Blogger Dennis Itumbi Charged With Hacking as the Govt Battle to Control Kenyans Online

Kenyan Blogger Dennis Itumbi has this morning been charged with hacking into a computer system of an Airline. Dennis has been charged with ‘intercepting data in a computer system (belonging to Jetlink) without consent’.

The charges stems from a blog post Dennis did sometime back titled “JETLINK: The Danger in our Skies, Revelations of leaked Emails….”. With attached emails from JetLink, Dennis detailed how JetLink flies “planes which engineers have declared unfit for our skiesa”.

Dennis has been charged with the Section 83D of the Kenya Communications Amendement Act of 2009 which states;

(1) No person shall –
(a) operate an electronic certification system;
or
(b) update a repository or administer a subdomain in the Kenya country top level domain (.ke ccTLD); except in accordance with a licence granted under this Act.

(2) A person who contravenes this section commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding three hundred thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or both

He was also charged with Section 84D of the same act which reads;

Any person who publishes or transmits or causes to be published in electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest and its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied therein, shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding two
hundred thousand shillings or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or both.

Dennis has been  granted a cash bail of Kshs. 100,000 and is set to appear before the court again on the 6th of September 2012. The case is put in such a way that it is not a civil case where JetLink is suing  Dennis but it is a murky case where JetLink is instituting criminal charges against Dennis while Kenya Police is the witness.

I was charged in the same manner using the same act and not the same sections. All these are test cases with the government fighting to control bloggers and Kenyans online. We will have to apply for a constitutional interpretation for the same.

Read my experience being charged;

Part One: Why Was @RobertAlai Summoned by the CID then Locked-Up?

Part Two: The Court Appearance and How My Communications Were Monitored