An individual’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression are two of the most endangered human rights today in a world radically transformed by the digital revolution. The age of the internet is widely attached with romantic notions of freedom, where people can exercise their democratic right to access and produce knowledge unfettered by government/state restrictions. And there is certainly truth to this perception and governments worldwide, with varying degrees of authoritarianism, find the unrestricted nature of the internet to be a thorn in their sides and often take ill-advised measures to futilely try to curb the freedoms availed by people online. However, there is an ironic pitfall in this ‘freedom’. If the Edward Snowden saga has definitively revealed anything, it is the fact that the same technologies that can undermine governments through dissent also have the potential to be used to invade privacy by enabling surveillance on a staggering level. With the rise of smartphones and sharing on social media websites, the concept of a ‘private life’ has been thoroughly altered. The Orwellian nightmare has come true as security agencies like the infamous NSA of the US, exploit the new technologies to spy on civilians and gain access to bundles of private data. The controversy around the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB), a monstrous brainchild of the government’s IT Ministry, brings this defining issue of our age to the forefront. This legislation is transparently designed to empower the government to fully realise its potential for authoritarian overreach. Fittingly, the government is betraying its insidious plans by its anti-democratic bulldozing of the bill through parliament and its refusal to engage with dissenting opinion. Only the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) representatives in the Senate seem to be credible roadblocks to the bill’s passage. Poorly drafted, with vague provisions giving blanket powers to the authorities to violate personal freedoms of people and seize their data without a warrant, it is an unabashed tool for engaging in personal and political vendettas. Couched in publicly acceptable terms of combating cyberterrorism and cybercrime, the focus of the bill is clearly the government’s desire to curb dissent and legalise already suspected privacy violations. Senator Sherry Rehman’s emphatic stance against the passage of this bill in order to protect the rights of the people is highly commendable and should be supported. The government needs to realise that it is embarking on a quixotic quest; people are resourceful and no amount of government restriction can prevent digital citizens from finding ways around the bans (e.g. the continuing official ban on YouTube). Not only will they be in violation of human rights, they will also be wasting public resources on a massive scale in a losing battle. Rather than engaging in pointless censorship, it would be prudent for the government to engage in this exchange of ideas and information itself and hope that its version wins favour with the public. *