Back in the USSR – NY Times: Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html

Summary: NY Times ran a four page article today about how Russian Police are using alleged software piracy to shut down dissident advocacy groups like Baikal Environmental Wave which is protesting the reopening of a paper plant on Lake Baikal, the world’s oldest and deepest lake, estimated to hold 20% of the world’s freshwater.  The plant was closed due to heavy losses and environmentalist pressure; but with unemployment rising, Putin reopened the factory, which employs 2,000 people.

It is insinuated that Microsoft is collaborating with the police more than the letter of the law would require, essentially allowing the police to hide behind them and their lawyers when the police raid an activist group “looking for pirated software”.

The court battles drag on while the police hold the seized computers for months and harass individuals identified by search and seizure as supporters of the activist groups. By the time the charges are dropped or disproved the damage is done.  In the case of one Baikal activist, when her computer was returned 5 months later, it had been disabled by a virus.

Highlight Excerpts:

[The police] rarely if ever carry out raids against advocacy groups or news organizations that back the government.

Microsoft emphasized that it encouraged law enforcement agencies worldwide to investigate producers and suppliers of illegal software rather than consumers. Even so, it has not publicly criticized raids against small Russian advocacy groups.

The police immediately filed reports saying they had discovered [pirated software], before even examining the computers in detail.

…The Interior Ministry declared in an official document that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was begun “based on an application” from a lawyer for Microsoft.

The plainclothes officers who descended upon the Baikal Wave headquarters said they were from the division that investigated commercial crime. But the environmentalists said they noticed at least one officer from the antiextremism department, which tracks opposition activists and had often conducted surveillance on the group.

Baikal Wave’s leaders said they had known that the authorities used such raids to pressure advocacy groups, so they had made certain that all their software was legal. [During the raid, the activists produced] receipts and original Microsoft packaging to prove that the software was not pirated. … A supervising officer issued a report on the spot saying that illegal software had been uncovered. …Before the raid, the environmentalists said their computers were affixed with Microsoft’s “Certificate of Authenticity” stickers that attested to the software’s legality. But as the computers were being hauled away, they noticed …the stickers were gone.

Baikal Wave sent copies of its software receipts and other documentation to Microsoft’s Moscow office to show that it had purchased the software legally…[Requesting that] Microsoft …confirm the documents’ authenticity. Microsoft declined to do so.

[In another case] Ms. Denisova said the lawyer overestimated the value of the allegedly pirated software. As a result, the accusations were more serious. “The Microsoft lawyer was very active, coming to the court all the time, even though he was not summoned,” she said. “He also claimed that he was going to sue me…”

[In another case] Mr. Kurt-Adzhiyev, the editor of [ two dissident newspapers], said Microsoft’s lawyer in the case regularly appeared at court hearings to back prosecutors and the police. He said the lawyer testified that seized computers contained pirated software even though it was later shown that the computers had never been examined.

Re-Post: President Jimmy Carter’s Moral Equivalent of War Speech

Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html

Read the full text of President Carter’s 10 point plan for battling the energy crisis delivered in a televised speech on April 17, 1977. It will make you want to slap some people.

For those of you who don’t want to put in the time to read the full speech, here are the goals President Carder set for 1985:

–Reduce the annual growth rate in our energy demand to less than two percent.

–Reduce gasoline consumption by ten percent below its current level.

–Cut in half the portion of United States oil which is imported, from a potential level of 16 million barrels to six million barrels a day.

–Establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more than six months’ supply.

–Increase our coal production by about two thirds to more than 1 billion tons a year.

–Insulate 90 percent of American homes and all new buildings.

–Use solar energy in more than two and one-half million houses.

–Those who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury.

Wikipedia summarizes the speech and lists the 10 principles in a convenient bulleted format. It also informs us that “He asked people to cut oil imports to half by 1985, but oil imports doubled in the next 20 years instead.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Jimmy_Carter%27s_Moral_Equivalent_of_War_Speech

1/3 of the population of Jordan are Palestinian Refugees

HM Queen Rania of Jordan speaks to Yale about the urgency of establishing livable conditions in Palestine, both for humanitarian reasons, and political.  In her opinion it is vital that America participate in the peace effort to prevent further erosion of moderate muslim/arab populations and to win more trust and esteem in the eyes of the international community, who, she asserts, place higher importance on Isreal /Palestine conflict resolution than most Americans.

HM also has her own YouTube channel where she posts and hosts segments of frank dialog on Muslim/Arab controversies and misconceptions.