Clampdown on Palestinian media spreads to the Web
Published yesterday (updated) 24/04/2012 00:01
By George Hale
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=478726

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority has quietly instructed
Internet providers to block access to news websites whose reporting is
critical of President Mahmoud Abbas, according to senior government
officials and data analyzed by network security experts.

As many as eight news outlets have been rendered unavailable to many
Internet users in the West Bank, after technicians at the Palestinian
Telecommunications Company, or PalTel, tweaked an open source software
called Squid to return error pages, a detailed technical analysis indicates.
Several small companies are using a similar setup.

The decision this year to begin blocking websites marks a major expansion of
the government's online powers. Experts say it is the biggest shift toward
routine Internet censorship in the Palestinian Authority’s history. Aside
from one incident in 2008, Palestinians have generally been free to read
whatever they wanted.

"This is unprecedented for them," says Jillian York, director for
international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
US digital rights group. "It is troubling because they had done a relatively
good job at keeping the Internet open until now."

The affected websites are Amad, Fatah Voice, Firas Press, In Light Press,
Karama Press, Kofia Press, Milad News and Palestine Beituna. With their
focus on internal Fatah issues, none are among the most popular outlets in
Palestine. But they all report on daily news.

Many of the sites have been described as loyal to Muhammad Dahlan, a former
Fatah leader and critic of Abbas. A feud between them took on new urgency
last summer, when Fatah sought to expel the former strongman and security
forces raided his home. As far back as June 2011, the Palestinian Authority
was complaining about its inability to shut down alleged Dahlan media based
abroad, the al-Hayat newspaper reported at the time. Four of those sites are
now being blocked.

Several Palestinian officials have expressed reservations about the
decision, calling it embarrassing and counterproductive. One of them, a
member of Salam Fayyad's cabinet, agreed to speak on the record for this
story. Other officials who spoke to Ma’an in recent weeks were not
authorized by the Palestinian Authority or PalTel to discuss either the
blocking decision or the technology being used to enforce it.

Officials familiar with the order say it came from Ahmad al-Mughni, the
Palestinian attorney general. They say he delivered it in person to the CEO
of at least one of the service providers being forced to prevent access.
Al-Mughni dismissed these claims and refused to take questions from Ma'an.

"I am not the court," he said Tuesday without elaborating.

According to a Palestinian official with first-hand knowledge of the
decision, the attorney general was acting on instructions from higher up in
the government -- either from the president's office or an intelligence
director. Still, there is no indication a judge approved any element of the
censorship program, suggesting al-Mughni issued the decree under his own
perceived authority, the official said.

Other Palestinian officials more readily pointed a finger at al-Mughni.

"The attorney general is responsible," communications minister Mashour Abu
Daka told Ma'an. He said al-Mughni submitted the order to PalTel over his
objections and despite concerns it could be illegal. There is no Palestinian
law that permits Web censorship and the attorney general knows it, Abu Daka
charged.

"He made up his own laws to justify what was solely his decision," the
minister said. "Blocking websites is against the public interest. I oppose
it without exception.”

'Not going to jail'

The attorney general is already facing criticism from journalists and human
rights groups for ordering the arrest in March of a newspaper reporter
accused of defaming the foreign minister. He also signed off on the recent
arrests of two bloggers after they criticized Abbas on Facebook. Palestinian
journalists have held a number of demonstrations protesting the clampdown.

By contrast, the blocking has gone largely unnoticed. Mada, a press freedom
group, raised the issue of Milad and Amad, while US blogger "Challah Hu
Akbar" reported extensively about In Light Press, but many Palestinians
remain unaware the Internet is censored. This is partly because providers
have not acknowledged their cooperation nor have subscribers been told any
websites are off limits.

Even at private Internet companies, employees fear losing their jobs or
worse if they discuss the program. “Sorry, but I’m not going to jail,” said
one PalTel technician when asked for a list of the websites.

PalTel representatives refused to answer basic questions such as when they
received the order or who signed it, but extensive testing shows its
Internet provider Hadara has blocked as many as eight websites at a time. A
PalTel spokeswoman said in an email that "we only implement government
decisions and we do not get involved in the decisions they make as long as
they are backed by the existing laws."

The testing was conducted over four weeks by Ma'an and the Open Observatory
of Network Interference, a new project by Web security experts Arturo
Filasto and Jacob Appelbaum to track censorship around the world. Using a
tool called an OONI probe, they scanned 1.1 million websites for a specific
type of blocking.

"The technique being used to restrict access is a transparent HTTP proxy,"
Filasto said, meaning a company intercepts attempts to reach blocked
websites and returns a different page. Testing a connection in Bethlehem
demonstrated that Hadara was blocking access to eight websites, while others
blocked between four and six. A few of the sites are also blocked in Gaza,
Internet users there said.

The method being employed by Hadara is relatively basic, Filasto said.
Experts who have analyzed the data say the company configured an open-source
software called Squid to detect the blocked sites and redirect users. Squid
was originally developed with funding from two US government agencies, but
neither one has any control over its distribution today. Syria and Lebanon
also use it for Web blocking, according to experts.

Squid's West Bank debut indicates that while the Palestinian Authority may
be more determined than before to censor the Internet, it is less willing to
spend much time or money doing it, experts said. The software is free and
easy to alter for censorship.

"It’s a pretty common approach," says Danny O'Brien, Internet advocacy
director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US press freedom group.
“Instructing ISPs to block a few websites can be so tempting, and it's
usually how a government’s Web censorship program begins," O'Brien says.

"The big problem is no one willingly hands over the list. It would provide a
map of places the government doesn’t want to you to see. When you can’t see
the list, there’s no accountability from the public."

The new program's timing may also embarrass the Palestinian Authority's
financial backers in the United States and European Union, both of which are
considering legislation to curb the export of Western technologies used to
censor political speech in the Middle East.

In Washington, a spokeswoman said the State Department was "concerned about
any reports regarding the use of technologies to restrict access to
information. The United States advocates Internet freedom."

She pointed to a December 2011 speech in which US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton pushed for stronger efforts on behalf of those "who are blocked from
accessing entire categories of Internet content."

Jared Malsin, Jenny Baboun and Nour Jubran contributed reporting.