Slashdot Log In
Bloggers Who Risked All In Burma
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Oct 01, 2007 09:28 PM
from the hats-off dept.
from the hats-off dept.
An anonymous reader sends us to the UK's TimesOnline for a story about dissident Burmese bloggers, who, with the Internet shut down in the country, are no longer posting live stories. Some of them are on the run and fearing for their lives. "Internet geeks share a common style, and Ko Latt and his four friends would not be out of place in cyber cafes across the world. They have the skinny arms and the long hair, the dark T-shirts and the jokey nicknames. But few such figures have ever taken the risks that they have in the past few weeks, or achieved so much in a noble and dangerous cause. Since last month Ko Latt, 28, his friends Arca, Eye, Sun and Superman, and scores of others like them have been the third pillar of Burma's Saffron Revolution."
Related Stories
Submission: Bloggers who risked all to reveal Junta in Burma by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Valuable perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Eerily ironic, no?
This travesty in Burma is a good chance for all of us living in luxury to get a little much-needed perspective on what real censorship looks like.
Re:Valuable perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
The world has noticed the situation in Burma, but we have not actually done anything to stop the oppression.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except for saying "pretty please don't supress your own people."
Re:Valuable perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
A fine Tuesday entry, all around.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How often have you been in shitholes over here? Probably never because they're not so tourist friendly and if you're white, there's probably going to be a problem. How do you think "garbage picking beggars" is any worse than having to sell crack where you have to worry about being shot or thrown in jail? Is it because American have television sets?
How do you define your poverty and
Re:Valuable perspective (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I hear their ad revenue is through the roof.
Parent
Re:Valuable perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you make personal sacrifices to help your family? fellow countrymen? Why should people in asia be any less worthy of your help? Invisible lines and a flag? Bah.
Parent
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what real repression and censorship looks like. And there are countries standing behind Myanmar preventing economic pressure to be brought to bear.
Parent
It always starts small (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
The legal basis for restriction of freedoms should have a review period or sunset clause, in order to prevent continued escalation of governement power.
Of course, we've always been at war with Eastasia.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Valuable perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and instead of going "see it's not so bad here" we should go "we better ensure this sort of thing won't happen".
Parent
Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitch loudly and fight for even the smallest of your Freedoms because there ARE people who want to take them away from you.
Parent
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which censorship is that, exactly, anyway? You certainly seem able to say whatever you'd like here, without fear of political actions being taken against you. Now, certainly there are plenty of university professors that don't want to hear certain perspectives in their classrooms (or have to grade papers expressing them), and there are workplaces where some actions and attitudes simply aren't tolerated... but there is no central authority preventing you from dealing with those situations yourself (if by no other means, then by simply choosing another school or job). I don't have to listen to what you have to say, but that's not the same as censorship. And I can't call up the government and have you silenced (which WOULD be such).
Parent
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Informative)
Oppose the censorship that is inflicted upon us NOW
Which censorship is that, exactly, anyway? You certainly seem able to say whatever you'd like here, without fear of political actions being taken against you. Now, certainly there are plenty of university professors that don't want to hear certain perspectives in their classrooms (or have to grade papers expressing them), and there are workplaces where some actions and attitudes simply aren't tolerated... but there is no central authority preventing you from dealing with those situations yourself (if by no other means, then by simply choosing another school or job). I don't have to listen to what you have to say, but that's not the same as censorship. And I can't call up the government and have you silenced (which WOULD be such).
It's the corporate censorship where stories that harm a corporation's relationship with the government are spiked. Do you really think a multinational corporation will pay lobbyists millions of dollars to get beneficial legislation, and then jeopardize those invested millions by criticising the government? For exaample, Rupert Murdoch's NY POST refused to print any stories that were critical of the Chinese government because he had business deals pending with that same Chinese government. He wasn't about to screw that up. Was that censorship? Sure it was.
Dan Rather got fired because he his employer wanted to suck up to the Republicans, and his story about Bush ditching his duty in the National Guard was not helping. He is suing CBS about it, and there's an interesting quote about the Internal CBS panel that reviewed Rather's story [salon.com] about the memo.
As the panel called witnesses, Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom (CBS's owner), declared his interest in the 2004 election. "I look at the election from what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today, Viacom," he said. In fact, Viacom had a number of crucial issues before the Federal Communications Commission, including loosening media ownership rules. "I don't want to denigrate Kerry," said Redstone, "but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people ... But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company."
So Rather is looking to have his day in court, because the memo never was proven false, and he wants to be vindicated. But the case exposes how Viacom was more interested in supporting and promoting the current government than earning money through a sensational story.
Censorship also happens when people get tased for using their free speech. Some Americans still think you can say whatever you want here, but you can't -- the guy who tried his "free speech" rights at John Kerry's lecture found that out when he got tackled and tased for merely asking a question and speaking out of turn. He was not doing anything except standing at a microphone and speaking freely, and got tased for his troubles.
Censorship shows up in other ways, too. You think you might have right to free speech and criticise the government, but you might then find yourself on a no-fly list (like Senator Ted Kerry experienced 5 times until he made personal call to the head of DHS and get it stopped) or on the end of other governmental harassment like political analyst Naomi Wolf, who is now on the "get-searched-every-time-you-fly list".
For serious censorship, look at the old FBI programs like "COINTELPRO" where trying to start a new party or being anti-war would get you harassed, beaten up, vandalized -- anything to stop you from being able to make a political change. Martin Luther King was surveilled by the FBI and blackmailed in an attem
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So Rather is looking to have his day in court, because the memo never was proven false, and he wants to be vindicated.
Being created in Microsoft Word using the default settings in 1972 doesn't count as proven false? Granted Times Roman was created in 1932, but you expect me to believe that the Air Force was typesetting documents with identical kerning to Times New Roman as printed by Windows XP and using identical default paper sizes and margins as Microsoft Word 2003? I mean, come on, the words wrap at the exact place that Microsoft Word wraps them.
The best you can hope to argue is that the contents are correct and th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. There was an IBM typewriter out at the date claimed for the documents that did just that. The default paper sizes and margins have been the default for American typewritten documents for many decades. Microsoft's Times Roman font was copied from the version used by IBM. The whole point was
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a bad way to run a news room. The onus is on Rather and Mapes to prove that the memo is real. Instead of doing that, they hid their source and ran the story any way. What is most telling, is that their source had plenty of other 'documents' that they didn't use. That is pretty damning, in and of itself.
"Rupert Murdoch's NY POST refused to print any stories that were critical of the Chinese government because he had business deals pending with that same Chinese government....Was that censorship? Sure it was."
If the NY POST was a government run newspaper, you might have a point. However, there are plenty of newspapers that do run stories critical of the Chinese. There are plenty of newspapers where any story that is embarrasing to the Democrats is front page news. Those same papers bury stories that cast the Republicans in a negative light. Is that censorship? No, because plenty of papers do the reverse.
Has there been US government sponsored censorship in the past? Certainly, but no worse than any other country that has ever existed. Is there censorship going on now in the US? I don't see how it could be, with a 24 hour news cycle and the web.
Doesn't seem to have stopped Naomi Wolf from criticizing the US, or the Dixie Chicks, or Sean Penn, or anybody. Even that kid that got tazed for being an idiot had a video up in a few hours. First he was told to ask a question, then he was told to put the mike down, then he resisted arrest and then he was tazed. Sorry, that is not censorship. If anything, he was preventing others from asking questions, which is censorship.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've gotta cry foul here. The taser boy had a chance to stand up and say his piece. Now, maybe we disagree on this, but from every video I've seen, he basically seems to be reciting a line, and although he does ask two questions, at no point does he pause to wait for any answers. After about two minutes of this, somebody signals the police to take the mic from him, he starts fighting, and from there it escalates.
Try again. The guy asked two rhetorical questions in order to lay the basis for his third question, which he did ask before they turned his mic off. Kerry even said something to the effect that he would answer the questions which (a) we've never heard and (b) should have been a signal to the "campus cops" (who are fully deputized police officers BTW) to back off.
Furthermore, it was a political rally - since when is asking a long-winded question cause to be hauled off and "quieted down?" The guy was not
For one, the censorship on coverage of the war (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Not restricted once the bodies get home (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason generally photography is not allowed is out of respect for the families, who are allowed to do as they wish once the body has been brought back. There was for example an award winning photojournaism column in the Rocky Mountain News some time ago that showed a weeping widow draped over the husbands coffin.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Valuable perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
These people wouldn't be uprising if they had the NBA playoffs and Sex in the City to worry about. America is a perfect example of a society that can't be bothered with protecting our liberties and freedom against the infringing and encroaching government powers , because we're too busy worrying about whether or favorite video game will be released on time, what is happening with the girls on Sex in the City, how our teams are doing in the NBA playoffs and complaining about how "secular progressives" are ruining our precious little baby-jesusland.
Parent
Who put them against the wall? (Score:2, Insightful)
Have the usual suspects, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and Google, been turning over information about these people? Remember this as you help put "intelligence" into the internet there at home. There is no free speech without anonymity. When push comes to shove, tyrants murder people like you and me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Quoting from the first post - "This travesty in Burma is a good chance for all of us living in luxury to get a little much-needed perspective on what real censorship looks like."
Think about that quote for a second and visualize the news reports of bloated monks floating face down in open drains. Do you really think the parinoid cult responsible for those murders sees AOL, Google, et-al, as any
Re:Who put them against the wall? (Score:4, Insightful)
The info will continue to get around these rudimentary efforts at censorship, but the pro-democracy movement is beginning to realise that the UN just ain't gonna show up, no matter how many are gunned down in cold blood.
I submitted a story [slashdot.org] in March on the role of the intertubes in exposing tin-pot despots.
Rather than OLPC, many in the third-world would benefit from the gift of a digital camera and a few dollars to outlay at the local internet cafe.
Parent
Serious kudos to them (Score:5, Insightful)
Commendable, and I wish them well.
Re:Serious kudos to them (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking out could not carry a higher cost for them.
Parent
Free Burma == Boycott Beijing Olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd leave egg all over the Chinese Governments Face. This is the only thing they are scared of.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you like the concept of insane interest rate hikes (the wonderful thing about fiat currency is that it's worth pretty much what people think it's worth), which would be needed to attract people back to the dollar, this is a _really_ bad idea. Also, dumping currency on that scale would severely
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How about we don't go deliberately pissing off a nation with enough cash reserves (1.33 trillion) to bankrupt us overnight (assuming it's a trading day - on the weekend, they would have to wait a couple days).
How effective will this tactic really be? Keep in mind that if China does that it'll be out more than half a year of GDP right at the start. And most of that debt is in the form of bonds to the US government. If it comes to a choice between bankruptcy and defaulting on debt to a hostile power, I'm
Where is the media? Where are we!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where is the media? Where are we!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of this story (and others like it) is that the media has been completely cut off from these demonstrations and the violence that ensued.
You dislike U.S. news media. That's great; here's a cookie. Try paying attention next time.
Parent
Re:Where is the media? Where are we!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh I paid attention, however, I don't think you have. I understand the media has been cut off, but there are other sources of information. For example, The Daily Mail reports [dailymail.co.uk] that thousands of protesters have been allegedly killed, yet, I don't see any mention of that on mainstream media, I did see however two stories about Britney's problems tonight.
> You dislike U.S. news media. That's great; here's a cookie. Try paying attention next time.
I hope that's a chocolate chip cookie
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That point was that when there was access to media, our media in US wasn't paying much attention. Now you are defending them. "Well, heck they shut down access, I guess they have to show news about Britney Spears, what do you expect a blank screen, sheesh!"
The fact that the media access was shut off is enough to be news story and should trump news about American blonds being abducted in Aruba. But us Americ
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of Slashdot memes (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have any ideas beyond this in mind, but if ever there was a cauldron of collaborative creativity, it's the comments on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, most of the soldiers doing the killing are probably the usual "just following orders" type, you have to find a way to switch their mode to: "WTF am I doing, I'm being the bad guy now!".
Given the similarity in thinking of most of these sorts, if you find the right trigger I bet they'd all switch about the same time. The big bad bosses will still have their cadre of loyalists, but their power would be greatly diminished.
Just make sure there's
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In Repressive Burma, internet connection kills you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hunter S. Thompson once said (Score:5, Insightful)
Do your deed and fight back (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/2000/08/01/www.myanmar.com/mirror.html [attrition.org]
Bloggers and other cyber activists within Burma risk their lives by publishing any information counter to the government line, but they still do it because they believe that freedom of expression is worth that sacrifice.
You don't have to make such a sacrifice, but if you have computer skills, can breach firewalls, routers and web site security then you could greatly assist the people of Burma. By taking down official Burmese government propaganda and posting pictures, information about the protests, information about the lies of the Burmese junta, and news of the huge support being offered by the rest of the world - preferably in Burmese - then you could help free the people from this terrible regime.
If the information is removed, do it again - automate the attacks, do whatever you can to ensure that the Burmese can see the truth about their government.
You may have hacked for fun, or personal gain in the past - now you have a chance to hack for freedom.
Regime sites:
http://www.myanmar.com/ [myanmar.com]
http://www.myanmar.com/news/index.html [myanmar.com]
http://www.mrtv3.net.mm/ [mrtv3.net.mm] (blocked from external access)
http://www.mofa.gov.mm/ [mofa.gov.mm] (blocked from external access)
http://www.moha.gov.mm/ [moha.gov.mm] (blocked from external access)
http://www.mpt.net.mm/ [mpt.net.mm] (blocked from external access)
http://www.myanmar-information.net/ [myanmar-information.net]
http://www.myanmar.com/myanmartimes/ [myanmar.com]
http://www.mnped.gov.mm/ [mnped.gov.mm] (blocked from external access)
http://www.myanmar.com/newspaper/kyaymon/index.html [myanmar.com]
http://www.myanmar.com/newspaper/nlm/index.html [myanmar.com]
Democratic voice of Burma - gruesome photo. (Score:5, Informative)
http://english.dvb.no/photo1.php [english.dvb.no]
The result of dicatorship.
Skinny long-haired heroes? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could just read this is "but few _persons_ have ever taken the risk..." because unfortunately that's always been true throughout history (and I'm not saying I would do any better).
But I actually think the author wants to convey the feeling that somehow skinny, long-haired youngsters that like to sit behind a computer are not hero material. So what do heroes look like? The perfectly groomed playboys we know from US cinema?
Gimme a break. History again shows us that most "heroes" are just people like you and me that "just do what they had to do" because they felt it was the only right option (and most probably didn't even think there _were_ any options to choose from).
Isn't it Myanmar now? (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently, the current military regime changed the name, but the change did not receive legislative approval. The US, The Kingdom of UK, Canada, and a number of other countries have not accepted the new name, although the United Nations has. More details here [wikipedia.org].
Parent
Re:what does this story have to do with the iPhone (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:This is an excelent time (Score:4, Insightful)
As opposed to the peaceful and harmless [corpwatch.org] corporations, who only kill on the quiet? Any concentration of power, whether public or private, needs to be carefully watched. Thomas Jefferson warned us about this, as did James Madison, Adam Smith, and Thomas Paine.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)