Summary: Another fine example of the US diplomats (whom the public pays for) simply acting as de facto lobbyists of corporations

THE following Cablegate cable shows us what we already knew -- that the US embassy is performing a role broader than it's supposed to.

VZCZCXRO9784
RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN
RUEHLZ RUEHNP RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHVJ #1879 3531507
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 181507Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9419
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 0085
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
UNCLAS SARAJEVO 001879 




SIPDIS 




COMMERCE FOR 4232/ITA/MAC/EUR (BURGESS AND SAVICH) 
DEPARTMENT PLEASE PASS TO USTR (MORROW, YANG) 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE, EEB/IPE, EUR/PPD (HANNAN), 
EUR/PPD-PA,IIP/S 
TREASURY FOR LINDQUIST 
COMMERCE PLEASE PASS TO MCCAFFREY AND SMITH AT USPTO 
JUSTICE FOR CARL ALEXANDRE 
MOSCOW FOR REGIONAL IPR ATTACHE 




E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECIN, KIPR, BK 
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: MICROSOFT AND PM SPIRIC SIGN STRATEGIC 
PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT 




REF: SARAJEVO 1351 




1. On December 18, the BiH Council of Ministers and Microsoft 
finally signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement for access 
to legal Microsoft applications for all state-level 
government ministries.  Prime Minister Nikola Spiric signed 
the agreement on behalf of the BiH Government.  The agreement 
obligates the BiH Government to use licensed software, but is 
only the first step in strengthening the state government's 
intellectual property regime.  Microsoft will now begin 
negotiations with BiH to purchase licenses for the software 
applications under the state's purview.  This marks a huge 
success for the U.S. Embassy, which has been working with 
state-level officials for three years to push for action to 
ban pirated and unlicensed software from ministry offices. 
(Note: Federation and RS-entity governments signed separate 
strategic partnership agreements with Microsoft in 2006.  End 
note.) 
ENGLISH 

Smacks of imperialism. Laws are relative and Bosnia would be better off using Free software it can review and modify, not secret code that it rents from another nation. ⬆