For a week, media executives and experts unleashed a barrage of criticism against the draft Civil Crisis and National Defense Act . The legislation grants the government and its subordinate agencies the power to restrict the free flow of information, both in substance and technically, whenever a state of emergency or a state of war has been declared.

The extensive bill limits citizens' constitutional rights and freedoms from several angles, yet its handlers either accidentally or through a lack of expertise failed to properly consider the implications of restricting the dissemination of information and freedom of expression. Or perhaps they did so maliciously and surreptitiously, considering that the generals on the Riigikogu National Defense Committee did not see fit to discuss their plans with media representative organizations.

The protest came too late because, as everyone in parliament knows, "the Riigikogu can't really change anything during the third reading of a bill anymore." At that stage, it merely produces hot air from the podium and votes strictly along party lines.

On Tuesday, the bill became law and now it is up to the president to decide whether the threat of war is close enough to warrant the immediate enactment of this long-prepared legislation. Or whether it is not, in which case the president can decline to promulgate the law so that the restrictions on the flow of information during a crisis can be debated separately and anew in the Riigikogu.

To date, not a single author of the bill or member of the Riigikogu has managed to explain how the Schrödinger's censorship envisioned by the law would function in real life. Under the law, rank-and-file officials would carry it out, but whether censorship had actually existed would only become clear after the state of emergency or war ended and the black box was opened.

The bill's drafters were apparently aware of the problem when they included an internally contradictory sentence in the explanatory memorandum, stating that "when restricting media services, it is not possible to deviate from the requirement established in Section 45 of the Constitution that censorship is not permitted in Estonia." Yet they were not troubled in the slightest by the fact that all of the provisions restricting information society services, media services and publishing activities are clear departures from the constitutional prohibition on censorship.

There is a measure of irony in the fact that laws restricting the dissemination of information during wartime have long been in force, yet they have neither interfered with the functioning of journalism nor stirred defenders of free speech. The National Defense Committee rubbed this point in the faces of the worried parties in its response to the Estonian Media Association's appeal. Everything would remain the same, they said, and there was nothing to fear.

Indeed, during the more secure years of Estonia's regained independence, a state of war seemed so unlikely that no newsroom spent time imagining scenarios beginning with, "But what if..."

The long war in Ukraine has significantly increased journalists' awareness of such realities. They have traveled to the front lines, reported from combat zones and seen and experienced far more — and far harsher — conditions than the average member of the Riigikogu. They know how Ukrainian journalism functions during wartime and under what restrictions and they also know how media freedom has been promoted and codified even under wartime conditions, with the support and pressure of the European Union, to the point that Ukraine now ranks far more favorably in global indices than it did during the Yanukovych era before the war.

Ultimately, the Riigikogu expressed distrust toward the free press as an institution. The message is clear: in times of crisis, journalists are, at best, suspicious individuals and, at worst, potential traitors because given the opportunity, they will begin disseminating information that "poses a threat to public order or to national security or the provision of the state's military defense."

Since journalists themselves are apparently incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions, competent police, security and consumer protection officials must evaluate dangerous information and prevent its dissemination. To separate the wheat from the chaff, however, they would first have to examine all the harmless information as well.

Apparently, the Riigikogu does not grasp the sheer volume of text produced daily in newsrooms or the speed at which news is gathered, processed, edited and published. There are dozens of editorial offices and hundreds of journalists. How exactly would supervision of their work be staffed? And who, besides media organizations themselves, would be capable of properly training the censors? Or is all hope pinned on artificial intelligence, which would first have to be fed a complete list of prohibited words, expressions and data?

Sirp alone would provide enough material to occupy one supervisor full-time and would require a censor with extensive knowledge across numerous fields. Socially dangerous information worthy of prohibition could appear in an interview, a seemingly innocent review or, worse still, find its way into print from an uncensored theater stage or art gallery.

Then there are the veterans still working in newsrooms who personally experienced Soviet censorship and who remember all manner of tricks for outsmarting censors and hiding messages between the lines. All in the service, of course, of undermining public order during wartime. So perhaps, alongside occupational health and safety representatives, every newsroom should employ a salaried security commissioner even in peacetime.

The legislature's message — that the journalistic profession is untrustworthy and that its potential malice in a crisis can only be prevented through harsh legal provisions — comes across as rather arrogant, considering that many journalists are active reservists (and would likely be mobilized in wartime), members of the Defense League and committed contributors to national defense even in peacetime who also happen to know how to keep secrets, such as protecting their sources.

Journalists do not leak state secrets, nor has the press committed treason during Estonia's restored independence. Traitors who have passed secrets to hostile powers have been uncovered in every branch of the security services, but not in a single Estonian newsroom. What assurance would newsrooms have that the security official assigned to monitor and censor information during a crisis would not instead gather sensitive information held by journalists and leak it to an enemy?

So suspicion is met with suspicion and distrust with distrust as the old saying about echoes in the forest goes. The government does not trust the press in a state of emergency or war, but why should journalists simultaneously trust the government's wisdom and believe it will not abuse its expanded powers under the guise of crisis management? After all, there is no way to know who will happen to be in government when disaster strikes.

Experience provides ample grounds for skepticism. Only a few years ago, a relatively modest pandemic was enough to justify declaring a state of emergency. Newsrooms remember well which decision-makers used their expanded powers responsibly at the time — at least initially — and which ones were immediately intoxicated by them and found the experience so pleasurable that they were reluctant to give it up.

The framework established by the law is pointless because it is unworkable. Yes, information flows can be restricted in the Russian manner. But if citizens are cut off from the internet, how would the government of a digital state function? How would the military operate? A century ago, a couple of armed men stationed at a printing press or the suspension of postal services might have been enough. Today, restricting information flows would require bringing the entire country to a halt. And what would fill the space left vacant by edited and filtered information? Would the government hire rumor-mongers for every street corner who know exactly what needs to be whispered to the public to preserve order?

One further detail in the law deserves scrutiny. The Riigikogu appears not to have recognized that, for years, the country's most prolific and enthusiastic disseminators of biased information and disinformation have been political parties. Yet during wartime, the government cannot move against political parties nearly as easily as it can against the media. To suspend a party's activities, the government must obtain authorization from the Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court. In other words, political parties would appear to be more vital during a crisis than media organizations. If that is not the intention, then the law should treat them equally.

But none of this conflict with the press — and indirectly with the wider public — over restrictions on freedom of expression needed to begin in the first place if the restrictive provisions are not even enforceable. With the president's help, it is still possible to abandon the effort and avoid the endless and futile work of later drafting implementing regulations for measures that cannot, in practice, be implemented.

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