don’t generally blog about the news because, see, you don’t know when they will. You could make this a National Education initiative, far better than threatening Malaysians to fly the national flag, or else [⁽²⁾]. I fear, however, that monitoring so many annoying little websites requires both time and quite a bit of expense [⁽³⁾].

An alternative method of control is, of course, blocking access to certain websites. This works for the average corporate slave beyond, say, 40 years of age since these few are generally clueless about the internet. Take the average member of parliament above 40 right now, and you’ll see what I mean. There are a few rare exceptions, but they are the enemy, so they don’t count [⁽⁴⁾]. Those not burdened with age, however, have alternative methods of circumventing, shall we say, blocked websites.

And shouldn’t we be protecting the young against the foul opinions of these degenerates? That, gentlemen, is the main thrust of your initiative, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.

From the foregoing, several things should be clear:

• Blocking websites is a waste of time; younger folks are quite familiar with anonymizers and such.
• Imposing permits on a few bloggers doesn’t take into account the random idiot spouting off on the news we don’t want the public to hear.
• Imposing permits on all local bloggers only means a huge increase in expense, etc. Please have cabinet review this, since I’m not sure if we can’t get funds for this from somewhere.
• Beating up people to a pulp usually works wonders.

I have a cunning plan, however, that is bound to work to our advantage; we get to suppress wrongful newsbits, and we get a piece of the… well-deserved gains. Firstly, we employ call-centre fellas who are willing to double as webwatchers. We outsource such surveillance activities to cheap labour in India or the Phillipines, for example.

In the meantime, we buffer our small group of thugs with more recruits. This will take some expense, of course, so we’ll put in some bit of writing (my letter to you, for example) for a small sum of, say, 200 million ringgit, which we will then use judiciously, naturally. When we have websites flagged for talking nonsense, we immediately clamp down on these offending bloggers and beat them to a pulp - expeditiously, of course.

We’ll also use our seed money for foreign operations, so that’ll cover overseas dissidents; the rest of the cash we’ll use to set up a chain of mamak shops, which as we all know, are breeding grounds of young up-and-coming dissidents. If we’re lucky, we might even catch them before they think about posting anti-establishment nonsense [⁽⁵⁾].

In closing, dear sirs, the protection of our nation against dissenting voices from within is tantamount. We must, by means fair or foul, defend the honour of our beloved country and maintain the strong, iron grip with which we have steered Her thus far. It is my hope that my recommendations meet your approval, and thus remain,

Yours faithfully,

XXX

1. I must note here that roughing up the editors sounds like a good plan, too; make an example of them like you fellas did in 1987! (↩)
2. What's with Rais Yatim these days, eh? Repression should be subtle! He can't just go mouthing off at McDonalds-fed louts these days; they all think they know what's good for themselves! And please, threats must be enforced with, well, force; be prepared to turn up at errand households with pitchforks and torches - they won't learn, otherwise! (↩)
3. Fortunately, not a problem given how we're willing to expend almost half a billion ringgit on building trivialities like air-conditioned atap huts in London. (↩)
4. Not that anything they say counts, you understand; no one gives a shit even if the issues they raise make sense, never mind that whole "voting according to party lines" bit! All hail partisan dominance! (↩)
5. By the way, I hope you gentlemen have read my drafts on imposing penalties for "crimethink"? Perhaps a new look at my proposal might accrue some benefit? (↩)