Burma was once a country where professional journalistic expression flourished. Its media was fastidious in its dedication to seek out and report the truth. Throughout the fifties and early sixties Burma enjoyed unrestrained freedom of the press granted to its citizens by the country's first constitution ratified in 1947. But in 1962 a military coup inaugurated its new dictatorship and Burma, later renamed The Union of Myanmar, became a closed society. Tragically, its restrictive and socialistic government began to flagrantly persecute journalists who dared to speak out against the inhumane treatment of the Burmese people at the hands of the military regime. Today, few journalists remain inside the country to tell the truth about Burma's struggle for democratic freedom.

Yet in a country where journalistic liberty has been severely curtailed, graphic footage of protesters in the streets and pictures that reveal inhumane atrocities, have found their way into the hands of global media. How is it possible that journalists are continuing to gain access to accurate information about the conditions in such a restricted society?

A number of Burma's news agencies have apparently bartered their silence on the carnage occurring within their borders for limited license to report only news stories that will not reflect poorly on Burma's military. Other journalists, like San San Nweh, have spent years in prison for documenting human rights abuses. In 2004 the Irawaddy, an online news publication, released a combined list of the names of thirty-seven Burmese journalists and writers who had been detained, imprisoned or executed over a sixteen-year-period. Countless others have been banished to bordering countries like Thailand and India where they wait, in exile, for information from inside sources.

Burma's citizens, in a fight to resist tyranny and stand for truth, are arming themselves with the tools of twenty-first century technology to tell a story that the military junta is working hard to suppress. The Internet has become a covert meeting place for the dissemination of information to news organizations around the globe. In Rangoon a camera phone snaps a surreptitious photo of monks demonstrating in the street and quickly downloads the images to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Within minutes the world is watching the Burmese people protest for democratic reform. Young Burmese students train others to slip through firewalls and meet in chat rooms where

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