Firstly, apologies for not dealing with favourite BlackBerry applications this week as promised earlier. However, over the last week or so, the BlackBerry ecosystem itself seems under threat in India, and that surely requires greater focus - what's the point of talking about favourite BlackBerry applications when every day media headlines seem to suggest that BlackBerry services could be banned in India any time now.
To a lot of users, this seems like an open-and-shut case. The Indian government claims that anti-national elements could use BlackBerry devices to communicate and RIM (the makers of BlackBerry) don't seem to be co-operating with the government to help track these nefarious elements on a real-time basis. Solution: Ban BlackBerry!
However, that's a naive viewpoint and the truth is far more nuanced. Most of us don't want to oppose anything related to 'national security' because we know India has suffered much at the hands of terrorists and hence feel anything that can be done to stop terrorism is okay. We fall for the national security bogey that governments often use to get their way.
Firstly, is 'anything' okay - is it okay for the government to spy on legitimate, legal and what may be confidential communication between law-abiding citizens? Secondly and more importantly, will this move to monitor secure BlackBerry conversations in real-time actually stop terror? And what about your rights to privacy in a democracy where citizens have constitutional rights?
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