400,000 Blackberry users in India getting shirty

Link: Indian Blackberry network given 15 days to allow government snooping or shut down – Engadget

The last we’d heard, the Indian government had ruled out the threat of a Blackberry ban if RIM didn’t allow it to snoop on messages, but it looks like some overzealous bureaucrat is getting his way after all: the Department of Telecom has issued a 15-day deadline for RIM to either open up for the G-men or get shut down

Have you been following this? It’s really getting a bit crazy, isn’t it? 15-day deadlines… geez. Just open up and move on.

Ideally, I’d like to avoid this snooping potential, particularly as I like to think of myself as a soverign individual… until, that is, I get a parking ticket. You just have to pay it. Or eventually go to jail. It’s their game, and you’re just a player in it, right?

I’m sure each of the 400,000 Indian Blackberry users is less than impressed at the possibility of having their email accessible by the Government. But then I’m sure most of their Exchange accounts on their corporate networks are already snoopable…