Congressman Quizzes Net Companies on Shame 459
mjdroner writes "Cnet has a transcript of the House of Representatives hearing on net censorship with Google, Microsoft, Cisco, and Yahoo reps. At one point, Rep. Tom Lantos asks if Microsoft is ashamed of their actions in China. Microsoft: 'We comply with legally binding orders whether it's here in the U.S. or China.' Lantos: 'Well, IBM complied with legal orders when they cooperated with Nazi Germany. Those were legal orders under the Nazi German system.'"
Re:He lost his own argument (Score:2, Informative)
"Hitler ate sugar."
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Tom Lantos (Score:5, Informative)
An American by choice, Tom Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 1, 1928. He was 16 years of age when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. As a teenager, he was placed in a Hungarian fascist forced labor camp. He succeeded in escaping and was able to survive in a safe house in Budapest set up by Swedish humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg. His story is one of the individual accounts which forms the basis of Steven Spielberg's Academy Award winning documentary about the Holocaust in Hungary, The Last Days.
Say what you will about most Congressmen, Senators and the President, but complaints about MFT and coddling those commie bastards doen't apply to Rep. Lantos.
Re:The Pot Calls The Kettle.... (Score:5, Informative)
He was wrong then and wrong now, but at least he is consistent.
Re:A corporation has no shame (Score:1, Informative)
they already do [wikipedia.org], except its under the guise of providing "security", the results are still private citizens killing for profit
Re:Shit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tom Lantos (Score:5, Informative)
He has called for hearings on many human rights issues, including Guantanamo Bay. Do you really think the Republicans will allow any hearings into China, Gitmo or Iraq?
Re:Perhaps you should learn who Tom Lantos is (Score:5, Informative)
He has held unofficial hearings outside Congress, but they have no power and get no press.
When the Democrats held control, Lantos was at the forefront of the human rights movement that was reflected in official policy. Today he has no such power.
So he is doing what he can, in the forums he has access to, and I applaud him for it.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
That... depends on whom you ask, and how you define "a part of."
Yes, Tibet first came under Chinese control 700 years ago, when it was conquered by the Yuan Dynasty of the Mongol Empire. (Prior to that it was off doing its own little mountainous thing, one would presume... so the fact that it is under Chinese control seems to fly in the face of your prior assertion that China doesn't invade people. But anyway.)
That said, there have been periods since then during which China had little if any control over Tibet, and prior to the Cultural Revolution, even when it had control, it apparently chose not to exercise that control very much.
So there are some people who see things differently. And there are some people who feel that China's control, particularly in the last several decades, has had a... detrimental effect on people in Tibet, as far as certain cultural or religious freedoms might be concerend.
It's not surprising that there are misunderstandings, there are a lot of people in the world with many different views. These sorts of things happen.
Godwin on Godwin's law (Score:2, Informative)
No, you're wrong (Score:5, Informative)
First, there is no "U.S. Code" (I assume you mean federal law) governing corporate profits.
Second, virtually every state has a law that DOES require maximizing profits.
http://blj.ucdavis.edu/article/533/ [ucdavis.edu]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_res
http://www.business-ethics.com/resources/article_
Each of these links add information, but because the laws are specific to each state, I'm not going to look them up for you.
Regardless, the point is clear.
Re:Absurd. (Score:3, Informative)
When was the last time the FBI showed up at someone's house simply for running a blog criticizing the US government?
Appearently you can get an intimidating visit for having an anti-Bush poster [csmonitor.com] on your wall, or saying something negative about him at the gym [villagevoice.com].
Congressmen also supported Nazism (Score:4, Informative)
People forget that the Nazi party was probably the most political party in the world during the 1930s. The American Bund (a group formed to promote Nazism in the states, and to encourage neutrality while Hitler invaded the rest of Europe) was not a fringe group - they had among their members Congressmen, Senators, judges, and governors.
Even after World War II had begun in earnest for America in 1942, members of Congress gave classified information to Nazi agents, spoke out for the extermination of "the Jew" on the floor of Congress, and continued to spout anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi rhetoric in newsletters sent to their home district.
Luckily for us, Congress is not beholden to respect the opinions of all of its members individually - it only has to respond to the majority opinion, which usually correlates with public opinion. This is also true of corporations - their "public" is just limited to those who own stock in it.
Re:Absurd. (Score:2, Informative)
Uhuh, that's why they've gone to trial and proven this "fact" of yours is it?
If you don't apply the process of law to everybody then what's the point of law in the first place.
These guys are our prisoners and soldiers are going out of their way to make them feel comfortable.
Yes, we've seen the photos.
Have you never considered the fact that these people have been captured in another country under a status of war and transported from that country and denied prisoner of war status.
What is astounding are comments where people try to justify horrendous abuses of human rights.
Re:No, you're wrong (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Shit (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Perhaps you should learn who Tom Lantos is (Score:4, Informative)