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< | I have realized that the exciting time of the year is approaching again, when I turned on the television and see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump running the campaign for 2016 Presidential Election. The same situation should also have taken place in Thailand, but it is just a dream of Thai people that never know when will become true. After the Royal Thai Armed Forces launched a coup d'état on May 22, 2014, the Constitution of Thailand was repealed and never replaced. Although Thailand declares itself as a democratic country, I am not quite sure we are still one. Our constitution is gone, and nothing is left to protect our rights. | >
> | 2016 Presidential Election is approaching. The same situation should also have taken place in Thailand, but it is just a dream of Thai people that never know when will become true. After the Royal Thai Armed Forces launched a coup d'état on May 22, 2014, the Constitution of Thailand was repealed and never replaced. Although Thailand declares itself as a democratic country, I am not quite sure we are still one. Our constitution is gone, and nothing is left to protect our rights. | | | Under John Locke's theory of natural rights, “all men in the state of nature are free and equal, and at liberty to do as they wish … within the bounds of the law of nature.” As these rights are natural, they should be available to every single person in the state, regardless of the existence of constitution recognizing such rights. One of the most important rights applicable under John Locke’s theory is the right and freedom to access to the information available on the internet.
| | | THE SINGLE GATEWAY
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< | Nightmare of Thai people suddenly arrived when the country’s military government introduced a new tool to Thai people, the “Single Gateway” Internet, in September 2015, having the Great Firewall of China as a model. Gateways allow various communication systems to be connected together. If the Single Gateway is set up, the government will be able to thoroughly monitor and control all online information that flows into and out of Thailand. The plan is to block access to inappropriate sites and to control the speeches of the Thais in order to stabilize the political situation. The Cabinet was more than ready to amend any relevant laws in order to fasten the process of setting up the single gateway system.
Ironically, Thailand, a democratic country, started to strictly implement the Internet censorship system, while the President of China, a non-democratic country, was travelling to meet Mark Zuckerberg to find the best solution to open up China’s Web. | >
> | Nightmare of Thai people suddenly arrived when the country’s military government introduced a new tool to Thai people, the “Single Gateway” Internet, in September 2015, having the Great Firewall of China as a model. Gateways allow various communication systems to be connected together. If the Single Gateway is set up, the government will be able to thoroughly monitor and control all online information that flows into and out of Thailand. The plan is to block access to inappropriate sites and to control the speeches of the Thais in order to stabilize the political situation. | | |
SEVERE EFFECTS | | | GIVE BACK OUR FREEDOM!
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< | Although majority Thai people totally oppose the Single Gateway, there is not much they can really do under this circumstance. Those who tried to fight were arrested by the military. In October 2015, thousands of computer users decided to do the symbolic cyber-attack by visiting the targeted government websites at the same time and continually refreshing the page, causing at least seven government websites to crash. In response to the attack, Thai police merely declared that the action could lead to criminal liability under the Computer Crime Act. | >
> | Although majority of Thai people totally oppose the Single Gateway, sadly, those who tried to fight were arrested by the military. In October 2015, thousands of computer users decided to do the symbolic cyber-attack by visiting the targeted government websites at the same time and continually refreshing the page, causing at least seven government websites to crash. In response to the attack, Thai police merely declared that the action could lead to criminal liability under the Computer Crime Act. | | | | |
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< | Not many options left, the angry Thais set up an online petition campaign called “Go against Thai govt to use a Single Internet Gateway” on Change.org. Currently, the campaign has received 152,797 signatures. | >
> | If this problem cannot be solved within the national territory, it is time to reach out for people power outside the jurisdiction. Anyone who lives in the country with free internet could offer two options to people in Thailand: (i) offering VPN service over port 443 and provides network proxying over SSL; or (ii) setting up a computer that will provide an SSH proxy to anyone with a key it recognizes. In either case, people in Thailand will be able to access uncensored internet as if they were outside Thailand. Although these offshore addresses may eventually be blocked, if the people power is large enough, they will still be able to offer an access to the uncensored internet to the people in Thailand. | | | | |
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< | We, the Thai people, are wishing to gain back our democratic country, with constitution that truly protects our privacy rights and freedom, and we look forward to the country’s election once again. | >
> | While there are a few ways to defeat the Single Gateway, we, the Thai people, are still wishing to gain back our democratic country –- with constitution that truly protects our privacy rights and freedom –- and we look forward to the country’s election once again. | | | | | |
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I have revised the last part of the essay to reflect our discussion, so that now it tells both stories; what is happening in Thailand and how to defeat the Single Gateway.
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