and allowed people to read newspapers and satellite television and the internet and it opened syrians minds. how do you control this system and how do you basically perpetuate authoritarianian rule? reporter: he was warned he couldn t do that. analysts say when bashar brought the internet into syria it was against the advice of his security staff who were his father s old crone nis. they told him it would be dangerous and he would have trouble controlling it, right. joe? what do we know about the personal relationship between father and son? very interesting, the people that know the regime and the family say the relationship was distant when bashar was a child. he was shy and modest. the father was closer to bashar s older brother basell and chose him to succeed him and he was much tougher and cruel by all acts, but basell died in a car accident in 1994 and as hafez started to groom bashar to take over, it became a student/master relationship.