As the king’s 7th cycle anniversary approaches and with the royalists rabid on lese majeste, Prachatai reports that on 1 December 2011, the “Ministry of Information and Communications Technology inaugurated the Cyber Security Operation Centre (CSOC) to suppress cyber crimes, including in particular offences against the monarchy.”
The Centre was inaugurated in the presence of representatives from the major agencies of the repressive state apparatus: “all the armed forces, the National Security Council, the National Intelligence Agency, the Royal Thai Police, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice.”
ICT Minister Group Captain Anudith Nakornthap explained that the new center represented and upgrading of an earlier cyber-snooping outfit set up in 2010. The new center will expand its staff by 20.
The CSOC will “employ up-to-date technology in dealing with inappropriate content on the internet, especially social media such as Facebook and Twitter, through which offensive materials can be distributed more easily and quickly.”
Anudith apparently explained the government’s “duty” to protect the throne: “To worship and protect the monarchy is an important duty of the government which has been announced in its policy statement to Parliament. So it is the main duty of the Ministry to pursue the government’s policy to protect the monarchy, particularly in online social networks by using up-to-date information technology to control crime with the utmost efficiency…”.
We get the feeling that, in part, Anudith is responding to opposition claims that the government is “disloyal.” This is further evident when the minister proudly proclaimed that between September and November, “the ministry had blocked over 60,000 URLs or pages, compared with over 70,000 during the previous three years. This shows the intention of this government to demonstrate its loyalty to His Majesty the King…”.
Anudith seems to be saying: “See, we are better at protecting the monarchy than the royalist regime!” This is a dangerous development as the government’s agenda is driven by royalist desire. But Anudith is a proud royalist himself.
He said the increased numbers of blocked URLs was due “to the increasing use of social media which allows users to distribute and share information at a more rapid rate and on a wider scale, in contrast to previously when offensive content was largely restricted to webboards.”
MICT is now seeking to have “ISPs or website owners abroad directly for cooperation. With tip-offs from the public, the Ministry’s officials would collect information and send it to them together with an explanation in English making comparisons to similar crimes in that specific country. Anudith said that this method had the merit of ‘making other countries understand the importance of the monarchy and suppressing inappropriate content at the source’.”
Worringly, it seems MICT is going to amend the 2007 Computer Crimes Act.
The minister also states that “MICT sent information about offences against the monarchy on the internet to police at the Technology Crime Suppression Division to make arrests.” Anudith proclaims: “It is expected that soon there will be good news about the arrest of culprits who distributed inappropriate information offensive to the high institution…”.
It is looking increasingly like the long winter of lese majeste repression is set to become colder and bleaker.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 