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YouTube Video Sends Guatemala Into Crisis
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri May 15, 2009 05:26 PM
from the you-missed-a-copy dept.
from the you-missed-a-copy dept.
Several have sent word that a YouTube video of recently assassinated lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg has sent Guatemala into a tailspin. The video of Rosenberg claims that if you are watching, he has been murdered by President Alvaro Colom with help from presidential secretary Gustavo Alejos. "The video spread across the Internet after family members handed it out during Rosenberg's funeral on Monday. In the 18-minute tape, a seemingly calm Rosenberg, sitting behind a desk and microphone, alleges that Colom, the First Lady and two associates were involved in murder, corruption and money laundering. The group, he says, filtered public funds through a state-owned bank for personal gain and to finance drug traffickers. Rosenberg then claims that after Khalil Musa, a prominent businessman and bank board member, had learned of the Coloms' scheme, Musa and his daughter were shot to death in front of a shopping center in April. Rosenberg says the President signed off on the killings."
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The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-Internet:
President Alvaro Colom: They passed out a tape at his funeral? Quick get me a list of everyone at the funeral, I want them all in custody and tortured until we have every single one of those tapes!
Gustavo Alejos: Yes, sir
President Alvaro Colom: Ahahahh, Gustavo, so naive. I suppose I'll have to make a phone call to the director of our postal system. He'll be quite cooperative with a little bonus this year
Post-Internet:
President Alvaro Colom: They passed out a tape at his funeral? Quick get me a list of everyone at the funeral, I want them all in custody and tortured until we have every single one of those tapes!
Gustavo Alejos: Yeah
President Alvaro Colom: The internet?
Gustavo Alejos: Yeah
President Alvaro Colom: Very well, torture them until they take it down!
Gustavo Alejos: Uh, it's on YouTube. Everyone's seen it.
President Alvaro Colom: So
*Gustavo Alejos shakes his head back and forth*
Gustavo Alejos: No, I think the order you are looking for right now is 'Prepare my escape helicopter and fake passport for Colombia.' The noise outside right now with the thousands of people yelling for your death is bad.
President Alvaro Colom: What did I do wrong, I was only trying to live up to Oscar Humberto Mejia's legacy [wikipedia.org]!
How can you argue against something that makes it more difficult for asshat dictators to remain in power?
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are all the people clambering for censorship when the internet is used for something good?
How can you argue against something that makes it more difficult for asshat dictators to remain in power?
They are naive enough to believe that only "bad" things will be censored. They seem unable to grasp that everyone's definitions for bad aren't the same and they don't realize that by enabling censorship they are putting the controls into the hands of those with most to gain through censorship. Its almost as if they believe that power doesn't corrupt, it purifies.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Very few people are that naive. Most people, most people are completely in favour of censorship because it would stop videos like this one from being disseminated.
The sad reality is that the majority of humans on planet earth are perfectly happy to live under a dictatorship of some kind. They support any measure that will make society more closely resemble a police state or one party state. It is not the case that people do not understand the consequences of supporting government surveillance, censorship, draconianism, etc. They understand perfectly well, and that's the reason they support it.
Some people want to live in a free society with rights for all. But sadly most people want to live in rigid , closed and unfree society with rights only for the right people, and are perfectly contented when they find themselves in one.
The internet genie is being put back in the bottle. Ironically, the main effect of this video will likely be to accelerate this process across the globe, particularly in Latin America.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:4, Insightful)
[citation needed [deepjiveinterests.com]]
Or in other words: I call total bullshit on your assumption.
Parent
Re:child pornography is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Child pornography is inherently offensive, which only limits its public display. It is not inherently dangerous, nor is it inherently harmful. It is evidence of a felony. Nothing more, nothing less. Would you say that a picture of an axe murderer's bloody implements warrants the same censoring? What about a picture of rape? A picture of a businessman hiring a hooker? Or that same businessman's expense account summaries, displaying his money laundering? Where the fucking hell is the line?
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Re:child pornography is bad (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you're right -- it is nothing like video games. It's more like illegal drugs. The market exists and will always exist, and outlawing it doesn't reduce demand so much as it does drive up the price and makes it more profitable to produce for those who aren't detered, if in fact they're doing it for the money.
Parent
do you take your trash out on thursdays? (Score:4, Insightful)
well, stop
see, you'll never stop creating trash. you're never going to win the war on trash. its always going to accumulate, no matter what you do. so you should let the trash sit in your room and fester, and live in it
going after hardcore addictive drugs (not marijuana, that should be legal), or going after child porn, or going after terrorists, are not wars that ever will be won, ever. its simply a maintenance function, like taking ou the trash every week
there will always exist child porn, highly addictive drugs, and terrorists. but you fight these things anyway, simply to MINIMIZE their existence and the damage they do, and simply because you have a human conscience and a sense of simple human justice that innocent human lives are being destroyed by these things (or, rather, you SHOULD have that human conscience)
Parent
Re:child pornography is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
censoring child pornography is nothing remotely like censoring political speech
and if country A censors child pornography, while country B censors political speech, they are not anywhere near comparable
How many times do we have to go through the reality that Internet censorship filters are improperly and often irresponsibly implemented, even to the point of showing a political slant. From their use in US schools, to the nation-wide Aussie plan that was recently discussed so much, we have seen again and again that tools like blacklists make the issues of A and B closer than we'd like.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please do me a favor and define child porn for me. I mean really define it. At what age is consent possible? Really at that age? That age is (insert arbitrary rhetoric here) too old/young by any standard. You should definitely raise/lower it.
absolutely 100% true about jenna jameson (Score:4, Insightful)
and not in any way a refutation of anything i said. so now you are just changing the subject
grey areas exist about what is child porn and what is not. duh
so now you are saying that just because grey areas exist in this world, that means there is no such thing as obviously vile and disgusting dark areas? that everyone agrees is wrong and should be punished?
say: an 8 year old in guatemala lured into a car with candy, and locked in a basement room and repeatedly abused. does this happen in this world or not? should it be punished in your mind or not? why did it happen? because a bunch of pedophiles desired this content be created for their consumption on their monitors? is this connection between demand and supply real or not?
wake up
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Funny)
Where are all the people clambering[sic] for straw man arguments?
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Because power corrupts, and even in Western democracies like Britain the ruling party Labour have been pushing more and more of a totalitarian agenda over the last few years.
Labour in the UK is in ruins, the party is done, it has no hope now of re-election, yet the leader, Gordon Brown continues, he continues blindly believing in his own mind that he is doing the right thing not being willing to step down.
It's for this reason that they are against it, because the reality is that they know, eventually, it will be used against them as it goes against what they themselves want - more power, despite being corrupt to the core as the last week in British politics has shown.
Leaders who remain good throughout their entire term in office are rare- we've seen it happen in Canada with the corruption in their previous ruling party, we've seen it happen in the US under Bush, although from pretty early on, we've seen it in Australia. It happens time and time again - the longer a single leader or party is in power, the more complacent they get, and the more they forget they're there to serve the people, not control them.
I believe this is why the European courts have done a better job at preventing Labour's attempts at ever more draconian measures to control the population- because the European court of human rights has no direct explicit power over each individual country in the EU and the lack of any direct explicit power means their is less scope for them to become drunk with power.
It's also why I'm a big fan of minority governments, there's an argument it makes them more efficient, but I believe it realistically increase efficiency because such a minority government is kept on it's toes, it's being constantly reminded of what it's there for, and if it forgets that a coalition of opposition parties will remind it by forcing an election. The only laws that get passed are laws acceptable to all parties, rather than as we have in the UK and as the US had for many years under Bush - a situation where they can implement any policy changes they want regardless of what the population or opposition thinks of it. I believe that leadership terms should be shortened to 2 to 3 years to more frequently remind those in power that they can be removed and removed at any moment.
It is a dangerous situation in the likes of Venezuelan where the people have been dumb enough to allow Chavez to stand indefinitely and in Russia where Putin appears to be gaming the system to continue controlling the nation well past his constitutionally allowed maximum term. If history has taught us anything, it is allowing leaders this much power for this long without challenge that has allowed many of the cruelest dictators throughout history to achieve power and maintain it until it was finally lost nearly always through bloodshed.
I believe many politicians become politicians because they are phsycologically inclined towards a thirst for power in the first place, not that they're necessarily competent or intelligent and want to make a specific country better.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Um. Can you list an example of how this case is like another? In which the "censorship" (although, I think you and others are misusing that word) was demanded?
So you are saying you don't know of anyone that wants the internet censored to protect their children from porn and swear words and terrorists?
I'm a bit confused, I seem to encounter these people daily in real life and the news. And that's just in the United States! Around the world, people are passively letting their government take this role.
85% of Chinese reportedly desire it [slashdot.org]. "Elected" governments keep [slashdot.org] pushing [slashdot.org] for it. Talk about a trap.
If we gave our government the right to censor our internet then it would be no surprise to see any other country follow suit. If the Guatemalan government had the legal right to control their content on the internet, well, I think you can see how this story might have been different. Restrict your people's ability to upload videos without them passing censorship!
I see this as a brilliant example why the internet must remain a horrible offensive waste of time instead of a government regulated squeaky clean educatin' machine. But I'm sure I'm part of the minority because people don't realize how powerful it is. It just saved Guatemala from being led by a murderer. Think about that.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Interesting)
In México, last wensday the electoral institute called for a takedown of a Youtube video that criticizes a governor.
It was ultimatly taken down by DMCA notice from EMI since the video contained a song owned by them.
Im trying to build up some noise arround this cause im sick and fucking tired of people just not caring.
Im going to take this one to the last consequences, so help me god.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
You should start by linking to something, anything...
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Funny)
You should start by linking to something, anything...
Goatse, for example; with a buildup like that you're bound to get a couple of hits. Too good to waste.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, Coincidence, we meet again. I see you've been hanging out with Conspiracy again. I told you last time, Coincidence, nothing good will come of that. I told you that Conspiracy will only take advantage of everything you do and turn it against people. Ah well, you didn't listen last time, so I suppose my words fall on deaf ears again.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
(boggles)
I'm speechless. How can you get the above from what I requested? You make some totally weird logical leap from "Can you list an example" of how this case is like another in which "censorship" is called for.
Perhaps *YOU* can tell me how this case is like your "anyone that wants the internet censored to protect their children"?
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you suggesting there should not be ANY limits on "free speech"? Should we do away with libel? Calumny? Slander? Allow people to yell "FIRE" in a theater? Because these limits on speech are NOT censorship.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument is that the tools put in place for the latter purpose can also be used for the former.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of them; look at China: Content posted to the Internet is proactively monitored, and substantial infrastructure is in place to tie activities to a Real-Life identity such that the jackboots can show up at your door if you (1) post such content as this to YouTube, (2) inform others of the existence of such content, etc. Further, infrastructure is in place to block access to locations known to host such politically sensitive content.
Now, let's back away from China, and look at Australia. A blacklist of sites is maintained by a government-affiliated organization with no oversight, putatively for the purpose of limiting access to content which is illegal for highly defensible purposes (ie. child porn) -- but that blacklist also contains sites which have posted legal correspondence with the entity overseeing the blacklist.
Now, let's move from Australia to the UK, in which legal and physical infrastructure is being put in place to record the headers of all electronic communications. In such a case, the party posting the YouTube video could be identified, as could those who inform others about its existence, those who repost it in the event of a takedown, etc. Even in the absence of jackboots -- an absence which cannot be guaranteed to persist -- are the chilling effects not clear, particularly in the case of content which purports to demonstrate that those in power will gladly resort to murder to cover up things they would prefer remain unknown?
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument is that you have to balance the cost of banning the tool vs the cost of misusing the tool.
This is why we remove government censorship: because it might be used for political speech. The usefulness of a hammer outwieghs the (dubious) usefulness of banning hammers, but the usefulness of free speech outweighs the (dubious) usfulness of censorship.
Ultimately, there is very little that is worse that a government banning criticism of itself, for most other government-instigated atrocities can be stopped given free speech as a tool (not all, of course, as sometimes the people are happy with the atrocity, but most).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't make sense. Libel (ignoring slander as you can't do that on the Internet) is nothing to do with censorship. One happens after publication and the other prevents publication in the first place. One deals with defamation of character of an individual, and the other with arbitrary moral or ideological values set in place to blanket protect an entire society. There is no contradiction between supporting both lack of censorship and also current libel laws. If your mind is boggling, I suggest it is b
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
It just saved Guatemala from being led by a murderer. Think about that.
I'm sorry I don't want to be too much of a tool but the fact is, this video does NOT prove anything. So far it's just a conspiracy theory - one that needs to be thoroughly investigated. It may sound stupid but, as a guatemalan, I wouldn't put it pass the right-wing radicals to fabricate this video, but this is just another conspiracy theory. Until there's been a decent investigation we really can't pass judgement on whether the president is a murderer. Btw, the president has asked for help from the FBI and international bodies, from the article.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:4, Informative)
In any case, as I understand it, people don't generally commit suicide by getting shot in public while riding their bicycles to work.
Of course, there's always the possibility that they guy knew that SOMEONE was out to get him, but that he was wrong about who it was.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry buddy, Colom is not a dictator. He was elected. I'm also pretty sure UN watchgroups monitored the election.
Sorry buddy, once you authorize the murder of an innocent person opposing you, you aren't elected anymore. You're a dictator ... even worse you're a murderer. Pretty sure the UN would back me on that.
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're an elected official who is abusing your position.
Also, it's "clamouring" or "clamoring".
Parent
Re:The Internet Has Its Merits (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you are still elected.
Its possible to be an elected dictator, though the hypothetical presented doesn't even necessarily mean that.
That much, OTOH, is true (in at least the moral sense of the word "murderer".)
Being bad, even criminal, even murdering doesn't make a leader suddenly not an elected leader. "Elected" is not the same thing as "good".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry buddy, Colom is not a dictator. He was elected. I'm also pretty sure UN watchgroups monitored the election.
Sorry buddy, once you authorize the murder of an innocent person opposing you, you aren't elected anymore. You're a dictator ... even worse you're a murderer. Pretty sure the UN would back me on that.
Wow, Colom has already been arrested, tried and convicted for this? Justice sure moves fast in Guatamala! Or /, is even further behind the news than usual. Or you think because you heard about it on the internet it must be true. I wonder which one?
A friend's mother in her last days was convinced that the CIA, the Archbishop of Canterbury and her son's pet gerbils were conspiring to kill her in an undetectable way. And sure enough, not long afterwards she did die! And yet the authorities did nothing about th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dictators can be elected, altho I can't think of any modern example of this happening. A dictator is an abosolute ruler (and considered above the law). Sulla (or Cilla) was elected dictator and so was Caesar (how fair were those elections is a matter of debate).
Today's dictators don't style themselves as such. They usually have a legislative body even if it's full of puppet legislators.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if it was China...
Error (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone considered the possibility that he was killed by someone other than the Guatemalan president? Like, say, a family member with an axe to grind?
Re:Error (Score:4, Insightful)
That was my thought. Once the tape was made, anyone who knew about it and had something to gain by his death had a free pass. It doesn't seem to me like it was the wisest move.
Parent
Any student of Latin American history... (Score:5, Interesting)
Any student of Latin American history automatically thinks of the CIA whenever a leftist leader is being taken down. Especially since the last leftist leader of Guatemala was ousted by a CIA coup in 1954 [wikipedia.org] in Operation PBFORTUNE, which is now declassified.
According to Kate Doyle, director of the Mexico Project of National Security Archives and a regular contributor to Americas Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center, most historians now agree that the military coup in 1954 was the definitive blow to Guatemala's young democracy. Over the next four decades, the succession of military rulers would wage counter-insurgency warfare, destabilizing Guatemalan society. The violence caused the deaths and disappearances of more than 140,000 Guatemalans, and some human rights activists put the death toll as high as 250,000.[15] At the later stages of this conflict the CIA tried with some success to lessen the human rights violations and in 1993 stopped a coup and helped restore the democratic government.
Prepare for some hilarious hypocrisy in the US media. When an enemy of US interests is on the chopping block, outlandish conspiracies are taken at face value. When US allies are accused of such crimes, there are calls for calm and due process. An investigation, a trial, and a fair sentencing are vitally important, at least when it's convenient for us. He may or may not be guilty of these crimes, but the only way to find out is to have a trial. I'll bet I can count on one hand how many news pundits ask for a trial.
It's the magic of propaganda. Saddam never shredded anyone (though he did use American biological weapons to kill Kurds). Iraqi troops never placed babies on the hospital floor during their invasion of Kuwait. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But to someone who just watches the news, these are all accepted as fact.
Parent
Re:Error (Score:5, Insightful)
That's prety much exactly what the president's supporters are claiming.
On the other hand, we have a lawyer whose clients were just before they could, as they claimed, blow the whistle on government corruption, is also killed just after he indicates HE knows the details of the first killings.
His killing, prior to the distribution of the tape, was passed off as just another random murder (meaning releasing the tape was pointless if you were doing it to cover your tracks).
Which do you think would be more likely:
A family member did it.
Said government did it.
Parent
Get that off YouTube NOW. (Score:5, Insightful)
By which I do not mean remove it from YouTube.
I mean, download it, copy it, ensure that it continues to survive even if YouTube is persuaded somehow to remove it. Help personally ensure that this is impossible to suppress by taking individual action right now to back it up.
Twitter user under arrest.. (Score:5, Informative)
In related news, Guatemalan police arrested a twitter user [opennet.net], after he put a message telling people to withdraw their funds from Banrural -the bank involved in the corruption scandal- as a way to protest against these acts. The authorities charged him of "intent to incite financial panic", a crime recently created in order to protect financial institutions from unfounded rumors.
Poor, naive Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
We Americans really don't understand how the rest of the world works. We're dumb enough to think this will make a dent.
This is Guatemala we're talking about. Every friggin faction in Guatemala makes sport of screwing the other guys. Go review the case of one Rigoberta Menchu before you get too wild about believing anyone's testimony about anything in Guatemala.
Guatemalans have been jerked around so many times by both the left and the right that their default presumption is that everyone is at least embellishing, if not completely lying.
Re:The medium is NOT the message (Score:5, Insightful)
"Wouldn't the word have gotten out just the same if it had been televised instead?"
Not as quickly or widely. A TV station broadcasts a video once or, in some cases a few times. A video can hit the internet within minutes of being shot.
On the internet it can be saved, forwarded, and dispersed beyond the ability of any central or commercial authority to stop it.
Parent
within minutes of being shot? (Score:5, Funny)
> A video can hit the internet within minutes of being shot.
If that pun was intentional, you get the prize for making it look unintentional....
Parent
Re:The medium is NOT the message (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that it was out and available all over the world as soon as someone posted it is important. It means the content can't be stopped by torture, mail inspection, border patrols, or a well-planned plane crash. The medium made the message possible to an extent that we could never have imagined a decade ago. THAT is the reason this story is here on /.
Parent
Re:The medium is NOT the message (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone can (And did) upload to youtube, which is the tech side of this story. A few years ago, this wouldn't have been able to happen.
Parent
Re:The medium is NOT the message (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing that el presidente might have just a teensy bit of "editorial discretion"(even if its only the killing people kind) over major news outlets in the country.
Youtube is nothing special in terms of broadcasting, except that everyone and his brother can use it, with relatively little control(if this poor lawyer had used a copyrighted soundtrack, this probably never would have come to light).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite arguably yes, though its not posted as a "computer" story, but as a "Politics" story. That it is, in fact, accurately labeled as a "Politics" story I think is pretty clear, whether or not one agrees that it is a "computer" story.
J. Random Citizen can't post a video to "television" and get it global exposure, particularly if they live in a country
Re:If this tape is real . . . (Score:5, Informative)
It is...
A 45,000 people march is building up. They demand the president to stand down.
Parent
Re:If this tape is real . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
The results of that should be interesting, given that the president has already stated that anyone who even suggests he's guilty is themselves guilty of sedition.
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be a fun channel to watch.
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Funny)
"Dad! There is a video on YouTube of you saying Mom killed you!"
"Damn, I knew I forgot something this week."
Parent
Re:Sooo (Score:5, Funny)
If it helps, I'm sure this video is a copyright violation, unless the widow released the original tape under CC license or something...
Parent