OVER THE EDGE October 24 - November 7, 2007 ° Intons _ The opinions expressed in Over the Edge are those of the writers alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff or newspaper society. Feedback can be e-mailed to ae eee nte ~ On the Digital Front Jeremy Johnson - Staff Writer TitoneS Speech — Harpers Commitment to Foreign Lobbyists Special note: This story is quickly develop- ing, so as of this writing, I do not know if the government fell or not. You’ll probably know by the time this is printed. Before the throne speech, I was told that the Harper government would never mention copyright issues because he would gain few friends if he did. In my mind, very few friends if he promoted the tightening of copyright laws. Well, I am disappointed to report that the person who told me that Harper’s throne speech will not touch on copyright issues was wrong. This is what was said: “Our Government will support Canadian researchers and innov- ators in developing new ideas and bringing them to the marketplace through Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy. Our Gov- ernment will improve the protection of cultur- al and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform.” Believe me, I’m not alone when I say that The World it’s obvious that he’s going to restrict copy- right laws. Michael Geist, internet law profes- sor, said in his blog in response, “This sug- gests - consistent with most speculation - that a DMCA-style bill could be coming to Can- ada within a matter of weeks.” Russell McOrmond, a FLOSS consultant, said in his blog, “Michael Ignatieff of the Liberals suggested, this is like judging a meal only by looking at the menu, but the above is a menu item that will likely leave a bad taste in the mouths of most Canadian creators, consumers, software authors and hardware owners.” So who are the winners and losers? Well, the losers obviously are Canadian artists (Ap- propriation Art Canada), Canadian Musicians (CMCC), Canadian students (CFS), Canadian consumers (CIPPIC, Online Rights Canada, EFF Canada among others), the privacy com- munity (various governmental privacy com- missioners, etc.), Canadian Librarians and Museums (CLA, Canadian Art Museum Dir- ectors Organization), and hundreds of thou- sands of other Canadians who have a stake in this. The winners are CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) who have been rendered as little more than an arm of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) ever since the Canadian labels left them last year and the CMPDA (Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association) of which, if you’ve been following my columns, I point out are also little more than an arm of foreign movie companies — mainly the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Even if the government survives a con- fidence motion over the throne speech, it’s clear that the foreign lobbyists who have no interest in Canadian interests have been busy buying out opposition members in this parlia- ment, let alone the last government. One Lib- eral named Dan McTeague is apparently say- ing that he wants to put in an IP caucus, which would advocate WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). This is an organiza- tion controlled by the US to spread restrictive copyright propaganda and political influence that only serves the US copyright industry. In the mean time, Liberal MP Don Bell actually tabled a bill that would get a government paid lobbyist into the House of Commons to ad- vocate on behalf of, essentially, the MPAA. I guess our tax dollars need to help feed the poor starving foreign lobbyists while they enjoy their stay in Canada lining MPs pockets with cash in exchange for political influence. As you can tell, I’m finding these turn of events extremely frustrating. We could have forward thinking legislation that actually takes the architect of the DMCA into consideration. He basically said that the DMCA was a fail- ure. Unfortunately, in the Canadian govern- ment, it seems that money speaks louder than Canadians or common sense. For this alone, I actually hope the government falls. Upside-Down According to Mitch Mitch Grant - Photo Editor The world watched as a country was con- trolled, and as over 3000 people were butch- ered. The world watches 20 years later as people are beaten, imprisoned, and shot. This included upwards of 10,000 monks acting as leaders and inspiration for their people, monks who by religious path try to elimin- ate craving and suffering. Burmese Buddhist Monks. Even now, a few weeks after the main protests have diminished — because the same thing happened that always happens, when people without guns stand against those who have guns — the populace fears that they will hear soldiers burst through the door at night to take them away, possibly to never be seen again. But where fear shows on their face like a mask they carry through life, anger and hatred swell within them as some have dared to show to those brave few reporters who still try to sneak into the country so that the world will not turn their back so that thousands more may be slaughtered again. Two weeks ago, my column concentrated on home, on Canada. I did this because I believe you must know yourself before you can do anything outside yourself. This, in my mind, is even more prevalent to nation states. Two weeks ago, Cody Willett, my fellow col- umnist, my co-worker, and our fearless leader here at Over the Edge, brought up the story of Myanmar. He covered the full aspect of it, from the reason for the protest and the lead- ers, both spiritual and political, of the protest, to the consequences for protesting. I plan to do the same thing this issue, only with slight- ly more emphasis on the monks’ actions, and why those actions are such an important state- ment. After the price of gas and diesel increased dramatically overnight in August (diesel by 500%), protestors took to the street in out- rage. For the second time in 20 years, protest- ors were asking for a change and an end in the Authoritarian Military Regime that rules My- anmar. This is the regime that lost the 1990 election to the National League for Dem- ocracy party, headed by Aung san Suu Kyi — who has spent most of the last two decades imprisoned within jails and her home — that was never allowed to form government. How- ever, the government would not back down or change, and so on September 26 and 27, sol- diers moved into the crowd armed, and spray- ing fire from automatic weapons, dispersed the protesters, reportedly killing only ten, but imprisoning and torturing up to a thousand more immediately to a few days after. These numbers include Burmese Buddhist monks who follow the Theravada path that focuses | on freedom from craving and suffering, and form approximately 10% (some 500,000) of the country’s total population, and this only includes those monks who spend their life at the pagodas, or “professional” monks, and not those who come for a few weeks at a time each year throughout the year, called laymen. This does not begin to scratch the surface of the effect of opening fire on, rounding up, and imprisoning the monks. In Burma (also known as Myanmar) some 80-90% of the country’s populace are Thera- vada Buddhist, and in some ways are more active in the practice of their beliefs then a large percentage of westemers who claim to be of the Christian faith. The monks do every- thing from performing marriages, to spiritual services and counselling within a community, to providing education for the country’s youth. While education is free in Burma, often par- ents cannot afford the extras that come along with school, and so they send their children to the temples to be taught by the monks. Also, parents may often send their children to the pagodas during school holidays. Often the Burmese people become monks because of financial hardship so that they may share the donations with their families; how- ever, they must past pass.religious testing and agree to adhere to over 220 restrictions. The monks themselves are not allowed to handle money and every full moon day, they are given donations such as robes. In this way the people of Burma earn spiritual credit of sorts for themselves and their families. High ranking military personnel often form the upper class in Burma, as seen in popu-. lar and controversial You Tube video casts of government head, and top General, Than Shwe’s daughter’s marriage, as she is draped in jewels and silks that even the Western World’s Elites would be jealous of. Because of this, many children join the military after receiving an education from the monks. Often in households, you have one son in active ser- vice — and in the case of the protests, on the trigger side of the crack down — and the other son in robes — on the muzzle side of the crack down. I hope this begins to shed light on why the monks refusing donations from, or services to, the military, or the family members of mil- itary personnel, and accompanying citizens in protest of the government, becomes such an important and powerful statement within Burma and emphasizes the situation there as much for you as it did for me when I first found all this out. After the governments response to the ral- lies, they placed a strict curfew from 9 pm to 5 am on the local populace, with soldiers active on the streets. At night, with “photographic” evidence, they would go to homes and temples and round up people to take them to prisons and labor camps, one of which is an old tech school where students marched from origin- ally in 1988 where monks and some women were being held. They also locked down the Internet, claiming that a transmission line was down, and banned foreign news services, making it a crime for the Burmese people to speak to them on penalty of imprisonment often accompanied by torture. Those journal- ists who managed to enter the country — often under assumed alias’ — at great personal risk, found a populace angry enough to override their fear and speak with them, risking torture to let the outside world know just how much they hated the current regime. Recently intermittent Internet access has been restored to the country and the curfew relaxed to 11pm to 3am as a response to UN Envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s trip to Burma. United States officials have used this as sign that further UN presence is needed to secure the population’s safety. The New Light of My- anmar newspaper, a mouth piece for the rul- ing junta regime, released a statement that cit- izens calling for UN intervention were traitors trying to hand the country over to aliens and that such traitors will “soon meet their tragic ends” [BBC.com]. Also on the 14th of Octo- ber, junta fourth in command, Prime Minister and General, Soe Win died of leukemia at 59 years of age. While I was watching CTV News Net one morning just over a week ago they were cov- ering this, and the following moming they had reporters interviewing some people who had fied Burma after the 1988 crack down due to fear. I will never forget one young man’s words from that morning. He wished that the free world, Canadians in particular (as he stood on the steps outside a prominent Canadian university), would realize that these people, his people, were risking their lives, dying and being tortured for freedom, for real democracy.