'Rescind dangerous and retrograde IT Act Rules'

New Delhi: Calling the new IT Act Rules "dangerous and retrograde", the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has demanded to revoke it.

In an official statement, the highest committee of CPI-M said, "Undermining security protocols to provide government access to people's messages is a dangerous and retrograde measure. These strengthen the architecture of a surveillance state violating the right to privacy of citizens. The Polit Bureau of the CPI-M demands the withdrawal of these provisions."

The committee also made a scathing attack on the government at the Centre, saying, "The central government is using the Delhi Police to intimidate Twitter for flagging various BJP leaders Tweets as manipulated media."

The Left Party condemned and claimed, "The BJP government'' unjust use of the IT Ministry and the police raids on Twitter's offices as acts of blatant intimidation."

"The notification requires all intermediary platforms providing messaging services to identify the "first originator" of a message trail and furnish this on demand to either the Court or the

Government... Facebook or WhatsApp has pointed out that this means breaking the security of the existing messaging protocol, and therefore of all those who use WhatsApp. This has been endorsed by technical experts. Weakening security protocols violate user privacy and increase vulnerability to hacking for criminal purposes as well," the CPI-M's communique added further.