Four outside experts gathered together on August 1 to review the negative impacts of the controversial human genome project. The Center for Democracy in Science and Technology at the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) held a hearing on the expected social and ethical problems of the use of genetic information.
On March 4, 2000, the Jinbo Network Center(Korean Progressive Network) has requested that the judgement of the patent on the ‘Remote Education via Internet’ of Samsung Electronics Co. Limited be invalidated.
the verdict of the Seoul District Court to cancel POSCO’s application for an injunction against the Anti-POSCO Website is like a welcome rain during a dry season for the Information & Communication movement.
The extremely polarized debate on the framework of the Bioethics bill is heated up again between civil groups’ alliance and other major forces including National Assembly members as the Korean Bioethics Advisory Commission unveiled the framework of the Bioethics bill which is scheduled to be handed over to Ministry of Science and Technology in this month.
Recently, the Korean government tried to censor Internet content by legislating an act similar to the United States Communication Decency Act (CDA) passed in 1996. It is very similar in that the government and Internet Service Providers (ISP) can officially control Internet content.
As the Human Genome Project has almost been completed, the Council for Democracy in Science & Technology (CDST), a action body of PSPD, petitioned Korean government to enact a law for personal genetic code protection on June 7, 2001 with concerns about the possibility of persons being discriminated against on the basis of genes.
APC supports the actions by the progressive movements in Korea in opposing these new government measures. We want to encourage our member organisations to lend their support in whatever way they feel able. Various options are listed below.
On August .29, the office of Jinbo(Progressive) Network was very noisy. The National Police Agency’s cyber crime bureau asked for the IP addresses of users of Jinbo Network, bringing out a seizure and search warrant . Against it, the group insisted that they don’t have the IP addresses because they take a serious view of personal privacy.
In Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) is currently attempting to regulate cyberspace. These attempts, in part, respond to the real needs of people and society in general, yet they are also closely related to seeking the self-interests of the ministry itself.
The Website of the Korean Ministry of Information & Communication was down on August 26 for 10 hours because many Korean Netizens over loaded the website by posting protest messages on the board and reloading repeatedly the page to voice their opposition to the proposed legislation of the Ministry. This type of protest is called a “Virtual Sit-in.” It is a legitimate form of demonstration. During the protest, some tempered netizens made and used some Javascript files.
