Letter Casts Doubt On Yahoo China Testimony

Saint Aardvark writes "A hand-written letter has surfaced that sheds new light on the case of Chinese reporter Shi Tao. The letter (PDF), believed to be from Chinese police, 'is essentially a standardized search warrant making clear that Chinese law enforcement agencies have the legal authority to collect evidence in criminal cases. This contradicts Yahoo's testimony (PDF) to Congress in 2006 that they 'had no information about the nature of the investigation.' 'One does not have to be an expert in Chinese law to know that 'state secrets' charges have often been used to punish political dissent in China,' says Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and publications for The Dui Hua Foundation. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his reporting on the Tianamen Square massacre."

Re:So What?

[TapeCutter]

"Don't worry, by helping Chinese officials silence those Chinese citizens brave enough to criticize their regime, we are in fact bringing freedom to China!"

Trivia: Before the interwebs came along "Yahoo" was (still is) Australian slang for an obnoxiously loud fool, as in: "I wish that yahoo would shut the fuck up".

The state secrets he leaked

[z-j-y]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Tao#Arrested_and_ imprisoned [wikipedia.org]

(the document)asked all news media to not report anything regarding the so-called "June 4th event", Falun Gong or people calling for politico-social change.

Wow, so that was the leaked state secret. The world had no idea.

Tian AN men

[TheTranceFan]

...let's at least get the transliteration correct.

It's Tiananmen Square. There's an "n" in there. I walked through through that very square [wikipedia.org] on Saturday.

Or more specifically

[Sycraft-fu]

Lying under oath. Whether in front of congress or a court or whatever, when you take an oath to tell the truth that oath carries legal force and you can be charged for violating it. That's the whole reason for "pleading the 5th" and such. You can't be made to incriminate yourself, but that doesn't mean you are allowed to lie not to. Thus the 5th amendment allows you to not answer the question.

Many people don't realise that this is often the real legal deal surrounding some of the political controversies. For example the legal problem for Bill Clinton wasn't that he banged his secretary, it was that he lied under oath about it. The press and the public may have made a big deal out of the sex act, but the legal problems were surrounding the testimony.

When you are under oath you can refuse to answer for certain limited reasons (like anything that would violate the 5th amendment) and you can always pull the political favourite of "not being able to recall that" but you can't lie about it, at least not legally. Getting caught doing that can get you in trouble, even had what you were being questioned about been perfectly legal. The whole "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," isn't just for show. When you say "I do," you've made a formal oath and can be held to that.