Richard Stallman detido pela segurança na Cúpula Mundial da Sociedade da Informação

O patriarca do movimento em prol do software livre, Richard Stallman, ficou duas horas detido pelos seguranças da Cúpula Mundial da Sociedade da Informação promovida pela ONU.

O Bruce Perens tb participou e conta a história no site dele.

Rolou o sequinte:

Deram uns crachás com identificação por rádio frequência, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID, que usam chips semelhentes aos usados em grandes lojas para reprimir furtos e controlar o fluxo das mercadorias).

Esses chips causam arrepios em todos os defensores dos direitos civis, pois são capazes de monitorar o movimento das pessoas sem elas se darem conta...

O Stallman, além de reclamar dos crachás espiões durante a palestra dele, como era esperado, enrolou o dele em papel alumínio para impedir a transmissão de dados e distribuiu o resto do rolo para a platéia.

You can't give Richard a visible RF ID strip without expecting him to protest. Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently. He willingly unwrapped it to go through any of the visible check-points, he simply objected to the potential that people might be reading the RF ID without his knowledge and tracking him around the grounds. This, again, is a legitimate gripe, handled with Richard's usual highly-visible, guile-less and absolutely un-subtle style of non-violent protest.

During his keynote speech at our panel today, Richard gave a moment's talk about the RF ID issue, and passed his roll of aluminum foil around the room for others to use. A number of people in the overcrowded-to-the-max standing-room-only meeting room obligingly shielded their own passes. UN Security was in the room, not only to protect us but because of the crowd issue, and was bound to notice. Richard and I delivered our keynotes, followed by shorter talks by the rest of the panel and then open discussion.

Na saído do discurso, os seguranças detiveram o Stallman por duas horas na sala de conferência até convencerem os seguranças que aquele sujeito cabeludo, mal vestido e esquisito é um cara importante.

Aparentemente, Stallman manteve o bom humor e a hábito de falar o que pensa sem muita censura, principalmente se for para marcar os adversários do software livre...

I got to the room just as the panel was about to start, at the moment that the problem suddenly evaporated and Richard was allowed to enter. No doubt some of our UN hosts had been dealing with security during those two hours, and eventually got an order from a high-enough officer or something. We'll probably never know who, but imagine the headlines: Kofi Anan frees Richard Stallman. So, I walk in and Richard relates the entire situation to me in front of the audience present, including more than one government minister, and other folks arriving for the panel. I humorously remind Richard that he and I both have immunity as delegates, and he responds "Well, perhaps then I should have killed Bob Kramer". Kramer is the CompTIA representative who comes along to these things to relate an pro-software-patenting and generally anti-Free-Software viewpoint which gets Richard very steamed up. There's a laugh, and I explain that our immunity probably doesn't go that far. Richard goes on to say that he wouldn't really kill anyone, but no doubt UN Security has heard this entire exchange too.

I didn't see anyone further molesting Richard, but I'd imagine he was followed around by plainclothes agents for the rest of the day. This, however, may not be unusual. Perhaps Kramer even got his own protective detail.

I guess I'm permanently on the books now as a dissident, if I wasn't already. Viva la Revolution!

Viva a revolução!