Among international outrages, depriving citizens of personalized maps seems far down on the list. Still, that was the condition put on the introduction of Apple's 3G iPhone in Egypt. The government demanded that Apple disable the phone's global-positioning system, arguing that GPS was a military prerogative. The company apparently complied, most likely taking a cue from the telecommunication companies that sell the phone there. The point is that using a GPS unit you can get accurate coordinates of any place, and thus military bases and so on could be easily tagged. As much as any country, however, Egypt illustrates the push-me-pull-you nature of technology under a government that is wary of it.
Bossone said he thought the government would relent on issues like GPS because it would side with business even at the expense of security concerns. The economy is itself a security issue, he said. The slower the economy grows, the more people become discontented, and that is a security issue.
It is easy to get swept up in the utopianism embedded in new technologies. That we will be more politically engaged because of the organizing and fund-raising tools of social networking; that we will think greater thoughts now that anyone can have access to nearly everything ever written; that our tribal hatreds will melt away as the world recognizes that we are all connected.
Even those like Ganesan, who see technology abused, are cautiously hopeful. "Technologies do not hold people accountable. They give people the tools to hold people accountable." But he added: "We believe as a human rights group that the Internet can have an opening and transforming effect."
When Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978, he said, people were "smuggling letters by hand from the Soviet Union - that was how the world found out about a dissident." Today, there is a range of tools for spreading the word, from blogs to e-mail to YouTube videos.
"We may not know what the maximum impact of openness is," he said. "But we do know that in the most closed places the worst things happen."
But thus far, each time technology has promised to help introduce democracy to the country, the young peoples' hopes have been dashed. A movement for political reform that used Facebook to organize protests over the spring was shut down. The authorities cracked down, jailing many of its organizers. In the last few weeks, a blogger affiliated with the radical group the Muslim Brotherhood was arrested for his writings, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights. Another blogger is being held in a military camp, the group says.
It is enough to make one wonder if new technologies - the personal computer, the Web, the smartphone - will help set us free or merely give us that illusion. Gabr described in his e-mail message what he considered to be the faulty rationale for the policy in Egypt.
From a technical point of view, this is totally pointless because Google Maps works flawlessly here - you can even get a clear snap (with accurate coordinates) of places you're not supposed to see.
As an aside, he said that months ago he "bought an American iPhone 3G via eBay" with full functionality. "Cheaper, earlier and without compromise," he wrote, signing his note with a self-satisfied smiley-face emoticon.
I must admit, I didn't exactly think that the right to GPS was one of the basic freedoms. But Arvind Ganesan, director of the business and human rights program of Human Rights Watch, placed the issue in a larger context.
First, he described freedom of information as part of the broader, better known, freedom of expression. Transparency about the government's budget, for example, can be crucial to eliminating corruption and instituting democratic reforms.
Second, he argued that it was important for technology companies to set principles and follow them. "Here is the big question for Apple: Is this an ad hoc approach, or is there a fundamental policy, balancing the freedom of expression and information with the demands of the government?"
Resource: International Herald Tribune
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