stand on chair, glimpse Near Future, bend over

This is where Vleeptron came in. Vleeptron is approaching its First Birthday, and one of its very first posts was the obituary of Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International, Benenson was a London barrister who became outraged when he read in the newspaper that Portugal's Salazar dictatorship arrested two students for drinking a toast to Liberty, and tossed them in prison for seven years.

Now when a Toast to Liberty is in a blog or in an e-mail, the Chinese government, with the help of the American-based, American-founded computer infrastructure giants Yahoo and Microsoft, uses software to sift through the datastream and search for the word Democracy (in English or Chinese or in any language). The message is either censored or its sender is automatically reported to Government Authorities.

In the world of the future, we won't just have to worry about government agents and neighborhood spies going through our snailmail and our trash. Whenever we press [SEND], every word we send will be automatically scrutinized by Robots.

Who never sleep.

Who never give a citizen a break.

A piece of Software can never choose to hide a labor activist's or a homosexual's or a Jew's or a Rom Gypsy's whereabouts from the SS.

A piece of Software can never choose Not To Tell the organs of state security where a Chinese dissident is e-mailing from. Software has No Conscience.

And neither do the Humans who are the CEOs of Microsoft and Yahoo, desperate to get their cut of the vast Chinese market.

Yahoo's American co-founder Jerry Yang admitted publicly that Yahoo gave e-mail origin data to the Chinese government in this case:

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The journalist, Shi Tao, was sentenced last spring to 10 years in prison for sending foreign-based Web sites a copy of a message from Chinese authorities warning domestic journalists about reporting on sensitive issues [upcoming anniversary of Tienamen Square massacre], according to a translation of the verdict disseminated by the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.

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As the world's Thought Prisons fill up, the government Robots will never have the possibility of feeling remorse or shame for what they have helped totalitarian closed societies do. This is a Great Leap Forward for totalitarian, repressive societies.

Salazar and his PIDE secret police would be impressed, envious. This is a future that gives the world's cruelest dictators and juntas a reason to want to keep on living. With Yahoo and Microsoft's Help, they can Win This Future. Just like the Third Reich did its systematic human business with the automated digital infrastructure help of IBM / International Business Machines.

Soon, in Cyberspace, with the help of the American infrastructure behemoths, there will be no Emergency Entrance.

In the USA, the Bush administration has been aggressively defending its "right" to wiretap and eavesdrop on Americans without first going to a federal judge for a warrant. What has Homeland Security and the National Security Agency been asking the private computer and telecommunications infrastructure companies to help with? How transparent are corporate e-mail providers to government scrutiny?

Ten years from now, or just five years from now under the post-911 political Patriot Act hysteria, will there be much of a difference -- from a Citizen's point of view -- between Chinese Cyberspace and American Cyberspace? And who will have helped repressive American administrations and organs of state security morph American Cyberspace into the Chinese Cyberspace model?

What can we do? What can we do? To compete successfully in the global telecommunications marketplace, we must cooperate with the requests or rules or demands of our host governments! We have no choice! We can't even object or complain or publicly criticize the government's repressive demands, or we won't be allowed to do business there. Another more cooperative infrastructure giant, from Europe or Asia, will take our place. We will get Bangalored.

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

-- Lewis Carroll
"The Walrus and the Carpenter"