use of these technologies and make individuals who use such technologies to criticize the government highly vulnerable to reprisals through selective enforcement of the law. Finally, section 25 of the Computer Science Development Law replicates section 33 of the Electronic Transactions Law. Proposed Telecommunications Law The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has produced a draft Telecommunications Law, which the government intends to enact by July 2013.27 Based on a draft obtained by Human Rights Watch in March 2013, proposed reforms in the Telecommunications Law could preserve or introduce new mechanisms for surveillance and content restrictions. For example, the draft law could impose licensing requirements for online service providers (for example, webmail, web hosting, or e-commerce service providers) and content providers (for example, blogs, social media services, or news websites). By itself, such a licensing scheme could dramatically reduce the availability of content and online services in Burma, limiting access to information. Without further safeguards, these licensing provisions could also be abused if too much discretion is left to regulators to grant or deny content licenses.28 The government should exclude online service providers and content providers from telecommunications licensing requirements.29 The proposed draft also preserves problematic content restrictions from existing laws that have been used to violate the right to freedom of expression. Section 60 of the draft law simply replicates section 33 of the Electronic Transactions Law. Further, the draft introduces vague new prohibitions on a range of conduct or content sent over a telecommunications network. For example, section 65 penalizes sending or distributing “indecent or undesirable information,” but does not define either term with any precision, 27 Telecommunication Operator Tender Evaluation and Selection Committee, “Pre-qualification Questions and Answers,” pp. 5-7. When enacted, the Telecommunications Law will replace the Myanmar Telegraph Act (1885) and the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1934). 28 The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue has stated that licensing for websites is not justified because the unique technical attributes of the Internet do not make such limitations necessary. UN OHCHR, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, A/HRC/17/27, May 16, 2011, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomOpinion/Pages/Annual.aspx, para. 27. 29 In the draft law, these entities are referred to as “application services” and “content application services,” respectively. REFORMING TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN BURMA 12