Why yugo internet link might be cut

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Thu May 13 21:04:03 PDT 1999


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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