Yahoo may be a moral pygmy, but Congress is hardly better
By Vindu Goel
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 10:26 pm in Business, Columns & Extras, Politics, Public Policy, Technology.
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Tuesday’s congressional hearing about Yahoo turning over information about two dissidents to the Chinese government got me all riled up — and not at Yahoo.
Here’s a sneak peek at a column appearing in the Thursday paper:
Congress has a lot of nerve ripping into Yahoo for turning over identifying information about two Chinese dissidents to the Chinese government.
“Morally, you are pygmies,” Rep. Tom Lantos, the San Mateo Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, thundered at a hearing Tuesday.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., compared Yahoo to the Nazi collaborators in World War II.
Oh, please.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not defending Yahoo. Unlike competitors Google and Microsoft, the Sunnyvale Web giant put key servers for its Web-based e-mail system within China’s borders, opening the door to the Chinese government demands that resulted in 10-year prison terms for the two dissidents.
Yahoo then compounded the mistake by telling Congress last year that company officials didn’t know what China was investigating when the information was turned over — a claim that was misleading at best.
But Congress should think hard about how it’s undermining civil rights here at home before getting all holier-than-thou on U.S. companies trying to figure out how to do business in China, a place where the government’s power can be both murky and threatening.
“I wish Congress would put the practices domestically under the same magnifying glass,” said Danny O’Brien, international outreach coordinator at Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group that has advocated for privacy rights around the globe. “This is an inconsistent position.”
After all, U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the USA Patriot Act, which essentially gives our government a blank check to snoop on our e-mail, seize our phone records and monitor our Web surfing without even bothering to get a warrant. Investigators simply have to invoke the magic words “national security.”‘
Funny, that doesn’t sound so different from the justification the Chinese used to get Yahoo’s records: “suspected illegal provision of state secrets to foreign entities.”
The very same Congress passed a special law to try to overturn a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay actually have a right to know the charges against them.
Holding people for years without charges sounds more like a dictatorship than a democracy.
And now, Congress is seriously considering legislation to give AT&T, Verizon and other phone companies immunity from individuals’ privacy lawsuits for turning over their personal records under orders from government investigators.
Wait, isn’t that basically what Yahoo did in China?
Yahoo was wrong. It is a moral pygmy. But Congress isn’t standing any taller.
[Both comments and pings are currently closed.]
November 7th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
If coporations that take on Christian notion like “obey the law of the land” and cooperate with local government on crimial investigations required by law are “Moral Pygmies” -
- then what are the corporations that help a regime to subvert the nation’s constitution, help wage a war based on lies, and marterially support the brutal
occupation of another country? Killing innocent civilians under the regime’s approval and protection?
What did our Congress call Blackwater USA?
November 7th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Tom Lantos was right scolding Yahoo!, in fact he/The Congress shouldn’t have stopped there. They should go also after the other companies too: Google, Microsoft etc.
I am really, really tired of the high tech industry double standard regarding privacy and free speech. They (the companies) make a big deal of resisting government intervention in those countries where it really doesn’t matter like the US or France (remember the Yahoo-Nazi case?). Here and in Western Europe, the real heroes are the founding fathers and the courageous soldiers who fought in World War II against the evils of Nazi Germany and the like. Now, when those same companies have the opportunity to really make a difference, and fight for what is right, in countries like communist China and they absolutely do nothing under the excuse “we operate according to the rules of the land”. I am really, really sick of you companies, and even sicker of you Vindu (and the like) who make outrageous columns like this to make the executives of those companies feel better.
The whole point is not about how good are the American politicians but rather how evil some American companies can be in order to make money in countries like China. Shame on you Vindu and Kudos to Lantos (who speaks from experience about the evils of cooperating with totalitarian regimes (his case Nazi Germany) and the courage of opposing them (his case the Swedish diplomat who sacrificed his own life to save Lantos and thousands more)
November 8th, 2007 at 12:02 am
“Don’t be evil” is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) for Google,[1] established by company co-founder Sergey Brin, who claimed it was a powerful and benevolent principle for Google and other organizations — corporations in particular.
“Don’t be evil” is said to recognize that large corporations can often maximize short-term profits with actions that destroy long-term brand image and competitive position. By instilling a Don’t Be Evil culture, the corporation establishes a baseline for decision making that can enhance the trust and image of the corporation that outweighs short-term gains from violating the Don’t Be Evil principles.
While many companies have ethical codes to govern their conduct, Google makes “Don’t Be Evil” a central pillar of their identity.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Talking about the double standard, the last thing we needed was Google’s “Don’t Be Evil”. “Don’t Be Evil”, sure, except when it comes to China, be sure you fully comply (as Google does) with China’s censorship and other human right abuses if required. What a joke!
November 8th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Just read your column this morning (in the paper) and I say “Bravo”! Congress needs to look in the mirror.
Yahoo and other internet companies have run into a genuine ethical dilemna in trying to be a law-abiding corporation worldwide. Hopefully these companies will learn from their mistakes and no longer aid repressive regimes.
But Congress has been despicable in rolling over to the Bush administration and giving away our constitutional rights. One of the biggest offenders on the Democratic side is our own Sen. Feinstein (west coast version of Joe Lieberman). Congress is so cowed by “national security” and “terrorism” that they always end up aiding and abetting the administration.
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
JohnB
November 8th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Congress was too easy and light handed with the Yahoo execs. These billionaires have treated others as disposables for some time now and only in this case happened to get caught. The vagaries of the Congressional behavior have nothing to do with this and I am surprised that you miss this. It is like complaining about the police officer who gives you a speeding ticket by saying that they should be catching more serious criminals.
Since we are talking about politics, I think it is appropriate for all of us to be sensitive - not just politically correct - about the reference to “pygmies”, as if this is a defective or something inferior. Please don’t defend the use of the word with the grandfather clause, and “pygmies” are not the semantic opposites of “standing tall”. Many other offensive adjectives have existed in the past and this too must be consciously erased in the context of this association.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Note to Rep Lantos: Intellectually, you are a donut.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Atul,
Good point on the use of the term “pygmies.” It does refer to an ethnic group, and certainly they have nothing to do with this.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Looks like Google has its own mini version of a Yahoo mess: it gave the Indian government the IP address of an Indian dissident who posted a disrepectful photo of an Indian historical figure on Orkut, Google’s social-networking site.
The government went to the dissident’s Internet service provider, which fingered the wrong guy, a 26-year-old tech worker in Bangalore named Lakshmana Kailash K.
The poor guy spent three weeks in jail. No word on whether the cops ever got the real suspect.
As for Google? It says it was just obeying the law.