all the “winners” of this years Bulgarian Big Brother awards.. read on for some crazy information about the authorities in Bulgaria and their crazy laws, etc–
more info: http://www.bigbrotherawards.org
Here’s today’s top news from Bulgaria. The Winners in the Big Brother Awards Bulgaria for 2002 are:
Person:
1. Minister of interior Mr. Georgi Petkanov, for the scandals with wiretaping some of his colleagues, the ex-President, members of the opposition parties, and normal citizens.
2. Secretary-chief of the interior General Borissov for claiming on his return from Germany that the police “should monitor all the Internet, as many crimes are committed there” and because he suggested that records from surveillance should be kept “forever”.
3. Director of the press-center of the government Ms. Tsvetelina Uzunova for not providing information under the Access to Public Information Law, even with a court decision
Communications/Technology
1. Mobiltel – the GSM operator who keeps records of all SMS sent through their system, in case “the authorities want to find out a customer who has been sending uncensured, vulgar, based on personal, religious, faith or political ground” (that’s on their web site)
2. Bulgarian Telecom – for a number of case, among them revealing information to tax authorities without prior court order.
3. Sofia Water – for software bugs in calculation water spenditure
Business
1. register.bg – the .bg country-code top level domain administrator. because 2 men, alone and without public discussion and support have created the rules for .bg domain registraion and require detailed personal data from people willing to register a domain, which makes the process slow, expensive, esp. when compared to registration in .com, .net, .org, etc.
2. Radisson SAS hotel – for installing hidden cameras in the hotel without leaving a warning sign for the guests to know they have been taped.
3. Central Heating Sofia – for hiding information how they calculate the heating usage
Government
1. Interior Ministry for a number of cases, among them: Regional Shumen office – for confiscating the computer of a 17-year old High School student because his Windows was not bought by authorized reseller National Combat Unit against Organized Crime – for intruding into 26-year old Mr. Kolev’s house. He was questioned, his computer – confiscated, and he – given to court, for creating a web site www.dskbank.com (under the name of a bulgarian bank), where he published the promise of the prime minister from his election campaign, that “every Bulgarian is entitled to receive a non-interest credit in the amount of USD 2,500”.
2. Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications – for the proposed Telecommunications law, with a special chapter for police control over the Internet traffic in online and offline regime
3. Ministry of ecology – for denial of following a court decision from February 2002, forcing them to give public information to a citizen
Special award
to the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria for the following two cases:
– The secret signing of the contract with the UK-based private company “Crown Agents” who are now scrutinizing the Bulgarian customs.
– The secret signing of the contract between the government and Microsoft for $ 13.6 Million for buying 30,000 copies of MS Windows and MS Office Professional at more than doubled price than the street one.
Positive award
To: Ms. Snezhanka Georgieva, head of the Civil Registry and Administrative Services of the Ministry of regional development, for continius attempts to stop publishing the social security numbers of the citizens on the election voters lists.
The jury consists of 7 people:
Ms. Gergana Juleva and Mr. Kashamov from the Access to Information project ( www.aip-bg.org ), Mr. Alexander Arabadjiev, former judge of the Constitutional court (wrote a lot of decisions on the freedom to access of information articles), Mr. Ivan Ivanov, speaker of the IT Development Association ( www.arit-bg.org ), Mr. Hristo Nikolov, journalist, www.segabg.com, Ms. Yana Ilieva, editor-in-chief www.portal.bg, and Veni Markovski, chairman of ISOC.bg and country coordinator of the Global Internet Policy Initiative ( www.internetpolicy.net )
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relayed by Harkank
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http://www.bigbrotherawards.at
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