Trade embargo could mean online blackout for parts of Yugoslavia
Copyright © 1999Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Associated Press
By TED BRIDIS
WASHINGTON (May 13, 1999 7:47 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
Parts of Yugoslavia could lose Internet access if an American
satellite company is ordered to stop transmitting into the country
under a U.S. trade embargo.
Loral Space and Communications Ltd. of New York said Thursday it could
be forced to cut transmissions into Yugoslavia from one of its
satellites, which serves at least two of the country's major Internet
providers.
Earlier this month, President Clinton issued an executive order
banning U.S. companies from selling or supplying to Yugoslavia "any
goods, software, technology or services."
"We're still not clear on this whole thing," Loral Space spokeswoman
Jeannette Colnan said, adding that the company was seeking advice from
the Treasury Department. "It depends on the interpretation of the
executive order."
Neither the White House nor the Treasury Department immediately
responded to requests for comment. State Department spokesman James P.
Rubin said Thursday he had no information about the reports.
Word of the threat to shut down Internet access to parts of Yugoslavia
spread quickly across the worldwide computer network, where it was
mostly condemned in e-mail messages and online discussion groups.
"To put it bluntly, we somehow got used to air-raid sirens, bombings
and threats of invasion, but we don't know how we're going to survive
without the Internet," said Alex Krstanovic, cofounder of Beonet, one
of the affected Internet providers in Yugoslavia. "If NATO or the U.S.
wants to cut us out completely in order to be able to do whatever they
want here, this is probably the best way."
But some people argued that Internet access should be cut off.
"Continuing to provide these services would be kind of like giving aid
to the enemy," one person wrote.
U.S. civil liberties groups urged the Clinton administration to allow
citizens in Yugoslavia to continue using the Web.
"The Internet remains at this point one of the major sources inside
Yugoslavia for objective news reporting about the war," said Jim
Dempsey of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology.
"It also remains one of the main sources for any remaining democratic
voices within Yugoslavia to communicate with the outside world."
Computer traffic in Yugoslavia uses both satellite and traditional
land-based telephone lines, but the loss of the Loral satellite could
dramatically reduce the Internet bandwidth available to citizens
there, causing slower connections or even blackouts.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the White House intended its May 1
executive order to include U.S. satellites, but U.S.-run telephone
lines were still operating in Yugoslavia.
Web sites in Yugoslavia continued to be accessible from the West late
Thursday evening, and there were no substantiated reports of anyone
unable to use the Internet to retrieve information from outside the
country.
A spokeswoman at the organization that registers Web addresses ending
with the country's "yu" suffix said she was familiar with the reports
but that there had been no problems yet.
Some U.S. experts on information warfare said it was improbable that
the Clinton administration intended that its executive order also
would apply to Internet communications.
"Information war is being waged today through public information -
we're over there broadcasting, jamming radios," said Alan Campen, a
retired Air Force colonel and author of several books on
cyber-warfare. "But I would be very surprised if they" shut down
Internet satellite transmissions.
Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington
agreed.
"I would be extremely surprised if the U.S. government or NATO forces
deliberately sought to cut that channel of information off," he said.
"It's a pretty lame form of information warfare because it cuts off
the flow of information, and I don't see whose interests that serves."
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