SHAH ALAM, 1 Apr: The move by the Police to establish the Cyber Investigation Response Centre (CIRC) is seen as an initiative that is more politically motivated and is simply meant to scare the people.
In a joint statement, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bukit Mertajam, Steven Sim, and the MP for Penang Hill, Zairil Khir Johari, said that the Federal Government is most probably worried about the power and influence of social media among the people.
They said that the social media currently functions as an important media in disseminating information without censorship and control by the government as it is with the mainstream media.
“Based on the results of the 13th General Election (GE13), Barisan Nasional experienced great loss among the segments of population who have access to good access to social media like in urban areas and among the young people.
“So, is the action to monitor social media meant merely to intimidate supporters of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and to extend the government’s control over the dissemination of information,” they said.
On 21 March, the Inspector General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, announced that the CIRC has been established to monitor the activities of social media users and will be placed under the Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID).
Elaborating, Steven and Zairil said that the lack of police officers to fight crime at this time and the use of police resources to meet the ridiculous unit like the CIRC is inappropriate.
“An investigation office (IO) has to handle up to 19 cases per month on average, while IOs in crime hot spots have to handle 20 to 30 cases a month.
“This situation is far from the proposed Report by Tun Dzaiddin who recommended for one IO to handle only five cases a month,” he said.
In relation to that, Steven and Zairil urged the Police to stop the move to establish the CIRC and to prioritise resources and staff in effort to fight crime which is increasingly threatening the people’s security.
“We want to stress that so far, there is no need to establish the CIRC, even more so since the Malaysian Multimedia Communications Commission (MMCC) has been established to investigate cyber offenses,” he said.
Previously, the Tun Dzaiddin Royal Police Commission Report 2005 stated that the CID needs 21,300 members in 2004, but until now, the RMP has yet to reach the recommended target and still lacks 11,300 members.
