US-Made Censorware Used To Oppress Burma

An anonymous reader writes "The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that US-made censorware is being used to oppress the people in many countries, including Burma. That in itself may not be surprising, but a more interesting point is that according to lawyers interviewed by the CS Monitor it appears to be legal — in spite of all the economic sanctions against the country, and even though people know it will be used to hush up any mention of things like attacks on peaceful protesters."

Comments

This is news?

[scgops]

Seriously, why would this surprise anyone?

This just in, companies are legally selling the same Internet filtering software used by companies, libraries, etc., to Burma, and the government is using the software for its own purposes.

Websense, one of the Internet filtering "censorware" companies mentioned in the article, had a partnership in place with Cisco starting over a decade ago to integrate URL filtering into Cisco PIX firewalls. That's how far from new this concept is. Burma could have bought all the parts they need used on eBay.

Censorship and guns

[Askmum]

How is this different from countries oppressing people using US-made and -funded guns?

Re:Hmm?

[Ash Vince]

I have just read the current sanctions section of that link and notably absent is ANY restriction on the selling of arms to the goverment. It bans investment in the country but a simple sale of weaponary (even that which may be used to surpress the pro-democracy campaigners) where the profit all ends up in the hands of a US company seems to be fair play.

The fact is the the western governments (mine included, I am British) do not like banning the sale of arms to these sort of countries as it damages our economies and may cost us jobs. The only time we ban the sale of arms is when we fear they may be used against us, if they are just going to be used to surpress indiginous pupulations we generally don't mind.

If anyone wants to prove this to be incorrect then please be my guest. Post a quote from the document proving me wrong. Modding this post down as flamebait or troll does not contribute to this discussion in a positive way.