Pressures and Attacks against Independent Content Providers: Serbia

The independent Belgrade based FM radio-station B2-92, which from December 1996 on also broadcasts over the Internet, repeatedly has been the target of suppression and attacks by the Serbian government.

B2-92 offices have been raided on numerous occasions and members of staff have been repeatedly harassed or arrested. In March 1999 the transmitter of radio B2-92 was confiscated yet again by the Serbian authorities and editor-in-chief, Veran Matic, was taken and held in custody at a police station. Ten days after the confiscation of B2-92's transmitter, Serbian police entered and sealed their offices. All members of staff were sent home and a new General Manager was appointed by Serbian officials. Although by closing B2-92, the Serbian regime may have succeeded in softening the voice of the independent content provider, with the distributive nature of the Internet and the international help of media activists, the regime will have little chance of silencing the entire flood of independent content coming out of former Yugoslavia.

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The Microsoft Case

Shortly after Microsoft was faced with federal antitrust charges, full-page newspaper ads supporting Microsoft's claim of innocence were run by the Independent Institute. The ads took the form of a letter signed by 240 academic experts and purported to be a scholarly, unbiased view of why the government had gone overboard in its case against the company. According to an article published in the New York Times, Microsoft had not paid for the ads, but was in fact the single largest donor to the Independent Institute, a conservative organization, that has been a leading defender of the company since it first came under fire from federal prosecutors.

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Corporate Money and Politics

The fact that corporate money is seeking to influence public policy is nothing unusual. From the different ways of how private money helps to shape politics the first, and most familiar is direct campaign contributions to political candidates and parties, which is especially widespread in the United States. While the second great river of money goes to underwrite lobbying apparatus in diverse state capitals, the third form of attempts to influence public policy making is less well-known, but nearly as wide and deep as the two others - it is money which underwrites a vast network of public policy think tanks and advocacy groups. Although tried to be labeled in another way, unmistakably, these donations are naked attempts by corporations and other donors, to influence the political process.

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Copyright management information

Copyright management information refers to information which identifies a work, the author of a work, the owner of any right in a work, or information about the terms and conditions of the use of a work, and any numbers or codes that represent such information, when any of these items of information are attached to a copy of a work or appear in connection with the communication of a work to the public.

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John Dee

b. July 13, 1527, London, England
d. December 1608, Mortlake, Surrey

English alchemist, astrologer, and mathematician who contributed greatly to the revival of interest in mathematics in England. After lecturing and studying on the European continent between 1547 and 1550, Dee returned to England in 1551 and was granted a pension by the government. He became astrologer to the queen, Mary Tudor, and shortly thereafter was imprisoned for being a magician but was released in 1555. Dee later toured Poland and Bohemia (1583-89), giving exhibitions of magic at the courts of various princes. He became warden of Manchester College in 1595.

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Federal Networking Council

Being an organization established in the name of the US government, the Federal Networking Council (FNC) acts as a forum for networking collaborations among Federal agencies to meet their research, education, and operational mission goals and to bridge the gap between the advanced networking technologies being developed by research FNC agencies and the ultimate acquisition of mature version of these technologies from the commercial sector.

Its members are representatives of agencies as the National Security Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, e.g.

http://www.fnc.gov

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Enochian alphabet

Also "Angelic" language. Archaic language alphabet composed of 21 letters, discovered by John Dee and his partner Edward Kelley. It has its own grammar and syntax, but only a small sample of it has ever been translated to English.

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