Why You & Yahoo Should Like This Human Rights Law

Regular contributor Bennett Haselton has written in to say that "The Global Online Freedom Act, introduced last year during a firestorm of controversy over American companies cooperating with totalitarian governments in China and elsewhere, was introduced this month as the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007. When Chris Smith (R-NJ) first introduced the law in 2006, Yahoo was under fire for recently turning over information to Chinese authorities that led to the arrest of a political dissident, Microsoft was attacked for removing pages from MSN Spaces China at the behest of the government, Google was being criticized for removing political sites from search results displayed to China, and Cisco was accused of helping to enable Chinese filtering of the Web. All four corporations testified at a February 2006 House hearing during which Representative Tom Lantos summed up the mood of many of his colleagues by telling the companies, "I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night." The companies protested that they had no choice but to comply with local Chinese laws, but that they were troubled by their own actions, and -- in a rarity for individual tech companies, much less for a chorus -- they all invited the U.S. government to play a bigger role, while being vague about what the role should be."

GOFA would create a U.S.-government-designated list of "Internet restricting countries" and would in most cases prohibit U.S.-based companies from censoring content or turning over users' information to the governments of those countries. Do these companies want GOFA to pass? And is GOFA a good law? I think, yes and yes, but the answers are more complicated than they seem.

With American "collaboration" less in the news, GOFA made less of a splash when it was re-introduced this year, but it is still the subject of spirited debate. Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and other human rights groups have already signed a statement supporting the July 2006 version of the bill (nearly identical the 2007 version). But blogger-journalist Rebecca MacKinnon argues that by creating a government-maintained list of "Internet censoring countries", the law falls short of calling for support of free speech in all countries (the initial list, for example, includes Iran and China, but leaves out notorious human rights violator and net-censor Saudi Arabia). Danny O'Brien of the EFF backs this position as well, and also argues the organization's long-standing position that "code is speech" and that filtering software should not be subject to export regulations that are proposed in the law.

I agree with MacKinnon that instead of using a list of "Internet restricting countries", we should require the same standards of U.S. companies wherever they do business, or at least, stop playing silly games like leaving Saudi Arabia off of a list of human rights violators because Bush is friends with the ruling family. I agree with the EFF that filtering software should be considered First-Amendment-protected speech like encryption software, and not be included on an export-prohibited "munitions" list. And for reasons listed below, I think that the law won't stop censoring countries from blocking any speech they want. But even with all of these qualifications, I think the law would be a step in the right direction, if only for the rules prohibiting companies from turning over users' personal information to the governments of countries like China and Iran. It's painful to give a pass to countries like Germany that also censor political speech, but I think that the situation is so much worse in places like China that we should do what we can in the short term. And for reasons I'll get into, I think that Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Cisco are secretly hoping that a law like GOFA does get passed -- even if they can't come out and say so.

First, what the law does not do: There is still nothing to stop a U.S. company from blocking or removing legal, political content at the request of a foreign government. Section 204 says only that American content-hosting companies and content-filtering companies have to provide the U.S. government with a list of sites that have been removed or blocked at the behest of a censoring country.

Section 205 does say that U.S. companies may not block or remove sites that are operated by the U.S. government, or by any entity that receives grants from the International Broadcasting Bureau to help defeat foreign censorship. Presumably that would include Peacefire, at least during the periods when we're under contract to the IBB to develop the Circumventor software (but before you start calling me Hallibennett, I'm not working for the IBB right now, and it was my own idea to write this). So the American government, while requiring schools to block us in the U.S., would actually be helping to get us un-blocked in China and Iran! But Section 205 only says that a U.S. business may not block or shut down such sites. As far as I can tell, that means if the Cisco engineer on site in China sets up their routers for them, the Cisco engineer can't put VOANews.com on the block list. But then the Chinese official can walk across the room and add it to the list himself, can't he? Which is almost certainly what they'll do, since the routers are in their country.

So, I think the regulations against Internet blocking will be easy for foreign governments to ignore. But where the law could make a difference is in the prohibition against turning over users' personal data to law enforcement in censoring countries. Section 201 says that servers located in a censoring country cannot contain personally identifiable user information (so that the local police cannot simply storm in and seize the data). Section 202 says that American companies can only turn information over to law enforcement of a censoring country if the information is needed "for legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes as determined by the Department of Justice". MacKinnon has criticized this aspect of the law as well -- "If Americans don't want the DOJ to have access to their user information, why should anybody else?" Very true. But, even at the lowest point of public confidence in the Department of Justice, I think most people living outside of fortified compounds stocked with beef jerky and gold bullion, can agree that the U.S. DoJ has more integrity and legitimacy than the government of China, and that such a rule would mean fewer Chinese dissidents going to jail.

What do the affected U.S. companies think of the law? Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco did not respond to requests for comment. A Google PR person replied to say, "We welcome intiatives that expand access to information and protect the rights of users across the globe. At the same time, we remain concerned that legislation in this area can have unintended consequences, so we intend to study any such proposals closely, and work with proponents and others to reach the right outcome." When I replied that the Global Online Freedom Act had been proposed more than a year ago and had been online in its current form since June 2006, presumably enough time to "study such a proposal closely" and take a position on it, he said they would stick with that statement for now. (In his e-mail, he actually put quote marks around the company's statement, which I thought was a nice dry touch.)

But past statements from the respective companies have indicated they would be amenable to such a law. Bill Gates, never one to be shy about criticizing government regulation that he disagreed with, was asked in a February 2006 interview with the London Times, "Should the US government establish guidelines to regulate how internet companies deal with censorship in countries like China?" and answered, "I think something like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a resounding success in terms of very clearly outlining what companies can't do and other rich countries largely went along with that." At the February 2006 house hearings to discuss American companies' cooperation with overseas censors, representatives from all companies indicated that they actually wanted the government to play a bigger role -- they were vague about what such a role would be, but this was only a month after the first draft of the Global Online Freedom Act had been proposed, the only such law on the table at the time.

At first this might seem paradoxical -- why would companies seem amenable to, even supportive of, laws that would restrict what they can do? But it actually makes sense if you consider their negotiating position with the Chinese government. Currently, the Chinese censors can tell Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google that they either have to either play by the Chinese rules or get out, and the censors know that the companies will comply (without even necessarily feeling guilty about it -- the companies can always say that the Chinese people are better off with a censored version of their services than no access at all).

But if the companies' hands are tied by U.S. law, then they can basically present the Chinese government with a take-it-or-leave-it deal: You can use our e-mail and messenger and blog services, just know that our government won't let us turn over users' personal information if you ever want it. The Chinese censors are presumably coming from the point of view that they'd rather have a controlled Internet, but that it's more important to reap the economic benefits of having the Internet in their country, even if some control is lost (after all, if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't have connected to the Internet in the first place). Hence it's not likely that they'd throw out Yahoo Mail and Google search and MSN Messenger when so many users depend on these and use them for business as well as personal use. (Even if there are Chinese-made alternatives, there would be the huge cost of switching everyone over, and no longer being able to use the old tools to communicate with American companies.) So a law controlling the actions of U.S. companies would very probably allow them to keep doing business in censored countries, while giving them an excuse not to turn over users' data.

But, that might not work if it looks like the companies pushed too hard for the law themselves. If the Chinese see Yahoo fighting tooth and nail to pass a law that restricts what information Yahoo can hand over to China, the Chinese censors could take that as a slap in the face, and punish Yahoo for defying them even after the law is passed that prohibits Yahoo from cooperating. "Oh, you can't give us that information because of the law? This law right here that you lobbied for?"

So, when the general counsel of Yahoo says, "Ultimately, the greatest leverage lies with the U.S. government"; when the Vice President of Google tells Congress, "And certainly also, finally, there is a role for government. We do need your help, and you can help us"; when the associate general counsel of Microsoft testifies, "It is, therefore, the responsibility of governments, with the active leadership of the United States, to seek to reduce or reconcile these differences", I think what we're hearing are subtly encoded messages saying, "Pass this law, or something like it; we just can't look like we wanted it to pass." So, Congress should give them what they want, even if they can't ask for it directly. And at the same time they would be helping users in censored countries all around the world, before the next one gets sent to jail because an American company turned over their information.

Grow a pair

I think what we're hearing are subtly encoded messages saying, "Pass this law, or something like it; we just can't look like we wanted it to pass." So, Congress should give them what they want, even if they can't ask for it directly.

Translation: We don't have the balls to stand on principle and we don't want the loss of revenue that would result from getting out of these markets, so we have to be able to say that our gov't made us do it.

Re:Grow a pair

What country do you live in? When was the last time you heard of Wall Street being bullish on a stock because the company was a champion of human rights?

In the USA, officers of a company have a legal obligation to not intentionally harm the company's stock value through policy decisions. It's entirely possible that if the company leadership "grew a pair" and the result was being kicked out of China, the stockholders would file suit.

Capitalism doesn't work the way you suggest. Unless you want to re-write the ground rules to introduce factors other than "what will make us the most money" into the equation, then you're stuck with the current greedy, take-no-prisoners, CYA corporate status quo.

Re:Grow a pair

Companies are also bound by the laws of the country they are INCORPORATED in. This has always been the case. A company doesn't have the right to incorporate in the USA if it can't follow US laws, and it doesn't have the right to operate in China if it can't obey Chinese laws. This necessarily excludes some types of business ventures with some types of foreign governments.

No one is asking anyone to violate any nation's sovereignty and no one is taking away the right to run a business as one sees fit. American companies just want to have their cake and eat it too, make profit outside the USA doing while doing things not legal within our borders. I personally think that if an American company runs manufacturing facilities outside the USA they should still be bound by USA pollution standards, because it's all the same air and water.

This would only apply to Google if the law PASSED, I realize this.

Re:Grow a pair

Perhaps, rather than continually applying legal hacks like this, something should be done to address the root problem. If shareholders are the cause of corporate decisions, make them responsible for them as well.

So in other words lets completely dismantle our financial system so that we can maintain the moral high ground......while we're all reduced to living in shacks and eating ramen noodles for dinner.

So what you're saying is that instituting a policy of responsibility would destroy civilization?

I think it's the only thing that can save it.

Just think, if shareholders didn't just share in dividends, but were required to pay money (probably in the form of loss of shares) as part of any financial punishment levied against a corporation for its wrongdoing, they might actually employ some kind of responsibility in their investments! And then, corporations would be forced to be good citizens if they didn't want to scare off every investor!

Gee, wouldn't that be terrible?

Nice FUD, twink.

Uhhuh

I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.

Ambien

The companies protested that they had no choice but to comply with local Chinese laws, but that they were troubled by their own actions

Until they got the check and the good PR.

And is GOFA a good law?

No it's not. Such a law won't stop anything from happen, it'll merely move it out of the hands of US companies. I don't think that's a good thing.

Re:Uhhuh

No it's not. Such a law won't stop anything from happen, it'll merely move it out of the hands of US companies. I don't think that's a good thing.

Right, but then companies will have no choice but take a 'take-it-or-leave-it stance' with the Chinese government. It's a game of 'good cop/bad cop'. When the Chinese government comes in and says, "give me your subscriber list", the companies can now pass the buck, point a thumb back at Uncle Sam and say, "Huh, sorry, you'll have to take that up with them. In the meantime, the only other thing we can do is stop providing services in your country."

Make internet technology a munition then

..and refuse permission to export to countries that don't respect civil rights. There. Even playing field.

This is a joke; they're all hypocrites, they all worship the almighty dollar over human liberty. Every company listed literally is falling over themselves to access new markets.

If you want to trade with countries like this, at least have the balls to owe up to what you're doing. You obviously don't feel THAT bad. I'm sure someone rotting away in jail because of your reporting feels much worse.

Well, we can start compiling the list already

GOFA would create a U.S.-government-designated list of "Internet restricting countries"

• United States
• China
• Korea

Old News

When in Rome....

When in China...

You basically have three choices:

1) Ignore the market and leave it to the competition if there is any.

2) Conform to the local rules to gain invaluable early adopters and possibly change things once you are in a position with leveredge.

3) Try to bend the market to your will. Call this the confrontational approach.

Of the three I'd submit that #2 has the best chance of success in the long term.

Like that will stop them

But if the companies' hands are tied by U.S. law, then they can basically present the Chinese government with a take-it-or-leave-it deal: You can use our e-mail and messenger and blog services, just know that our government won't let us turn over users' personal information if you ever want it. The Chinese censors are presumably coming from the point of view that they'd rather have a controlled Internet, but that it's more important to reap the economic benefits of having the Internet in their country, even if some control is lost (after all, if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't have connected to the Internet in the first place). Hence it's not likely that they'd throw out Yahoo Mail and Google search and MSN Messenger when so many users depend on these and use them for business as well as personal use. (Even if there are Chinese-made alternatives, there would be the huge cost of switching everyone over, and no longer being able to use the old tools to communicate with American companies.) So a law controlling the actions of U.S. companies would very probably allow them to keep doing business in censored countries, while giving them an excuse not to turn over users' data.

At which point the Chinese government will erect the Great Firewall of China (adding in their buddy North Korea for good measure), and then force their citizens to use government-sponsored computers, routers, network connections, mail clients, etc. And then Chinese censors will be able to have the data anytime they want it. China has all the capability needed to do this, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Does this outlaw MPAA/RIAA strong-arming?

FTB:

The term "substantial restrictions on Internet freedom" means actions that restrict or punish the free availability of information via the Internet for reasons other than legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes

So does this mean that when the MPAA/RIAA tell country X to block something even though none of country X's laws say they have to (in this case foreign refers to country X not the USA), that said country is restricting Internet Freedom?

How they sleep

"I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night."

They sleep on top of a pile of money with many beautiful women.

I'm confused

Ok ... someone please elxplain, because I don't get it.

Doing internet business in communist and other countries which have oppressive regimes and following their local laws rather than US law (free speech, censorship, etc) is bad.

Pouring billions of dollars into their economy via manufacturing and giving them "preferred trading status" while following their local laws rather than US law (wage minimums, working conditions, etc) is good (See: China).

Makes perfect sense if you're a politician I suppose.

- Roach

the game

So these companies get the US government to prevent them from handing over information to a foreign government. Then, when that foreign government wants to track down a violator of their rules these companies get to play the:

Same Lame Blame Game

"There is nothing we can do to help you because our US government prevents us from doing that". Now their ass is covered and someone takes the heat for them. They want to take no risk or responsibility. Nothing new about this. Profit without liability.

A small correction

Authoritarian foreign governments such as the Governments of Belarus, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, North Korea, the People's Republic of China, Tunisia, Vietnam, and The United States block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens try to obtain.

There, fixed that for ya.

So umm

So calling yourself a democracy really make you better than a totalitarian government? Maybe there should be a set of items against which a government should be checked against. I know of a country or two where the majority of citizens do not like what their supposedly democratic government does...but the government still does it. So if you're going to use business and technology to play politics, one may should at least make the rules fair and transparent: I don't think just wagging your finger at China is that.

Good old government

What a bunch of elitist jackasses we have in the halls of Congress!

They start bloody military conflicts where thousands are killed and maimed, trample on The Constitution, run up $8 trillion in national debt for future generations to pay off, etc. etc. and then have the AUDACITY to suggest that some corporate execs should be overwhelmed with guilt about filtering search results and shutting down web pages?

Re:Good old government

So you are one of those that thinks because I do something wrong I can't see you doing something wrong? This is such a bunch of crap. If Charles Manson was the first to come out and say that Enron was a dirty company with horrible financial records would it make it less true? Politicians are in the business of standing behind curtains making bad deals and telling us all how to live. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don't lets hold them accountable for their actions but if they get something right we shouldn't throw it out because they are bad people.

Hmmmm, lemme get this straight . . .

Just how is a US law like this supposed to tear down the Great FireWall of China?

Oh, that's right - instead of complying with Chinese law, these players will tell the Chinese government "We can't hand over the records you've requested as a matter of US law".

Previously, they capitulated because their only choice was to face being blocked by China's Great FireWall. This changes that how?

GOFA meant well, but...

Do the US Representatives and Senators that passed this law remember that they also passed laws banning certain content on the Internet? I realize that blocking child pornography and blocking political speech are two different things, but it is still censorship.

Nick

Summary of the summary?

Longest.... summary... ever!

Just who is the good guy?

I am not too much worried about US companies having to obey foreign local law. The notion that US law applies everywhere is ridiculous, even if I can see how some companies would like that, and maybe that's their real agenda. Would make global domination so much easier.

What worries me is foreign more or less oppressive goverments dictating local companies how they do bussiness. With threats of beeing labeled (aiding) terrorists if not complying of course.

Yes, that's the US goverment I am speaking of. Examples are absurd data gathering on air travel and financial transactions. Appearantly they forced some European companies into secret collaboration, even over local law. The EC started investigating privacy breaches, but I don't expect much to come out there. At least the Chinese don't meddle out of home.

Righteous move?

Is take it or leave it really the attitude that would promote change?

At this point in time, I feel being disconnected from the flow of information would be the most harmful thing that could happen. We've already taken for granted the impact the abundance of data has had on our lives.

The freer the flow, the faster we advance. By trying to make moral decisions on their behalf, you're likely to do more harm than good. Although it is a controversial topic with no real right answer, simply halting all services would mean leaving the people with even less to look forward to.

And really. Do we think that because the government blocks political content, the people are really left in the dark?

Classic...

"...they all invited the U.S. government to play a bigger role, while being vague about what the role should be."

Feed the monster.

U.S. on the list of Internet restricting countries

Wouldn't the U.S. (and just about every country in the world) also end up on this list of internet restricting countries. Between pending regulations on political/lobbying activities on the internet, CAN-SPAM, hate speech, civil penalties for NSFW images in the workplace, filtering for libraries, kiddie porn laws, online gambling laws, USA Patriot law, DMCA, etc., one could argue that the U.S. heavily restricts activities on the internet too.

I deploy China's censorship as much as the next guy, and would strongly argue that it is very bad for the Chinese economy. But wonder if I have the knowledge or the right, much less the obligation, to hassle them about it. Perhaps we must realize that we don't have a monopoly on how to regulate the internet in the context of a cultural-dependent definition of the relative rights of societies versus individuals versus commercial enterprises versus select groups of citizens (e.g., kids, minorities, etc.).

Democracy comes at the barrel of a gun

Or at least it appears that way nowadays.

I'm all for idealism, but since those who profess Democracy seem to hate our Freedoms, how could this concept ever get not only passed into law, made into treaties, but enforced?

"Restricting" isn't a binary condition

One obvious problem: "restricting" versus "not restricting" isn't a brightly-defined binary choice. Many European countries, for example, have laws prohibiting Holocaust denial, and require ISPs to take down or block access to neo-Nazi and Holocaust denial sites. But they're a far cry from, say, China. The proposed legislation doesn't deal well with that distinction....

Proud To Be An American

I realize that there are some thorny issues here of business and politics, but take a moment and read the statement of purpose from this bill: "It shall be the policy of the United States ... to promote as a fundamental component of United States foreign policy the right of everyone to freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers;" The rest of the world can go and bash us for what we do wrong, and there's plenty there, I know, but this is something that we can and should do that is RIGHT.

The reason there's a list of countries ...

It isn't because of Saudi Arabia -- it's because of the U.S.

GOFA would create a U.S.-government-designated list of "Internet restricting countries" and would in most cases prohibit U.S.-based companies from censoring content or turning over users' information to the governments of those countries.

(emphasis added)

Think about it -- a law which says a company isn't allowed to keep personally identifiable information, and isn't allowed to give it to the government ... yet, we have the attorney general trying to push the exact opposite for ISPs in the US [slashdot.org] (oh... but it's for kiddie porn [slashdot.org], so that's okay, right? they wouldn't use it for tracking leaks [slashdot.org] or other crimes against free speach, right?)

Useless Without International Sanctions

I have to say that I'm extremely exasperated by the complaints against google for censoring their content. Yes, censorship is bad but it really pisses me off when people blame a company just for being tangled up in some unpalatable area even if their actions are a net benefit. The, quite compelling, justification that google gave for engaging in censorship was that if they didn't do it the Chinese would have access to even less information and that more censor friendly companies would take over.

This law still presents the danger of similar bad consequences. To the extent that foreign companies can still censor material we may see companies like Google who reluctantly censor material at government request replaced with foreign companies eager to please censoring government to curry favor. The net effect of this might be to create a second economy in censor friendly IT information. The last thing we want is to have a Chinese company position itself as a more censor-friendly alternative to google to all the oppressive regimes around the world.

So I'm unsure about the goodness of this bill. It may be on net positive or it may not.

What I would surely support would be an international treaty, signed by as many free societies as possible, that agrees to impose penalties on ANY company that colludes with government censorship. If the Chinese alternative to google can't avail itself of EU/US financial markets, get ad money from companies operating in these environments or otherwise access the free world it would prevent a censor friendly company from rising to offer an alternative to the free speech friendly services. Even better it would provide the best kind of pressure, internal demands by corporations who want to make money, on places like China to relax their censoring laws so their companies can compete in the world market.

Not to mention the fact that an international treaty like this would be more resistant to things like the US-Saudi friendship.

Oh well, here goes my karma

Not to be a troll, but it's not these companies but rather the U.S. politicians that should have trouble sleeping at night! From the summary:

...Yahoo was under fire for recently turning over information to Chinese authorities that led to the arrest of a political dissident...Representative Tom Lantos summed up the mood of many of his colleagues by telling the companies, "I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night."

Meanwhile, AT&T is turning over phone records to our fricken' government without either a warrant or a subpeona, legislation like the Patriot Act and CALEA is trampling over 200 years of civil rights, and detainees are rotting in Guantanamo Bay while Alberto Gonzales is saying that there is no guaranteed right to habeas corpus in the Constitution.

Give me a break--it must take some serious cojones to point the finger at China while doing as much as possible to emulate them right here in the good ole U.S. of A. <shakes head in disgust>

hypocrisy

So, it's ok for the US to subponea for search records, but if China wants stuff blocked it is a major civil leberties violation? Something is a little weird here.

A cultural attack?

Freedom is good, and constrains are also good. If you don't have bones that are constrains, you will not be able to move freely. :-) I think this kind of law could be considered an cultural attack from America, - to disorganize the country. Just a thought.

"A step in the right direction" != good law

The phrase "a step in the right direction" is an admission that the law is flawed. In this case, the contributor admits the law is toothless regarding censorship, and privacy is only enforced selectively, as dictated by the US government.

This may help Silicon Valley, but it does little for the global struggle for freedom.

In Illinois...

I grew up in the state of Illinois. In Illinois it is illegal for car dealerships to be open on Sundays.

This is not the case for other businesses. Most businesses in Illinois are open on Sunday; of course, they don't have to be open any day, and some business owners choose to keep their stores closed on Sunday.

But car dealerships must stay closed. I've been told that the dealerships all got together and asked the state legislature to pass a law enforcing this. Why would they ask for a law restricting their behavior? Probably because they wanted Sundays off, and knew that if other dealers opened on Sunday they'd have to open as well to stay competitive. If the law was removed and a single dealership in an area opened on Sunday it would only be a matter of time before they all opened. So the net result of the law is bad for working consumers looking to buy cars, who now have only one day out of their weekend to do it.

Tech companies' support of this law is exactly the same. They want to be protected against companies that would gladly do things that they don't want to do. But the net result of the law from the perspective of the government passing it, less choices for censoring governments, is probably a net positive for people in those countries (at least as our government sees it). It won't work totally; in fact, it might wind up like Illinois' ban on fireworks sales, leading to giant fireworks stores right across the Indiana and Wisconsin borders, totally outside the state's legislative arm.

Useless and unnecessary

Well.... first don't assume that only American companies know how to create Web sites. If Americans don't take that market, fine, there are thousands of similar web sites from e-mail to blogs in China. In fact, many US sites like Yahoo are not popular in China because their front pages do not contain tons of "sexually implicit" materials as you can find in a true Chinese website.

I have been living in China for a few years. While it is absolutely true that the government has restrictions on the cyberspace. The Internet is still the most open place for public opinions. In fact, except a few very sensitive issues like Taiwan or Fa Lun Gong, you can see many criticism of the government or the party; I have read posts that simply refers the party as dictators and the posts were appearing in major sites like Sina.com. Other examples I just read (sorry you need to be able to read Chinese):

http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/defa [sina.com.cn] ult.html?channel=cj&newsid=31-1-3297449 [sina.com.cn]

http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/defa [sina.com.cn] ult.html?channel=gn&newsid=1-1-12182898&style=0 [sina.com.cn]

So restricting American companies' conducts in China is both useless and unnecessary. This is advocated by politicians who know not much about China and just try to appeal to the equally mis-informed public.

Aside what do most Chinese people worry about? Politic? Democracy? Freedom? No. They worry about sky-rocketing housing price, education and medical costs, and they worry about jobs. The same things we worry about in America. Things like democracy and freedom of speech do not solve all those problems. Look at Philippine, Mexico, India, ... Are people better off in those countries with elected officials?

As people in China get richer and richer, they will ask for more and more political rights and freedom. That has been the case for last 20 years. Those things will not need to come overnight. What works is a middle-class-driven economy.

There is life out side of politics in those countries.

We don't need your law.

I fail to see how "human rights" can be protected by a "law" - especially a law in this country trying to protect people in other countries. (All rights are "human" and law is what takes away rights.) If the people of China choose to allow a government like the one they have that's fine, If Yahoo wants to work with them that is also fine by me. I know I might get modded down for being heartless here but thats the way it is.

Right now Yahoo and others are free to do business as they see fit.. after we pass this law we will be taking that freedom away from them. Thats what this is about.

The people of this country should be far more concerned about our toltalitarian government and how its abusing the its own peoples rights.

The Solution to Authoritarianism? Authoritarianism

Yes, only when the U.S. government has absolute power to dictate the actions of companies, even outside the U.S., including punishing them for actions that are legal both countries, can this scourge of overzealous government control be ended!

The key to fighting totalitarianism, is to give the government totalitarian control so it can fight totalitarianism!

China has the same sort of laws already

But where the law could make a difference is in the prohibition against turning over users' personal data to law enforcement in censoring countries. Section 201 says that servers located in a censoring country cannot contain personally identifiable user information (so that the local police cannot simply storm in and seize the data).

Working for a company that is doing business online, and is entering the Chinese market, I can confirm that China has laws that prohibits personal information on their citizens from being stored on servers outside their country. Therefore we are opening a data center in Beijing, even though we will be duplicating much of our hosting environment that is perfectly capable of serving the Chinese market right now. All to comply with China's version of Section 201.

So let me get this straight.

It is OK for George Bush to entertain as his guest the President of the allegedly evil Chinese regime, and it is OK for the USA to support a country that has probably worse human rights violations (Saudi Arabia), but it is not OK for Google to remove results fro mthe index that are blocked by the great firewall of China.

Hmmm.

If the government wants to be taken seriously, then the first thing they should legislate is to make it illegal for them to kill innocent people in other countries because some baddies came and killed innocent people in their country. Now that would be progress.

Dangerous Thinking.

It's painful to give a pass to countries like Germany that also censor political speech, but I think that the situation is so much worse in places like China that we should do what we can in the short term.

Its very dangerous to set precedents where certain groups are excluded from the wording. It might be more difficult than one thinks to expand a definition concerning who is an internet restricting country.

IANAL as per most such comments =)