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The Website of the Korean Ministry of Information & Communication was downed on August 26th for 10 hours because many Korean Netizens inundated the website bbs with protest messages against the ministry's proposed legislation. This protest is called a "Virtual Sit-in." It is actually a legitimate demonstration. In the process, ome angered netizens made some Javascript files and used them on the site.

But the government considered an illegal act. Said one official, "Causing the website to shut down by using the files is to purposely obstruct the service. So it is illegal."

The Cyber terror prevention center in the police department investigated Jinbonet (Korean Progressive Network) on August 29th from 2p.m. to 9p.m.. The police authorities asked for records of users who put special Javascript programming files on the bulletin board of Jinbonet and people who downloaded the files as well as its hard disks. However, Jinbo Network Center refused to give out hard disks which had nothing to do with innocent netizens and fought for an hour. Police and Jinbo Network Center reached a compromise by checking log files and copying them in the office.

As many of you know, Jinbo Network Center does not save user's IP addresses. This is because, the we are concerned about the privacy. It was established in 1998 to help out many other social organizations to support independent on-line activities. So far, Jinbo Network Center had threats from many Investigation agencies which wanted it to release user information. But their attempts seldom succeeded. To inspect hard disks which have information of not only Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Korean Women's Group United, Green Korea United but also many users can be regarded as censuring its on-line activities and if many hard disks were to be confiscated, the Jinbo Network Center could not exist. If many social organization had been inspected in the past, not only informations but also keyboards, computer monitors and so many things would have been taken away. Considering this, we just cannot allow it.

But as we experienced this case today, we have to ask the question of how serious this problem is. From today's lesson, we can say that even a small excuse can give them reason to investigate us. The proposed legislation for Communication Decency is one of the laws that will legalize these inspections. So far, we have brought out this law to social debate and stopped monopolization by the ministry. From now on, public opinion will be aired on the government's home page. This means that we have the right to know and this might be the way to satisfy our wants. Also we have right to have demonstrations on-line just like we have outdoors. This is our right!!!

From today's lesson, Jinbo Network Center once again noticed restriction of on-line activities that the government wants and we will fight no matter it costs us. So far, we certainly believe that many of our netizens will support us!!

1. The order only for you, The Korean ministry of Information & Communication Stop processing the legislation for Communication Decency.
1. The Freedon in name only, The Government's controling means - We oppose the content rating system in Internet.

August 29th
Jinbonet
(Korean Progressive Network)