Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: The Malaysian Crackdown --the truth
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 04:44:26 -0300
From a IPer near the scene who requested anonymity djf
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 08:38:45 +0800 To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu> From: The rumor itself is completely false. Although quite a few people were triggered by the rumor and ran to the shops and bought much foods I heard. There have been 3 people arrested who were charged to initiate the rumor on Internet, and these became top story on national papers. Details were not disclosed much, though. There were concerns expressed about people's privacy since the ISP cooperated with the police to crack down. The ISP issued a statement that they are not randomly scanning the e-mails of the customers, but with legitimate request from the law enforcement agency, it is legal here in Malaysia to help the police. They have to do that. Malaysia is now in a sensitive situation, politically and economically and the government is getting very senstive. The stock price drop is worst in Asia, much more than that of Indonesia or Thailand, and the government's effort to borrow money from US by raising special bond was not succesfull, yet they still need huge amount of $$s to help get rid of bad loans in the banks, and they do not want to go to IMF after seeing what's happening in Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. Ethnic tension here is not that high at all- unlike Indonesian Chinese case, but the government tries to suppress it as much as possible in its very early stage in order not to spread that later.
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- IP: The Malaysian Crackdown --the truth Dave Farber (Aug 22)