Big brother is reading your poetry - Haaretz

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Wed., November 14, 2007 Kislev 4, 5768

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Last update - 23:40 13/11/2007

Big brother is reading your poetry

By Ofri Ilani

tags: poetry, Zionism, revolution

"My duty as a revolutionary poet is to do whatever I can to advance the revolution," says poet Shmuel Yerushalmi of Be'er Sheva. "We, the workers, are the majority, and we want to bring down the class that is exploiting us and rule in its stead, for the good of the general public."

As one would expect from a proletarian poet, Yerushalmi churns out poems at an industrial rate and sends them to a set distribution list of left-wing activists, as well as to Communist Web sites in Israel and around the world. His poems usually follow a uniform pattern of pathos. "Exploited, arise and rebel! / Those who suck our blood shall be destroyed / We will fight a mighty battle / and bring down the old world," he writes in one poem, and in another declares, "The class struggle will strengthen our spirit / Our weapons will flash like lightening / Those who rob us of our daily bread / will all be handcuffed!"

The proletarian regime seems quite remote from the small apartment in which Yerushalmi, 35, lives with his parents. Even the computer in his apartment has been broken for four years. His extensive online activity - the hundreds of poems, letters and Communist manifestos he has written - has all been conducted from the computer room at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "I am very isolated," he says. "My activities have led to disputes with a lot of my friends, some of whom are members of the Zionist left."

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Yerushalmi's Communist activism might seem cut off from reality, but he is apparently not considered out of this world by Israel's security forces. Yerushalmi belongs to a very small group of Internet activists in the Western world who have been interrogated by the security authorities about their activities. The Be'er Sheva fringe poet, who immigrated to Israel from the Ukraine in 1988, is viewed as a sufficiently serious threat and stands under Shin Bet security service surveillance.

Tali Fahima's poem

It happened in 2004, shortly after Yerushalmi published a poem extolling left-wing activist Tali Fahima. Yerushalmi says the police phoned and summoned him for questioning at the police station in Be'er Sheva. "They took me into a room with two men who immediately told me, 'We are from the Shin Bet,'" recalls Yerushalmi. "One of them introduced himself as Ziv and said, 'We see that you write things on the Internet, about Tali Fahima, for example. Why?'" The interrogators wanted to know to which organizations Yerushalmi belonged and who his best friends were, as well as his political opinions.

"They began to ask me if I support a Jewish state. I said I was not willing to answer, but I supported a democratic state. 'Is Israel not a democratic state?' they asked, to which I responded, 'A democratic state does not summon a poet for interrogation.' Then they said, 'Since you have not cooperated with us, every time you go abroad you will have to undergo a special check.' After that they asked me if I would now write a poem about the Shin Bet, so I told them I would write whatever I like. A few days later I wrote the poem, 'Fascist Police State.'"

The ridiculous aspect about the decision to interrogate Yerushalmi is that his political activity is completely overt. About two months ago he was kicked off the content site, where he had published his poems for years, after the site's editor decided that Yerushalmi "belongs to the enemies of the Jewish people and the enemies of the forces of rational thought." Yerushalmi subsequently launched "Metah Hamahapeha" (Salvo of the Revolution), an independent Communist poetry site, at www.kvistrel.page.tl. Occasionally he also sends diplomatic proposals and letters to Israeli public officials, via his distribution list.

In response to Haaretz's queries, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed Yerushalmi's interrogation. "Shmuel Yerushalmi was summoned for a meeting with representatives of the Shin Bet in December 2004," said a PMO spokesman. "The summons had no connection to Yerushalmi's artistic activity."

Easier tracking

Yerushalmi is not the only Israeli to be interrogated by the Shin Bet for online activities. In November 2005, Ahmed Abu Hussein, manager of the "48 Arabs" Web site (www.arabs48.com) was summoned for questioning. He was interrogated by two men, who introduced themselves as Zohar and Arik and asked about his site's activities, how the material published there was chosen and the identities of the contributors. Many other online activists, who have published controversial content, including members of the Indymedia group and blogger Moshe Halevi (aka: Halemo), have been interrogated by the police and have had their computers confiscated.

All these cases are worth mentioning in light of the fact that the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee yesterday approved a bill that will make it even easier for the authorities to track the activities of Israeli citizens online and in other communications media. The new bill is intended to remove the remaining few obstacles that currently hinder the police and other investigating authorities from obtaining "communication data," meaning communication details, on civilians. Furthermore, the Freedom of Information Movement claims that even today, a classified appendix to the concessions granted to cellular and Internet service providers enables the Shin Bet to obtain data on conversations and messages between subscribers. The Communication Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office refuse to confirm or deny.

Theoretically, these regulations do not significantly infringe on privacy, as they provide the authorities with access only to the particulars of communications, and not to the content. On the Internet, however, the distinction between the two disappeared long ago.

"Communication data used to be just numbers that you had dialed. On the Internet, however, the communication data are actually also the content," explains Dr. Omer Tene, an information security expert at the Law School of the College of Management, Academic Studies Division. "When people say 'communication data,' they are also referring to the list of URLs [web addresses] to which you have surfed and the subject line of emails. These days the authorities are checking surfing habits mainly to prevent pedophilia and terror, but if the state starts to stretch the definition of terror and to include Web sites that are outside the political consensus, that is very dangerous."

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1.	"Big brother is reading your poetry"	06:47	\|	Rus Bowden	14/11/07

2.	Big brother reading your mail	09:11	\|	O.Prager	14/11/07

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