Introduction The new Law on Telecommunications (“Telecoms Law”) poses a severe threat to freedom of expression in Cambodia, targeting not only online public expression but also any private communications made using telecommunications devices. Its most egregious provisions allow the government to secretly intrude into the private lives of individuals, destroy evidence before criminal trials, and seize control of the entire telecoms industry if arbitrarily deemed warranted. Its excessive measures, particularly those creating new criminal offences, reveal the true intent of the law: to intimidate individuals, punish the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms and quash individual and group dissent. With a year to go until the next commune elections and two years until the next national election it would seem that the Cambodian government has equipped itself with a whole new arsenal with which to threaten and obstruct civil society. The following analysis details the most serious threats posed by the law, under themes of surveillance powers; restriction of fundamental freedoms; risk to fair trial rights; policing and enforcement; and excessive state control. 1 Surveillance powers The law’s stated purpose is regulation of the telecommunications industry and yet it contains provisions that give the government powers to secretly monitor the telecommunications of individuals without any accountability and to punish those individuals if their communications are deemed to be criminal. The law contains no reference to the right to freedom of expression or its protection, as guaranteed by the Constitution and international law, 2 nor to the right to privacy of correspondence by means of telecommunications which is expressly protected under the Constitution. 3  Article 97 of the law permits the secret surveillance of any and all telecommunications where it is conducted with the approval of a “legitimate authority.” 4 There is no definition of what constitutes a “legitimate authority,” or the means by which such an authority is competent to approve surveillance. This appears to create a power to secretly eavesdrop without any public accountability or safeguards to protect individuals’ right to privacy. This means that any individual holding a phone conversation, sending a text message, email or communicating via social media might secretly be under observation at any point in time without their knowledge. Any private speech via telecommunications can no longer be considered truly private.  Article 6 requires that, “All telecommunications operators and persons involved with the telecommunications sector shall provide to the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications the telecommunications information and communication technology service data.” 5 In practice, this gives the Ministry unfettered rights to demand that all telecommunications service providers provide data on their service users and could even operate as an obligation for companies to surrender data without the requirement of a judicial warrant or other safeguards protecting the 1 This analysis is based on an unofficial English translation of the Law on Telecommunications and the official Khmer language Law on Telecommunications published on the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications’ website. 2 Cambodian Constitution Article 41; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 19 – while Article 19(3) contains permissible limitations on the right to freedom of expression (so far as they are provided by law, necessary and proportionate), including national security and public order grounds, within the Cambodian context the willful and abusive misinterpretation of expression by the authorities means legitimate expression is often falsely labelled as a threat to national security. 3 Cambodian Constitution Article 40 4 Telecoms Law Article 97 5 Telecoms Law Article 6 Page 1 of 7