News.com reports that at a US House of Representatives hearing yesterday, lawmakers spent hours reaming spokespersons from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco over how their businesses are operating in China. While some politicians favored a calm, sober approach in exploring an admittedly tense and complex issue, many favored shrill grandstanding instead – remember, it’s an election year.
The tech companies held the line. Cisco representatives said that they can’t be held accountable for how their routers are configured by inhibitive regimes, nor do they customize their technology to curtail political freedom. Google and Microsoft disavowed China’s censorship policies, but argued that giving the Chinese access to even filtered information could help open up the country from within. And Yahoo! pled for the US government to lean on the Chinese with its considerable diplomatic weight.
But Rep. Tom Lantos dismissed the tech firms’ reasoning as “sickening,” and their actions as amounting to “nauseating collaboration with a regime of repression.” And that wasn’t the worst of the browbeating by far. Rep. Christopher Smith, chairman of the human rights subcommittee hosting the hearings, compared the tech quartet’s dealings in China to abetting the most noxious policies of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Yikes.
But despite a lot of strong, scolding language, the nastiest sting may have been the suggestion of new laws that could prevent companies from locating servers within countries that harshly restrict freedom of speech. And in response to allegations that Yahoo! gave information to the Chinese government leading to the incarceration of political prisoners, Rep. Brad Sherman proposed legislation that would bar employees within the US “from turning over confidential information to a repressive government” – that is, unless the Uncle Sam says it’s ok.
Rep. Lantos claimed that “what Congress is looking for is real spine and willingness to stand up to the outrageous demands of a totalitarian regime.” Congress, heal thyself. Representatives Gregory Meeks and Robert Wexler brought up the fact that it was Congress that bestowed most-favored nation trading status on China in the first place. And in light of that, Rep. Adam Smith said that “lashing out at the companies enabling this is a little absurd.” While there’s no guarantee that any concrete action will result from all the bluster, you never can tell what people are capable of when they’re up for re-election. For additional analysis, check out this Ars Technica piece.
