[CREATE] Free as in Speech, and Vietnam?

[agnez..]

Hi,
I had the chance for a brief chat with this human rights expert I know. 
Hereunder her comments
greetings
agnez

- People's computers might be checked at immigration, it has happened 
but not often. Just make sure you don't have anything sensitive in 
obvious places.

- Go on tourist visa, don't say you come for a conference. Those things 
are always way too complicated in these countries, it would only create 
more trouble (but then don't take my word for it, discuss it though, 
usually I would advise against, but I am not an expert on Vietnam)

- Whether FOSS is not accepted by gvnmt, well, they can't really do 
anything against it can they? as, it's not copyrighted .. or is it not 
that simple?

- discussing things openly, well it really depends on what you are 
discussing. if you are discussing about the right to access on 
information and it is mostly framed in terms of software I don't see a 
problem,
if you widen your discussion to civil and political rights, I don't 
think Vietnam is a good choice. You should count on Intelligence 
attending your meeting, and then consider whether that will jeopardize 
the Vietnamese participants, and whether that means you cannot have 
certain discussions that otherwise you would

- You should ask the Vietnamese participants what they think but they 
may not be fully aware of the possible consequences. they organized 
already other FOSS meetings, but were there foreigners who are concerned 
about human rights?
Vietnamese authorities are very wary of foreigners with political agendas
I talked to Vietnamese last week who do FOSS events, but they don't have 
a clue about human rights