This was a recent article posted in the Malay Mail:
KUALA LUMPUR: The Dewan Rakyat today passed two bills namely the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Bill 2012 and Evidence (Amendment) Bill 2012.
The bills, which include amendments to the Penal Code that was approved yesterday, are to complement the Security Offences (Special Measures) Bill 2012, which was also passed by the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz, when winding up the Evidence (Amendment) Bill 2012, said the use of pseudonyms or anonymity by any party to do cyber crimes had made it difficult for the action to be taken against them.
Hence, he said, the Evidence Act 1950 had to be amended to address the issue of internet anonymity.
“The use of pseudonyms (by any party) is very difficult for the investigating officer to conduct investigations and enforcement because it’s difficult to obtain evidence.
“That why, we have to amend the Act so that we can prosecute the culprits,” he said when replying to a question from Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan).
He said various techniques were used by criminals to hide their identities and sometimes it was impossible to determine the actual originator of an email or other electronic communication.
Amendments to the Evidence (Amendment) Bill (No.2) 2012, show that the amendments on Clause 2, which aimed to replace the computer term with the definition of a new computer that is more comprehensive and consistent with the definition of a computer in the Computer Crimes Act 1997.
Meanwhile, Clause 3 of the Bill provides to introduce a new section called 114A to enable the court to make assumptions of fact in cases that involve broadcast via the Internet.
In short, the authorities need a scape goat. If they can’t get the real poster/publisher of offending material, they’ll get someone else to take the blame.
Loyar Burok has an excellent article on this here but in short the amendments will basically make webmasters, Facebook owners and other online publishers presumed to be a publisher of material even where such postings are done by a third party. Facebook wall posts by your friends, tweet/facebook jacking, comments on your blog….yup you’re now all presumed to have published them!
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April 25th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
very good, something to replace ISA. sheesh
April 26th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
does this mean they will track down those that download prawns, movies?
April 29th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
No, it means you have to be careful about posting defamatory messages or it would be like LKY and Singapore. Sue sue sue. Singapore have even more draconian laws. You cannot say anything bad about LKY and his cronies unlike in Malaysia.
May 21st, 2012 at 2:40 pm
why isnt anyone pointing out that facebook is a “private” social network?? meaning anything written or posted in there is “private”, therefore if any info gets out to the “public”, means there is a serious breach of privacy! if any of you fuckers posted to public about my status written about how i hate god for example, i will surely sue your asses for breaking the privacy agreement between me and you. man.. malaysians soo fucking stupid. better die fast. cmon god! faster end this world now please! ameen!!
May 23rd, 2012 at 9:55 am
@ahmad I don’t know if the ‘privacy agreement’ between you and your friends exists though and there are certain posts that can be tagged ‘public’.