Congress grills internet bosses on China policies

As representatives from Google, Yahoo, Cisco Systems and Microsoft looked on, lawmakers from both political parties delivered withering attacks and called for oversight on dealings with China.

"Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," said Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on a House International Relations subcommittee on human rights. Lantos' California district includes the high-tech empire of Silicon Valley.

The Republican chairman of the subcommittee, Chris Smith of New Jersey, held the hearing to ask the companies about their procedures in China and demands from the Chinese government.

Last week, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for journalists, said Yahoo provided electronic records to Chinese authorities that led to an eight-year prison sentence for writer Li Zhi in 2003.

In September, Yahoo was accused of helping Chinese authorities identify Shi Tao, who was accused of leaking state secrets abroad and was sentenced last April to 10 years in prison.

Google came under fire last month for bowing to Chinese pressure to block politically sensitive terms on its new Chinese site. Microsoft has also angered human rights activists by shutting down the blog of a critic of the Beijing government.

Smith used a laptop to show how a search for "Tiananmen Square" on http://www.google.com turned up images of tanks and carnage from the 1989 army killings while entering the same term in the new Chinese site led to pictures of smiling tourists.

Smith said he planned to introduce a bill this week to formalise the goals of a new State Department task force to help American technology companies protect freedom of expression in countries that censor online content.
I will be very interested to see this bill get passed. Then to see how it gets enforced...