Internet giants on defensive at rights hearing

China Travel Services

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?"

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?"