The militants who carried out the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, used mobile phones and other handheld gadgets to coordinate an assault that left 166 dead.
Cell phones with video cameras helped bring the world the iconic footage of a young Iranian woman dying of a gunshot wound in the midst of the country’s 2009 “Green Revolution” — images spread rapidly on Web sites the government tried feverishly to block.
Now the use of new, sophisticated technologies is raising alarm in the Arab world’s two biggest economies. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have threatened to cut off popular BlackBerry services unless they wring out concessions that would almost certainly give them greater access to user information.
Both countries cite security threats. The U.S. says those concerns are legitimate. But critics say the governments’ fears also provide a convenient justification to further tighten controls on the flow of information they believe could stir opposition or morally corrupt their societies.
“This is a medium, unlike Facebook or Internet chat rooms, that is very difficult to monitor,” said Christopher Davidson, a Gulf expert at Britain’s University of Durham. “Security concerns, including terror threats, are sadly being used to mask this clampdown, and the international community is buying this explanation.”
It’s a tug-of-war over data and security that finds echoes in China’s censorship fight with Google Inc., and highlights the way rapid technological change is sowing unease in countries where the unfettered flow of digital information is seen as a threat.
Like China and Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia actively police the Internet, blocking access to pornography and material deemed politically or morally objectionable. Neither Gulf state allows organized political opposition or direct elections of national representatives. Freedom of expression is limited.
In the Gulf, BlackBerrys are used both by busy professionals and consumers who see them…