Online accounts supporting IS, Maute under close watch
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has started monitoring the online accounts of suspected supporters of the Islamic State (IS) and local extremist Maute group amid the continued fighting between government forces and terrorists in Marawi City.
The bureau’s cybercrime division (CCD) still has to gather enough evidence to prove the existence of the people behind the accounts and their alleged involvement in IS-related online activities, NBI-CCD chief Martini Cruz said yesterday.
“If we gather enough information, we would immediately apply for search warrants from the courts,” Cruz explained.
IS-inspired Maute group militants have occupied Marawi City in Mindanao since May 23, and clashes between troops and the terrorists have resulted in the death of 58 soldiers and policemen and 26 civilians. More than 100 Maute group members and their supporters have also been killed.
Also, the NBI might just take down the online accounts in case the identities of the owners of these accounts could not be traced.
Cruz clarified that the NBI would provide technical support to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) in the task.
DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima on Tuesday said the agency has tracked down more than one account, and that arrests would be made for socalled cyber sedition for allegedly inciting people to take up arms against the government using the internet.
The military previously asked social media giant Face- book to take down 63 accounts of alleged rebels and supporters linked to the Maute group.
Netizens’ groups assailed the threat issued by government officials of arresting individuals for posting seditious materials online in relation to the Marawi crisis for alleged cyber sedition.
TXT Power, AGHAM (Advocates of Science and Technology for the People) and the CPU (Computer Professionals Union) issued a joint statement yesterday expressing alarm that the threat manifested that the state of martial law declared in the whole of Mindanao was being extended into cyberspace.
“It must be clear by now: whether you’re in Marawi, Mindanao or Manila, we’re all unsafe from martial law’s effects on our basic rights. And nowhere is this more obvious than the internet and the basic rights we enjoy online and of- fline,” the groups said.
“These threats by the military and DICT don’t strike fear in the heart of terrorists. They dampen civic engagement and attempt to negate the public’s right and duty to see to it that martial law is required, that martial law is actually aimed at the terrorists, and that martial law is not being implemented against the public,” the groups noted.
“We warn the military and the DICT not to overstep their bounds. Censorship, whether prior restraint or subsequent punishment, does not help combat terrorists. We urge the military to revisit their claim of a ‘right to censure’. It is an invention, with no legal provenance or constitutional basis,” they urged.
Cyber disinformation
Despite a warning from the DICT that people spreading IS propaganda online would be arrested, the volume of cyber disinformation has increased, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman said.
“Actually, there are more (accounts) already. We have been watching social media closely, particularly for those who have been sowing disinformation,” said Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla at a Palace briefing the other day.
On Tuesday, Salalima said anyone involved in cyber sedition related to terrorism would be arrested and at least one of the perpetrators had been identified.
There were approximately 63 social media accounts spreading IS propaganda in the Philippines, Salalima said, but Padilla said this had increased to nearly 80 accounts by Wednesday morning.
“I think more than 70 or almost 80 are being monitored. It is possible that only one is maintaining these accounts,” Padilla said.
Padilla said the AFP had been in contact with social media companies to request their assistance in disabling sites that are fomenting disinformation, discord or violence.
“We have been getting very good assistance from the companies – as soon as a determination has been made that these accounts are actually being used for the purposes that I said, then they are taken down immediately,” he said.
But Padilla said this only solved one part of the problem.
“The individuals behind those accounts are the more important targets of our operation,” he said, but did not divulge information as to who the people were or what exactly they were posting.
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