News: Internet giants asked “Are you Ashamed” in Congress Hearing…(ha!)

I am sooooo highly amused..

One dramatic moment in the hearing came when Lantos peered down from the panel and asked each executive: "Are you ashamed?"

How much would I have given to have C-span last night… (that’s the US channel that shows congressional and senate debates in full. And now I know the answer to the question I spent years asking "Who watches this??" (Geeks like me at age 32.))

Internet giants on defensive at rights hearing

By Tom Zeller Jr. The New York Times

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2006

WASHINGTON
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco Systems came under fire at a U.S.
House human rights hearing for what a subcommittee chairman called a
"sickening collaboration" with the Chinese government that was
"decapitating the voice of the dissidents" there.

"I think we all know that those things are only so effective, they are
consistently broken, consistently hacked into, and the same is
happening in China," he said. "China is not going to be any more
successful at filtering and firewalling everything than we are. If you
have them there, people will get through those firewalls and get
information that they otherwise wouldn’t, and I think we have to be
mindful of that."But Lucie Morillon of Reporters Without Borders, which tracks online
censorship in China, said later in the hearings that ordinary Chinese
could not be expected to hack their way around electronic walls any
more than ordinary Americans.

She said software tools available in the West to make users anonymous online are often inaccessible in China.

WASHINGTON
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco Systems came under fire at a U.S.
House human rights hearing for what a subcommittee chairman called a
"sickening collaboration" with the Chinese government that was
"decapitating the voice of the dissidents" there.

The statements Wednesday by the chairman, Representative Christopher
Smith, a New Jersey Republican, opened a much-anticipated session aimed
at getting an accounting of the companies’ dealings in China, and to
air criticism that they do business there at the peril of human rights.

The session, in a crowded hearing room, was convened by the House
subcommittee on Africa, global human rights and international
operations. It was the most extensive public airing of the companies’
positions since criticism started gathering steam well over a year ago.

Among the chief issues is the alteration of some of the companies’
online offerings in the Chinese market – from search engines to
blogging tools – to conform with the repressive requirements of the
government there.

Also of concern is the sale of Internet hardware that the Chinese
government has used in surveillance of its online population, as well
as the role of U.S. companies in providing information leading to the
imprisonment of Chinese citizens for online activity that in the West
would be considered free speech.

Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, whose own
Congressional Human Rights Caucus was snubbed by all four companies
when it invited them to speak two weeks ago, had sharp words for the
executives Wednesday. "I do not understand how your corporate
leadership sleeps at night," Lantos said.

But while acknowledging the concerns of Congress and their critics,
executives of the four companies were unified in their insistence that
their presence in China provides a net benefit.

They also suggested that the U.S. government could do more than
companies to promote human rights improvement abroad – a notion that
divided members of the subcommittee over where blame lies if companies
have gone adrift in China.

Jack Krumholtz, associate general counsel at Microsoft, noted that
since the company began its online service MSN Spaces in China last
May, more than 3.5 million Chinese had created Web sites and blogs with
it.

MSN came under fire late last year for shutting down the Web site of a
popular blogger in Beijing on orders from the Chinese authorities.

Despite this, Krumholtz said, "there’s more opportunity for
communication and freedom of expression as a result of our services and
other services, and we expect that trend to continue."

But some members of the subcommittee were not persuaded by such
arguments, nor by the suggestion from Elliot Schrage, a vice president
for corporate communications at Google, that its voluntary disclosure
that it had entered the Chinese market with a censored version of its
search engine three weeks ago was a sufficient compromise.

In examining whether the Chinese government provides Google with a list
of terms that must be filtered from its search engine, or whether
Google voluntarily anticipates the authorities’ wishes, an exasperated
James Leach, Republican of Iowa, asked Schrage, "How do you know what
to block?"

Schrage said that among other things Google studied the filtering
habits already in use by competitors and the Chinese authorities.

"So if this Congress wanted to learn how to censor, we’d go to you –
the company that should symbolize the greatest freedom of information
in the history of man," Leach said. "This is a profound story that’s
being told."

Schrage, struggling, replied, "I hope it was clear from my written
testimony that I submitted, and from my oral testimony that I gave,
that this was not something we did enthusiastically, or not something
that we’re proud of at all."

Not every member of the panel was prepared to take the companies to
task. "Let’s assume for a moment that no U.S. tech company does
business in China," said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington State
Democrat. "Does it get better? Is it less repressive? Does China move
forward? I don’t think so."

He pointed out that the Internet is notoriously difficult to control
and that even the best corporate filters and firewalls sooner or later
prove porous even in the United States.

"I think we all know that those things are only so effective, they are
consistently broken, consistently hacked into, and the same is
happening in China," he said. "China is not going to be any more
successful at filtering and firewalling everything than we are. If you
have them there, people will get through those firewalls and get
information that they otherwise wouldn’t, and I think we have to be
mindful of that."

But Lucie Morillon of Reporters Without Borders, which tracks online
censorship in China, said later in the hearings that ordinary Chinese
could not be expected to hack their way around electronic walls any
more than ordinary Americans.

She said software tools available in the West to make users anonymous online are often inaccessible in China.

One dramatic moment in the hearing came when Lantos peered down from the panel and asked each executive: "Are you ashamed?"