[FACT comments: PULO, a “banned” organisation in Thailand has always numbered as our favourite “terrorists”! The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1910 sold half of the Malay Kingdom of Patani to Britain to finance the building of a national rail link. PULO, now decades old, responded to the perfect target: They gave plenty of warning, blew up the train tracks and there were never any casualties. Unlike Thailand’s South today! Thai government “banned” PULO and refused to negotiate any compromise, in effect exiling Thai Muslims from democratic process. Thousands of lives could have been saved if Thai government behaved in an honourable fashion 40 (yes, FORTY!) years ago. Even PULO's appeals to the United Nations have been blocked by Thailand so it remains to be seen if PULO will really participate.]
SOUTH CRISIS
Pulo welcomes government policy for deep South
The Nation: January 23, 2009
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/01/24/national/national_30094084.php
A long -standing Malay-Muslim separatist group said on Saturday it welcomed the Thai government’s policy for the Muslim-majority south, saying it “represents a genuine step towards reform and change in the region”.
In a statement sent to The Nation, Kasturi Mahkota, the foreign affairs chief of the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) said the policy “could lay the foundations for a political settlement of the conflict.”
Moreover, according to the statement, representatives of the Patani Malay Movement, a loose coalition of separatist leaders, have “agreed to form a special body to engage in dialogue with Thai government representatives”.
“It is our hope that after long years of struggle, which has cost the lives of many innocent people in the region that at long last there can be a sustained process of dialogue based on principles of democracy, openness and sincerity,” the statement said.
Kasturi did not go into details as to which organisations are included in the Patani Malay Movement, which he described as a “new front but still in the process”.
But sources familiar with the separatist leaders in exile said the coalition will made up of long standing separatists groups who have been holding secret dialogues with Thai officials and mediators over this past three years.
Other observers familiar with the separatist movements said they were not optimistic with the idea that a new front being formed, saying many of these groups had tried two decades to come together under the banner of Bersatu but failed to make much headway as member organisations were reluctant to make serious concession for the sake of unity.
With regard to Pulo’s future, Kasturi said the organisation is in the process of selecting a new leader to replace the late Pulo founder, Tengku Bira Kotonila, who passed away in June 2008. No date was given as to when the new leader will be selected.
Tengku Biro founded Pulo in 1968 while studying at the Aligarh Muslim University in India.
Pulo has consistently called for independence for the Malays’ historical homeland in the southernmost border region of Thailand. But over the past recent years after entering into secret dialogue with Thai representatives, the group has lowered its demand and opted for something less then full independence.
Political Prisoners in Thailand
26-01-09
[FACT welcomes the newest group to oppose Thailand's repression of all dissent.]
Political Prisoners in Thailand
January 21, 2009
http://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/
Political Prisoners in Thailand is dedicated to those who are held in Thailand’s prisons, charged with political crimes. It also seeks to raise the cases of those who are accused of political crimes. Our focus is the contemporary period where political cases revolve around the use of Thailand’s lèse majesté law.
The authors of this blog are friends of Thailand who oppose the jailing of opponents for political reasons and who support free speech. Because this blog will include material that would be banned in Thailand, we choose to remain anonymous.
While the blog does not function with comments, we welcome serious additions to Political Prisoners in Thailand. This can only be done by emailing thaipoliticalprisoners@gmail.com and including your comments. Comments sent to us may be used on the blog. They will be moderated and may be edited prior to posting.
Background
Thailand has had a checkered political history since its first steps towards democratic forms of government in 1932, when the absolute monarchy was overthrown. Since that time, there have been numerous cases of politically motivated arrests, jailings and murders.
Today, as Thailand’s politics has become more vigorous and divided, arrests and imprisoning through accusations of lèse majesté have become increasingly common. Lèse majesté is used by governments and political figures to denounce opponents. We are deepening concerned and alarmed regarding the political uses of lèse majesté in Thailand.
Specifically, we are deeply troubled by the vigorous pursuit of lèse majesté cases by the recently constituted Democrat Party-led coalition government. While the lèse majesté law has been criticized for many years as “draconian,” the Democrat Party proposes to further strengthen the law and accelerate on-going investigations and prosecutions of those accused of lèse majesté. In recent weeks, the Democrat-led government has indeed expanded its vigilance, blocked thousands of web pages it considers offensive to the monarchy and presided over new charges and arrests. Currently, the police claim that there are 17 active cases [FACT: 34], dozens more accusations and, sadly, at least four persons remain in jail following lèse majesté charges or convictions.
The persons involved – accused, charged and sentenced – are journalists, bloggers, academics, authors and political and social activists, both Thai and foreign. Some of those charged have been denied bail and remain in prison for several months.
It is troubling that the current government, while pronouncing that it favors a free press, political reconciliation and liberalism, appears determined to crack down on those it considers are, in its terms, threatening national security by criticizing the monarchy.
Various Thai governments make the point that the monarchy should be untouchable as it is universally admired and revered by all Thais. Clearly, given the need to expand vigilance regarding lèse majesté and the Democrats own view that there are now 10,000 offending web pages and that they are expanding exponentially, this claim of universal reverence cannot carry weight. Recent political events and comments on Thai-language blogs appear to confirm this.
For us, the actions of the Democrat-led government suggest a further politicization of the lèse majesté law. In this context, we wish to shine an international light on the political use of lèse majesté by the government in Thailand. International scrutiny of these cases is urgently required to ensure the protection of human rights and freedom of expression.
Support all prisoners-325 Collective
26-01-09
[FACT comments: This astute and heartfelt article was written by a British prisoner not just for himself but in support of all prisoners. In every society, prisoners form the poorest, most marginalised and forgotten citizens. All prisoners are political prisoners.]
Solidarity Without Prejudice
John Bowden
325 Collective: January 2009
http://325collective.com/prisons_john-jan09.html
Should a decision to politically support and build campaigns on behalf of particular prisoners who are engaged in a struggle against the prison system be wholly contingent upon the type of offence that preceded their imprisonment? Are some prisoners, no matter how politicised they’ve become whilst in prison and committed to the struggle, unworthy and undeserving of support because of lifestyles, forms of behaviour and criminal activity engaged in prior to arrest and imprisonment?
When it comes to supporting the struggle of “social” prisoners or those imprisoned for offences other than the overtly political (although it could be argued that in a capitalist system where the overwhelming majority of those sent to jail are inevitably from the poorest and most disadvantaged sections of society, all prisoners are in some way political) is it okay to support those who are originally convicted of, say, crimes against property but definitely not those jailed for crimes like murder, extortion and even rape? Are some prisoners on account of the crimes that put them in prison so irredeemably beyond the pale that absolutely nothing they subsequently do or become can ever qualify them as worthy of political support and solidarity? On this issue should we bury our differences with the police, judiciary and capitalist media and concur with their endlessly propagated view that some individuals convicted and sent to jail for seriously violent behaviour and the most “wicked acts” should be forever demonised, despised and permanently excluded from the human race?
Most prisoners in fact first enter jail for offences and forms of behaviour almost wholly associated with a life time experience of poverty, disadvantage and abuse, and are for the most part products and casualties of a grossly unequal and class ridden society. Obviously some people find their way into jail because of behaviour that was criminally entrepreneurial (the “career criminal”) and violently predatory, but these are a small minority of the overall prisoner population, and in the case of the “career criminal”, especially, the least likely to jeopardize early release by becoming politically active in prison or being associated with politically radical groups on the outside. The fact is that the prisoners more likely to become involved in confrontation and conflict with the prison system are those initially imprisoned for chaotically violent and rage-fuelled offences.
The revolutionary black American prisoner George Jackson once wrote in a letter to a friend – “I was captured and brought to prison when I was 18 years old because I couldn’t adjust. The record that the state has compiled on my activities reads like a record of ten men. It labels me brigand, thief, burglar, hobo, drug addict, gunman, and murderer.” Jackson of course was transformed by his experience of imprisonment into a politically conscious prisoner leader and dedicated member of the Black Panther Party before being murdered by guards at San Quentin prison in 1971.
Amongst prisoners themselves the diversity of offences that initially landed them together in jail is quickly subsumed in a common experience of repression and collective adversity, and apart from the traditional hatred of serious sex offenders, prisoners are completely non-judgemental of one another’s crimes and bond quickly in a common struggle for survival. Brotherhood and sisterhood amongst prisoners that organise and fight back is a real imperative and heart felt dynamic. Possibly in the enclosed world of prison populated by what ordinary society considers outlaws and law breakers and guarded over by individuals often prepared to brutalise, maim and occasionally murder in the interests of absolute control, “normal” values of behaviour and morality become inverted and corrupted; or maybe in conditions of extreme repression, struggle and survival, what originally put a person in jail matters nothing compared to the infinitely more important need to stick together and collectively resist a system that treats them all as something not fully human and undeserving of basic human rights.
Inevitably, there is conflict and division amongst prisoners that is often fostered by the guards for the purpose of exerting greater control, and some prisoners enter into a complicity with their jailers which creates a diffused suspicion hindering trust and solidarity, but during moments of collective and open rebellion the most natural and powerful tendency amongst prisoners is to band together and develop a new relationship, whoever and whatever they may have been during their moments of freedom.
Political activists on the outside who feel dubious about showing support for prisoners because of their original crime should maybe consider this: when prisoners revolt and fight back they are subjected to the cruelest and most vicious repression because isolated and stigmatised by the state and deionised by the media, conditioned and manipulated “public opinion” largely endorses the behaviour of the prison system when it brutalises prisoners back into line. Refusing to recognize and support the struggle of prisoners purely because of their pre-prison lives is tantamount to taking the side of the system against them and suggesting they get all they deserve; it also suggests ingrained middle class prejudice and fear of working class folk devils and tacit recognition of the legitimacy of the prison system.
That some prisoners, no matter how brutalised and brutalising they might have been before their imprisonment are radically changed as people by the experience of prison and sometimes embrace revolutionary politics to their very core is undoubtedly true. Yet to deny such prisoners any recognition and support when they politically fight back is also to deny the possibility of profound change in such people as a result of struggle. In fact, prison can and often is a crucible for radical change and a deep politicisation of some prisoners, and as in all areas and places of extreme oppression and resistance prisons by their very nature do produce revolutionaries and individuals who single-mindedly fight back. In the U.S. radical black groups, like the Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army, were actively and theoretically guided by prisoners and ex-prisoners; George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X etc., were all radicalised in prison following conviction for crimes such as robbery, rape, drug dealing, pimping and serious violence.
It is easy for those who have never experienced extreme poverty and discrimination, never experienced imprisonment and the inhuman brutalisation that takes place there, to be moral purists about the behaviour of people that have it’s a middle class inclination and attitude based on ignorance, arrogance and a distaste of the poor, and it pervades the characters of some individuals who claim to retain not a trace of their middle class conditioning, like some “anarchists”.
Obviously prison isn’t full of nice people and there are individuals on both sides of the divide in jail, both guards and prisoners, who are so seriously de-humanised by the system. It’s difficult to imagine them living safely amongst ordinary people in the community; although whether prison as an institution, the chief cause of their de-humanisation, should exist to constrain them is another issue. The issue here is that by its very context and the nature of the environment struggles that take place in prison will be represented, instigated and organised by people originally sent to jail for often the most destructive and violent forms of behaviour, that’s what initially put them there and it’s what the state uses to justify its brutalisation of them for ever afterwards. The organisers and leaders of most major uprisings in the U.K. during the 1960s, 70s and 80s were all people that the state and media described as “psychopaths”, “terrorists”, “gangsters” and “murders”, individuals that some strictly principled anarchists would no doubt deem unworthy of any expression of support and solidarity.
In prison, as in all places where repression is extremely sharp edged and survival hard, struggle is not an abstract concept or idea, it is a basic necessity of existence and an all important imperative of surviving with dignity and integrity, and it informs one’s instincts about, above and beyond everything else, who the true enemy is.
Real prisoner support, if it means anything, is about expressing the same instinct and supporting all those on the inside who are fighting the common enemy.
John Bowden 6729, HM Prison Glenochil, King OMuir Road, Tullibody, Scotland FK10 3AD
[FACT comments: Most countries don’t treat prisoners much better than Thailand. Do we have any humanity left? Free Ronnie!]
Prison Struggle
Ronnie Easterbrook – “Britain’s oldest political prisoner” – on Death Fast
325 Collective: December 2008
http://325collective.com/prisons_ronnie-dec08.html
Ronnie Easterbrook, from South London, was convicted in 1988 of the attempted murder of a policeman during an armed robbery that was set up by the police and in which the only person who died was his fellow would-be robber who was shot dead by the police. Through information from an informant, Police had lain in wait, with a TV camera crew in-tow and ambushed the gang. The man shot dead by the Police, Tony Ash, was unarmed and already surrendering to them.
Ronnie has campaigned relentlessly since then for his conviction to be overturned, refusing to become involved in applications for parole or early release. He had wanted to mount a political defence at his trial, arguing that the infamous ‘shoot to kill’ policy adopted by the British state in Northern Ireland had now been taken up by the Met. Police in pursuit of criminal gangs. However his barrister at the time refused to follow his instructions and Ronnie himself refused a prosecution deal, so he was forced to defend himself in court, without legal representation. Handed down a Life sentence (originally with a whole-life tariff, itself highly unusual given the circumstances of his case), Ronnie held one of the longest dirty protests in the British prison system and undertook a 60 day hunger strike 10 years ago to try to force the authorities to review his case.
Now at 78 years old this hunger strike, after 20 years fighting the system, is likely to be his final act of resistance to the unfair trial and unjust treatment he has received. Physically weakened by previous protests and in ill health (he only has one lung), Ronnie has made an advance directive/living will to refuse any medical intervention in this hunger strike. He writes:
“Many will say: ‘ Well he is only a criminal.’ True but if the protective aspects of the law do not apply to me, it follows that there is no law. Hitler started by excluding sections of the German populations from protection of the law. State evil can always find ‘reasons’ disguised as righteousness. “After 20 years inside, I have been held a political prisoner, or a prisoner of politics. I refuse to go through a parole process. Why should I when the authorities, Home Office and Judiciary, know they are holding me illegally?”
It’s vital that all efforts are made to get the authorities to re-open Ronnie’s case so the callous indifference shown by the powerful to one of the powerless is reversed.
Write to him at:
Ronnie Easterbrook (B58459),
HMP Gartree
, Gallow Field Road,
Market Harborough,
Leicestershire
LE16 7RP
Jacqui Smith, MP , Secretary of State for the Home Office, 3rd Floor, Peel Buildings, 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF Fax: 020 8760 3132 e-mail: smithjj@parliament.uk
Also to local MP for Market Harborough;
Edward Garnier QC MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
e-mail: garniere@parliament.uk
Tel: 020 7219 4034 or 020 7219 6524 Fax: 020 7219 2875
[FACT comments: Magic number, eh? But look at it another way: Thai bureaucrats want you to believe there are 10,000 people in the world who have created Web content insulting the King! This is delusional and self-serving. Magic numbers are just that: magic not reality. This figure ranks with Thaksin’s intention to block 800,000 websites.]
Thai government says 10,000 websites have lese majeste messages
Southeast Asian Press Alliance: January 20, 2009
http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=950
Thailand’s Justice Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga said on 19 January that websites containing information considered as lese majeste are increasing, media reports said.
The “Bangkok Post” quoted Pirapan as saying that more than 10,000 such websites have contents that allegedly insult the Thai royal family.
Lese majeste is a criminal offense in Thailand.
This development came on the heels of the recent blocking of websites said to have defamatory remarks against Thailand’s revered monarch and members of his family.
Early this month, Information and Communication (ICT) Minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee said the government has blocked 2,300 websites for allegedly insulting the country’s monarchy, with 400 more awaiting a court order to restrict them.
Meanwhile, a Thai court sentenced an Australian author on January 19 to three years’ imprisonment for insulting a member of the royal family.
“Verisimilitude”, a novel written by Harry Nicolaides, allegedly made critical remarks against Thailand’s crown prince. Nicolaides was arrested in August last year.
Justice Minister and lese-majeste : “freedom of speech is like your shoes at the airport”
Thailand Crisis: January 14, 2009
We know that the new government vows to make lese-majeste a top priority.
It has been said by the IT Minister, Abhisit the Prime Minister, and the Justice Minister. It has been said in the Thai media and in the international press too.
So this campaign is more than a “local one”. And this is is precisely why it’s dangerous.
The Thai government is apparently not afraid to ridicule itself on the international scene with this obsessive compulsive political disorder. And to multiply the cases (for instance, there is a third (!!!) pending case against J.Head, the BBC journalist, plus a new case against Giles, the thai academics).
Thailand’s new justice minister vowed yesterday to toughen controversial laws protecting the monarchy and crack down on unprecedented levels of criticism of the palace stemming from recent political turmoil.
Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, a former judge, said protecting the nation’s “most revered institution” was his top priority, adding that he would enlist the help of the army to suppress alleged anti-royal activities.
“In Thailand, the monarchy is not only a symbolic institution. It is the pillar of national security,” he said in an interview. “Whatever is deemed as affecting the monarchy must be treated as a threat to national security,” said Pirapan, who has a US Masters degree in law. [...]
The administration has already announced plans to add 400 Web pages to 2,300 already blocked for lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy, a crime that carries up to 15 years in prison in Thailand, where many regard the king as semi-divine.
Freedom of speech is enshrined in the constitution but Pirapan said that did not mean criticism of the monarchy amounting to a threat to national security would be tolerated. “When you visit the United States, your rights have been infringed when you have to take your shoes or your belt off for an airport security check. That is done for the sake of national security,” Pirapan said.
“In Thailand, your freedom of speech might have to be compromised for the sake of national security,” he said. (Reuters)
To my knowledge, it’s the first time a direct link is made between the monarchy and “national security“. It’s a very interesting conceptual development.
But it’s astonishing to see the Justice Minister, with a so called US master degree in law, making such comments.
Thai politicians are fascinated by rethoric and other syllogisms. They believe it’s powerful enough to subdue the masses.
Even a high-schooler could answer Pirapan that it’s an intellectual fraud to put on the same level freedom of speech and the fact of removing shoes for airport security screening !
It’s by essence a false comparison.
When the public debate reaches such low levels, then I think all hope is gone.
[FACT: The single comment on this article is worth considering]:
Tying lese majeste to national security will enable whitewashing the actions of the PAD, i.e., while the PAD’s actions were illegal, since they were committed for the sake of national security, this motive trumps other considerations. In other words, they did the wrong things for the right reasons and therefore should be granted amnesty. By the same token, those who call for a review of lese majeste are threats to national security and should be punished.
ICT censor’s strategy-Bangkok Post
26-01-09
HOME REVIEW
Ranongruk runs amok
Bangkok Post Database: January 21, 2009
http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/techscoop/10141/ranongruk-runs-amok
Last-minute substitute Information and Communications Technology Minister Ranongruk Suwunchwee bragged she had details of hundreds of new web sites to add to the 2,300 secret court orders already blocking links to lese majeste, links to those links, discussion of the links, etc; Mrs Ranongruk, who didn’t measure up to the prime minister’s qualifications as commerce minister, explained she had a 45 million baht ICT “war room” where her gnomes surf the web 24/7 looking for violators; she warned her counterparts at the justice, interior and defence ministries that they had better step up their efforts against all that lese majeste that is going on, lest someone accuse them of lacking loyalty; the minister’s policy statement lacked any mention of education, promoting knowledge or help to bring information technology to more people.
Not to be outdone by some rookie Thai censor, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies announced it will crackdown immediately on Google, Baidu and similar immoral, illegal and corrupting web sites that have links to pr0n and to “other material that could corrupt young people,” like factual news and fair comment on China such as melamine milk and police torture of political activists; censors found 91 pr0n sites and put them behind the great firewall of China.
Political Repression in Thailand – Parts 1 & 2
The Real News Network: January 19/20, 2009
Full interview: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3122
Giles ji Ungpakorn faces ‘Lese Majeste’ (insulting the king) charges, could mean up to 15 years in prison.
In the first part of a two-part interview, The Real News spoke to Giles Ji Ungpakorn about the Lese Majeste charges he faces as a result of his book ”A Coup For The Rich” and the precarious political climate in Thailand.
“It is basically a secret trial, and people are jailed and then forgotten about,” says Ungpakorn. In his book, Ungpakorn accused the military of using the monarchy to defend an illegitimate coup.
The 2006 coup’s supporters, he argues, have “contempt for the poor”: they believe “the vast majority of the Thai electorate don’t deserve the right to vote.”
“There’s a long history in Thailand of Lese Majeste being used against political opponents of various groups,” he says.
Ungpakorn argues this myth of the colossal power of Thailand’s king is used to “frighten dissidents,” but believes there could be a serious backlash to the monarchy’s silence in the face of the military coup.
-
Political Repression in Thailand Part 2
Political Professor and Author Giles ji Ungpakorn faces up to fifteen years in prison for “lese majeste” or insulting the King. His latest book is called “A Coup For The Rich” He presents the historical background for Thailand’s current political crisis.
Ungpakorn, a member of the Thai socialist group called “Turn Left” links his government’s neo-liberal economic policies to political repression in Thailand. Historically he outlines the strong influence the United States has had on Thailand’s military and ruling elite greatly affecting the country’s economy and politics. The current economic crisis he says really started with the market failure in 1997. “Neo-liberal policies opened up our markets to hot, quick, money that sent the economy into a free fall”.
The populist government at that time attempted to win support by helping the poor. This angered the ruling elite and resulted in a military coup that put the current government in power, once again implementing the same neo-liberal policies that sidetracked the economy in the past. The poor people in Thailand once again want social assistance and job protection.
Mr. Ungpakorn’s book “A Coup For The Rich” outlines the position of the two sides in Thailand’s civil unrest. Government supporters who wear Yellow Shirts are opposed by the underprivileged wearing Red Shirts.
In his effort to promote free speech and transparency in the courts, Ungpakorn is charged with insulting the Monarchy that is surprising silent on this case. With the mass media in support of the government, Ungpakorn says the current state of affairs “totally depends on how the government handles the current economic crisis.”
Extraterritorial Application
Bangkok Pundit: January 22, 2009
http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/extraterritorial-application.html
The Age:
Minister counsellor at the Thai Embassy in Canberra, Saksee Phromyothi, said the law was in place because under Thailand’s constitution the king was above politics and could not publicly defend himself from personal attacks.
The king himself did not support the law, he said.
“This law applies to everyone – Thai citizens and foreigners, as long as they are residing in the territories of Thailand. This law doesn’t apply to anyone outside Thailand,” he said.
“Usually, I am not sure about the percentage, but I would say 99 per cent of foreigners convicted under this law get pardoned and then we deport them.
BP: Actually, the law can apply to anyone, anywhere in the world. As blogged in 2007:
3 Extraterritorial Application?
A person does not have to be within the country’s physical border for a country’s law to apply to them. If the court has been conferred jurisdiction by legislation, the law will apply to that person. A court’s jurisdiction can extend beyond its borders this is known as extraterritorial jurisdiction. [22]. The Thai Criminal Code has extra-territorial jurisdiction as specified in sections 7 and sections 8. Section 7 (1) provides that person who commits national security offences, sections 107-129, outside of the Kingdom can be prosecuted in the Kingdom. Lese majeste law is a national security offence [section 112]. Section 8 further requires that an aggrieved person (more accurately a person who has suffered loss which for the purpose of lese majeste could be anyone) or the Thai government must request justice.
BP: Most countries wouldn’t extradite one of their citizens to Thailand, but you were to transit in Thailand or travel to Thailand then you are not exempt for the law. Practically, it will be difficult to bring many cases, but this doesn’t mean a case cannot be brought. Actually, there was talk of whether Thaksin had committed lese majeste after his phone-in in November and he was out of the country at the time.
What Happens When You Jail Someone For Three Years?
Bangkok Pundit: January 20, 2009
http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-happens-when-you-jail-someone-for.html
So Harry has been given three years. The result? The Streisand effect as described as Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect:
The Streisand effect is a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized. Examples of such attempts include censoring a photograph, a number, a file, or a website (for example via a cease-and-desist letter). Instead of being suppressed, the information quickly receives extensive publicity, often being widely mirrored across the Internet, or distributed on file-sharing networks.
[1][2] Mike Masnick said he jokingly coined the term in January 2005 “to describe [this] increasingly common phenomenon”,
[3] the name being taken from a 2003 incident in which the singer Barbra Streisand attempted to use legal process to preserve her privacy, only to see the matter become far more prominent as a result
BP: A scanned copy of the book is now available online. Alert The Manager! So when will Boing Boing be blocked?
