Avoiding a Congressional grilling, US Internet leaders face collective outrage

Washington (DC) - If the US firms that declined to appear before yesterday's Congressional Human Rights Caucus meeting were intending to avoid embarrassment, they may have failed. After having offered polite excuses, generally dealing with scheduling conflicts, all four Internet leaders are facing a barrage of criticism the day after, not only from leaders in Congress, but from media sources and blog correspondents as well.

With the company's staunchest critics regarding their China policy planning to share the meeting room with them, perhaps representatives from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems could not have expected to have been greeted warmly. But their collectively declined invitations (Yahoo joined the other three in declining late yesterday) was interpreted by many observers, and quite a few Congressmen, as an outright boycott.

"The launch last week of the censored Chinese Google Web site," remarked Caucus co-chair Tom Lantos (D - California), "is only the latest sign that even companies that make strong and impressive corporate claims, such as Google's motto, 'Don't Be Evil,' cannot or do not want to respect human rights when business interests are at stake."

"Microsoft used to ask, 'Where do you want to go today?'" added Rep. Lantos. "Will the answer now be, 'With your company's collusion, to a Chinese prison?'" Lantos is said to be Congress' last serving member who is also a Holocaust survivor.

This afternoon, Radio Free Asia quoted a Google blogger located in Changsha as saying, "It is shameful that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others are collaborating with a repressive regime in China - much in the same way that some firms did with Nazi Germany decades ago. History will send those collaborators to court and, I hope, very soon."

For his part, the meeting's chairman, Rep. Tim Ryan (D - Ohio), opened with more diplomatic words: "After decades of being silenced and sheltered, Chinese citizens recognize the value of the Internet...Online bulletin boards and blogs can serve as anonymous outlets for Chinese citizens to express their opinions and offer their dissent.

"As the number of Internet users grow," Rep. Ryan added, "the sophistication of the People's Republic of China's Internet-monitoring increases accordingly. There are an estimated 30,000 Chinese cyber-police monitoring the flow of information on the Internet. Additionally, the PRC employs sophisticated technological barriers, including software that deletes banned words from websites, blogs and message boards, and routers that block banned sites altogether. Among the censored words and phrases are 'Dali Lama,' 'Tiananmen Square massacre,' 'Democracy,' and even 'Voice of America.'"

In a demonstration of the effectiveness of Google's Chinese filters in abiding by that government's guidelines, Rep. Chris Smith (R - New Jersey) performed a search using Google Images, for both the .com and .cn domains. In searching for China torture, the .com service retrieved several hundred images, pertinent or not. For the .cn search, the engine for Chinese users retrieved just two. "Google is doing a grave disservice to democracy, human rights and individuals in China," Smith commented.

Americans everywhere must face the reality, Rep. Ryan pointed out in his opening, that doing business with China is necessary for establishing a global marketplace. But American companies, he added, need not cast aside American values in the name of profits. People should keep in mind, he noted, that the Internet was created with US taxpayer dollars. "American citizens and lawmakers have every right to demand that US companies use this technology to advance freedom, rather than condone oppression," he remarked. "That's why I'm so troubled to watch as American companies, in my opinion, squander not only their leverage to create positive change but America's moral authority for whether we like it or not, American companies operating overseas reflect on all of us."