In extraordinarily farcical circumstances the parliamentary panel set up to look into the controversial cyber crime bill cleared it to go to the floor of the National Assembly for final approval, without even giving the members of the panel a chance to look at the final draft. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) 2015 has been a cause of uproar by those who realize the disastrous implications of its ambiguously worded precepts ever since it was submitted by the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) in January. The PECB gained traction in an overall political climate of short-sighted populism in the aftermath of a reinvigorated war against terror. There was also a lacuna in Pakistan’s legislation on cybercrimes and there was a need to govern cyberspace. But the proposed bill, championed by Minister of IT Anusha Rahman, was designed without input from stakeholders, rights activists or actual experts on cybercrime. It did however reflect the warped mindset of the sitting government about citizens’ rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Thus the bill grants unfettered powers to abuse-prone security agencies to interpret the bill’s provisions according to their own lights and harshly punish people for innocuous activity. Because of the outcry over its substantial potential for violation of civil liberties, the bill was sent to a Standing Committee on Information Technology for redrafting under the chairmanship of a decidedly non-expert Captain (retd) Safdar. Now, after months of the panel’s existence, the bill has been hurried onto the floor by the chairman, who denied the members a chance to go through the details because, as he justified it, he in his wisdom had read the final draft and found it satisfactory, and because all other alterations could be done by the whole parliament. In this time period, just a solitary public hearing took place where concerned people were supposed to voice their concerns but only selected individuals were given the floor. A parliamentary panel is supposed to engage in debate and the bills under discussion have to be ensured to be ready for parliamentary voting, but the entire episode turned the whole process into a time-wasting joke. One is compelled to ask why the panel was even set up if parliament had to discuss amending it substantially all over again. Opposition members, led by PPP MNA Shazia Marri, were aghast at this blunt anti-democratic strategy of PML-N ministers but could do nothing. Under the guise of fighting terrorism and “supporting our armed forces”, the government can now have sweeping powers to heavily punish analysis, commentary, jokes, news reports and activism taking place online in an unashamed desecration of democratic principles of dissent and freedom of expression. Other than evidence of the regime’s authoritarian impulses, it is also proof of laughable incompetence as many sections of the bill betray minds that have no idea how the internet works. For the protection of democratic ideals, the bill must be radically changed.*