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China destruction of human rights by limiting Internet use and using cyber-cops to track down Internet-using human rights advocates: today’s Congressional testimony
February 1, 2006 |
Reuters has a short but effective piece on the testimony today before Congressional
Human Rights Caucus, which is looking into how US companies, such as
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco, help China keep information from
their citizens, and capture and imprison human rights and free speech
advocates.
John Palfrey of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for
Internet & Society said the recent cases could help make
China’s murky censorship policies more transparent.
He urged Washington to “make Internet filtering and
surveillance the key Internet governance issue on the world
stage.”
and
Carolyn Bartholomew, vice chair of the U.S.-China Economic
and Security Review Commission, which advises Congress, said
these cases provided “good reason to fear China may change the
Internet more than the Internet will change China.”
Internet censorship through installed equipment or software
and cyber-police posing as ordinary online debaters harmed
American interests by letting China’s government define public
opinion about the United States and U.S. policies, she said.
and
“Companies that have blossomed and make billions in this
country, a country that reveres freedom of speech, have chosen
to ignore that core value in expanding their reach overseas,
and to erect a Great Firewall to suit Beijing’s purposes,” Rep.
Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat, told the caucus.
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