[Publib] Internet: Light of Freedom

[Backwage at aol.com]

The Internet provides a link to Myanmar despite government attempts to  
silence dissent.  See: 
_http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-myanmar-goering-weboct02,1,6309131.story_ 
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-myanmar-goering-weboct02,1,6309131.story) 
 
"Cutting-edge technology—much of it operated by amateurs—has played a  
remarkably powerful role in documenting the bloodshed in Myanmar and helping to  
spark a global outcry. Video clips of the country's biggest political protests  
in nearly two decades, surreptitiously filmed and filed via the Internet, have 
 made their way onto sites like YouTube. Details of shootings and beatings of 
 Buddhist monks and other protesters by the country's repressive military 
regime  have trickled out via e-mail and cell phone from amateur correspondents 
adept at  dodging rolling government blackouts of cell phone service and 
Internet  access.

So ineffective has Myanmar's military junta been at stemming the  flow of 
information that late last week it shut down the country's public  Internet 
service altogether. Even then, pictures and reports have continued to  filter out.

'The extraordinary amount of information that's made it out  regardless of 
all this is just amazing," said Shawn Crispin, an Asia expert with  the 
Committee to Protect Journalists. "The government's been caught off guard.  They had 
more confidence in the Internet firewall technology than they should  have."
 
Comment:  so much for filtering.  
 
M. McGrorty



************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/attachments/20071003/61b30ce2/attachment.htm