Singapore government given sweeping powers to monitor computer activity
The Associated Press

Singapore's Parliament has approved plans to give the government sweeping powers to monitor all computer activity in the city-state and act against anyone it believes could use computers to threaten national security.

The government will use pre-emptive scanning of electronic networks to detect possible threats, Senior Minister for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee told Parliament on Monday just before the bill was passed.

Any person or organization can be ordered to take measures to prevent computer attacks, which could jeopardize the city state's defense, essential services, or foreign relations, according to a new amendment in the Computer Misuse Act.

Ho cited the threat of terrorism as the main reason to extend the government's powers.

Instead of a backpack of explosives, a terrorist can create just as much devastation by sending a carefully engineered packet of data into the computer systems which control the delivery of an essential service, say for example, a power station, thus causing it to malfunction, Ho said, according to a government transcript.

The amendment did not specify who could be empowered to act for the government or what actions they could take. Ho told Parliament that it would be left to the minister's discretion to decide how to act, the Straits Times reported Tuesday.

Some lawmakers expressed concern that the law could be abused due to its vagueness and the absence of measures to ensure the government's accountability.

Chin Tet Yung, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Home Affairs and Law, warned that the wide-ranging and open-ended provisions could become an instrument of oppression itself, the report said.

Trying to allay fears about the new measure, Ho said law-abiding citizens need not worry about the invasion of privacy, according to the report.

Singapore, a city-state of 4 million people, is one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia, however its government has been criticized for being too authoritarian.

SF