Politicians accuse Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco of having greater interest in profits than in free expression.
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Members of the U.S. House of Representatives today ripped into four U.S. technology companies, calling them a "disgrace" for allowing the Chinese government to censor some Web content.
Representative Tom Lantos (D-California) and other members of the House International Relations Committee criticized Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems for making profits a higher priority than free expression in China. "Instead of using their power and creativity to bring openness and free speech to China, they have caved into Beijing's outrageous but predictable demands, simply for the sake of profits," said Lantos. "These captains of industry should have been developing new technologies to bypass the sickening censorship of government and repugnant barriers to the Internet. Instead, they enthusiastically volunteered for the Chinese censorship brigade."
Companies Respond:
Representatives of the four companies said that they object to the Chinese government's censorship efforts, but also that they believe their presence in the communist nation will help broaden political debate there. Lawmakers criticized Yahoo because subsidiary Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) provided e-mail account information to the Chinese government that led to jail sentences for a Chinese political activist and a journalist.
The U.S. lawmakers berated Google for offering a censored version of its search engine in China, and Microsoft for removing from MSN Spaces a blog written by a Chinese journalist. Committee members questioned whether Cisco is helping the Chinese government block access to some Web sites by selling it network management equipment.
"We believe information is power," said Michael Callahan, Yahoo's senior vice president and general counsel. "We also believe the Internet is a positive force in China. It has revolutionized information access, helps create open societies, and helps accelerate the gradual evolution toward a more outward-looking Chinese society." Callahan called the case of dissident Shi Tao "distressing" to Yahoo. He was sentenced last April to 10 years in prison. The company did not know who the Chinese government was targeting or what crime had been committed when Yahoo received a demand for information from Chinese law enforcement, he said.
"Let me state our view clearly and without equivocation: We condemn punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression, whether that punishment takes place in China or anywhere else in the world," Callahan said.
Legislation Threatened:
Representative Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey) said he plans to introduce legislation spelling out what actions U.S. companies must take when doing business in "repressive" countries. More than 80 dissidents and journalists have been arrested in China for posting information critical of the government on the Internet, he said. "These are not victimless crimes," said Smith, chairman of the House committee's Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations subcommittee. "We need to stand with the oppressed, not the oppressors."
Smith criticized Cisco, saying the company owns an estimated 60 percent of the Chinese market for networking gear. "Yet, Cisco has also done little creative thinking to try to minimize the likelihood that its products will be used repressively, such as limiting eavesdropping abilities to specific computer addresses," he said. Cisco can't control how governments use its network security equipment to block Web sites, said Mark Chandler, Cisco's senior vice president and general counsel. If China develops its own networking equipment, that will "exacerbate rather than solve the problems," he said.
END.
CONCLUSION:
I hope some form of legislation is enacted here in The USA, preventing Internet Providers from exporting technology to any foreign government, whose reputation is considered oppressive to it's people. And who is known to censor public information via the internet, the local media, television, the press, and any form of expression of Free Speech.
And a provision for harsh financial penalties if caught and found guilty!
Derryck S. Griffith.
Educator-Advocate & Blogger.
http://my.opera.com/BringBaka/
http://www.myspace.com/derryck_mimbari
http://Mimbari.neatvibe.com
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