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Letter Casts Doubt On Yahoo China Testimony

Posted by kdawson on Mon Jul 30, 2007 06:51 PM
from the what-did-they-know-and-when dept.
Privacy Government The Courts News
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."
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[+] Technology: Yahoo Defends Itself On China Allegations 110 comments
Vitaly Friedman writes "Yahoo defends its policies in China as doing more good than harm, even as multiple dissidents have been jailed based on Yahoo Mail evidence. From the article: 'Yahoo continues to defend itself against charges that its Chinese operations have been responsible for the jailing of multiple dissidents. Multiple reports have surfaced which tie Yahoo Mail to various Chinese court cases that have ended in imprisonment for writers with politically unpopular opinions.'"
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Letter Casts Doubt On Yahoo China Testimony 25 Comments More /

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  • So What? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian (840721) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:03PM (#20050043) Journal
    Why, we were just following orders? You don't expect us to break the laws of other nations, do you? 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!

    War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

    • Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cassius Corodes (1084513) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:06PM (#20050065)
      This kind of behaviour is on the increase around the world - the Internet is not the bastion of anonymity it once was - and we have mostly western companies to blame.

      • Companies? Or governments? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Opportunist (166417) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:32PM (#20050309)
        Let's see. After all, it looks like Yahoo lied to congress, if I interpret this correctly. There was an investigation from congress, and they said it ain't so. In my books, this constitutes as a lie.

        Now the congress is in a considerable problem. Either they fine a company or they accept that companies lie to them freely. Decisions, decisions...

        I have a gut feeling I know how this will end.

        • I have a gut feeling I know how this will end.

          Jerry Yang being appointed to the newly created position of Technology Czar for the Bush Administration?

          • If I was him, I'd wait 'til after elections. You never know which party wins, and should the democrats take over, it would look kinda awkward if he remained in office.
        • They testified that they had no knowledge of the details surrounding the case. The "warrant" simply states that the Chinese government is asserting its right to obtain the IP address and content of the e-mails. No details are provided other than the justification.

          For some reason, there's 3 pages of posts modded up for berating Yahoo's supposed perjury before Congress, but, as usual, nobody bothered to read the fucking anything.
      • Guess what: It never was.

        For a long time, it appeared to be anonymous. However, do you think you were anon to groups like Doubleclick, or Yahoo, or any other aggregate "news" or ad portal?

        There were ways to be anon:

        1: Use a Socks proxy
        2: Use a "web only" proxy (mal-configured Squid is your friend)
        3: Use a mail-WWW translator machine (with appropriate obfuscations in the mail client)

        Now, we can use the net anon via TOR, or nyud.net for not hitting their machine, or a multitude of new options.

      • Any guesses ... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday July 30 2007, @07:36PM (#20050355)
        ... as to how the comments on this thread will compare to the comments on the thread about police recording license plate locations and times?
        http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/30/01 45253 [slashdot.org]

        It would appear that some degree of privacy / anonymity is necessary for Freedom.

        • Re:Any guesses ... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Opportunist (166417) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:50PM (#20050497)
          Not only for your freedom, but also for your health.

          Being under constant surveillance is quite a bit of stress for a person. Especially when said person knows he's under surveillance. You can't behave "normally". Our education tells us that you simply don't do certain things in public. And we behave accordingly in public. Believe it or not, that's stressful. You have to "behave".

          People don't really feel it that much, usually. They spend 10 hours tops in public view. They usually can retreat to their privacy if the stress becomes unbearable. But ask any celebrity, especially those that became famous against their will, how it feels to be a "public person".

          If this becomes mainstream, I predict a lot more people going postal.
      • things. I love it and I tend to think idealistically about it, but I think when you cut right down to it that's what it is. We develop things to control more. It's inevitable that we'd start using technology to control ourselves, or the people we don't trust.

    • Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EMeta (860558) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:16PM (#20050145)
      Following orders is one thing. Lying to congress is a considerable felony. Why does no one seem to get this these days, lying to congress is not some American right, no matter how much they lie to you?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Opportunist (166417)
        Well, whether they want to or not, politicians are some kind of role model. If people think their politicians care for their country and put the country before anything else, they will do the same. If people think politicians are crooks that care about the country if it coincidentally happens to be done by the same procedures that line their pockets, people will do the same.

        They're representatives in the truest sense of the word.
        • Politicians are chosen by the people and the people are represented through the politicians.

          So, if we have corrupt politicians, it is nothing but a reflection of our society.

      • Or more specifically (Score:5, Informative)

        by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:58PM (#20051023)
        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.

        • 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.
          Depends what the meaning of "lied" is.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TapeCutter (624760)
      "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".
      • 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".

        Trivia: Before Australia came along, "Yahoo" was the name Jonathan Swift gave to the degenerate humans in his Gulliver's Travels [wikipedia.org]

  • Food for thought. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Token_Internet_Girl (1131287) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:08PM (#20050071)
    Normally I'd have something terrible to say, but in this case I think I'd say this: As much as we hate hearing about Paris Hilton 234987129371 times, Freedom of the Press is important, even though Fox abuses it incessantly.
    • Did you hear that Paris lost her inheritance? ...

      Oh wait... I'm on the wrong forum again. *goes back to her gossip webpages*
  • I am impressed how international the Chinese police is. Local Chinese search warrants now issued in English and pdf format.

    Mao must be proud

  • "This new documentation suggests that Yahoo!'s Beijing office was at least aware of the general nature of the crime being investigated in the Shi Tao case," says Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and publications for The Dui Hua Foundation, "even if it was unaware of the specific circumstances or the name of the individual involved. 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."

    Thus sayeth an expert in

    • And yes, fellow nitpickers, I know there's supposed to be an exclamation point after Yahoo. However, as previously stated: fuck Yahoo !
      there, fixed for you

  • The state secrets he leaked (Score:3, Informative)

    by z-j-y (1056250) on Monday July 30 2007, @07:51PM (#20050507)
    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.
  • ...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.

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