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Yahoo Helps Jail Chinese Writer
An anonymous reader writes "Internet giant Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of journalist Shi Tao for "divulging state secrets". "
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Nothing like a good accusation to get people stirred up.
Anything is possible, but an accusation is ceratinly easy to cook up.
Here's the thing -- the Hong Kong arm of yahoo lives in HONG KONG! They live in a communist country! How could anyone think that threatened with life in prison by a repressive government, a Chinese "Citizen" would possibly choose to not immediately capitulate to ANY request by the police? Just because an employee in China decided to NOT be Patrick Henry doesn't mean Yahoo's in bed with the Reds.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
The real problem is the GLOBAL erosion of privacy, which our misguided government has provided great momemtum to. The fact that we invade and infrige upon previously protected privacy rights precludes us from preaching to other governments, and from faulting them.
I read this article before it was even posted on Slashdot (BBC RSS feeds are nice) and I can't really see why there's a big uproar about this, unless there's more to the story than the article mentions. Since when did complying with a government order amount to explicit consent and approval of government actions? Yahoo didn't convict/jail this guy, the Chinese government did.
Yahoo didn't actively seek to jail this Chinese writer. Nowhere in the article does it mention that Yahoo CONTACTED the police and said, "here is a guy you should arrest." While I come to expect this from slashdot, I'm somewhat disturbed that BBC is doing the same thing.
Maybe Yahoo did contact the police and tell them everything, but according to the article all they did was
Come on people, basic reading skills! Stop reading without thinking.Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Non-communism of China aside, it is important to consider other possibilities. For all we know, Yahoo wasn't told what they were actually doing. Hell, they might have just been given the email headers and told to find out where they came from. Maybe they were told it was a child porn investigation. Would you demand to see the proof?
Of course, in a situation like this, we'll probably never know if Yahoo's employees knew what they were doing, whether this guy actually stole any "State Secrets" or if they just needed a phony charge to shut the guy up, or what the real truth is.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Yahoo must be insane to have allowed this to happen, especially when their main competitor has a published philosophy including the statement: "You can make money without doing evil".
BTW, just to highlight the difference between this and the usual /. chatter, a brave journalist is going to spend 10 years in brutal, frightening conditions, at the mercy of a system that would prefer him to be dead. He would not be in Jail if Yahoo had not crossed the line and given the authorities access to his email account.
Sure, Yahoo has to protect it's $1bn investment in Chinese Ecommerce firm Alibaba.com but other companies manage to keep the Chinese authorities happy by censoring bloggers etc (Yahoo already has a strong record of collaborating in censorship) but, so far, other companies have drawn the line at becoming police informants.
And, yes, I understand that companies must obey the laws of the countries they operate in but, you know what, sometimes you have to recognize the difference between pragmatism and evil.
You'd do better to rail against similar US laws, including the PATRIOT Act. Journalism borders on espionage, especially when done for a foreign organization. Moreso when it is done for no legitimate purpose.
Lamentably, China makes no pretense at democracy. So gathering political information cannot use the excuse of "informing the voters". Just what what would be done with the information? Used it to titillate and embarrass?
Journalists are not above the law. They are to observe and record, not spy and foment change. When they cross over, they imperil their colleagues everywhere.
1) Don't operate in China
2) Refuse to cooperate with the police
3) Demand veto rights on cooperation with the police
4) Cooperate
In practice, 2 and 3 are identical to 1. And maybe 1 is what they should be doing. But it's not like they actively made a decision to violate X's human rights. (The censorship issues, on the other hand, really are overt decisions.)
We were told that more trade and more interaction with China would bring greater freedom. We were lied to.
Actually, I'm not sure that trade and interaction haven't contributed to what's certainly greater freedom since Mao's time. But, at any rate, it's useful to realize that not everything people predict that doesn't work out is LIES!!! There is a such a thing as difference of opinion in good faith.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If there was a news report today that Yahoo helped use the information on its network to bring someone that the U.S. Government considered to be, say, a terrorist, to justice, would people be complaining?
Let's be consistent here. It sounds like China considered this guy to be a terrorist of sorts. Doesn't that mean, according to popular fear-driven definitions of justice, that it was right to do whatever was necessary to find him?
I should note, for those who didn't pick it up before now, that I don't mean at all that Yahoo should've actually helped in this effort. On the contrary, I think this should be considered to be a good example of how relative the definition of Terrorist is, and how if we are going to be so indignant about other countries abusing privacy issues to find their so-called "terrorists", perhaps we in the U.S. should not be so complacent as to accept and support when our own country goes on a witch hunt in violation of ethical law.
-Vendal Thornheart
I don't expect US corporations to impose US laws on foreign soil
So if that's the case, what did Yahoo do wrong? They handed over the name of a person who had committed a crime to the proper authorities.
The rights regarding freedom of speech that you are promoting are American law. You can argue all you want that they are universal human rights, but they're not. They're part of American culture and the American legal system
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
Well, of course they must follow always local laws. They can't choose which laws, if they're not up to USA standards. Oh yeah, and if you think China is a bad place for putting people in prison, you might wanna check the percentage of people in prison in USA first. To put it short, China prisons people for "being wrong", and USA prisons people for "being too poor". But of course it is always easy to play jesus about it on Slashdot. It's also perfectly legal to sell booze to people of age 18 here in Finland. Now can I also come to sell it in USA to people of that age? Now where's my troll status?
The options for Yahoo are
You forgot:
5) When operating in freedom-hostile countries, maintain a STRICT log rotation policy with a very short retention period. Or, for those countries that have minimum mandatory retention periods, store the logs on servers in a more sane country - China might have no problem quietly crushing a dissident, but would they even dare to ask when it would require formally requesting "extradition" of the relevant data?
And if the country in question has laws that would prevent even that... Well, #1 looks like a pretty good option. At some point, a company bears responsibility for its complicity in dealing with oppressive regimes.
Now, in this particular situation, I would say we don't have enough enformation to judge Yahoo's choice to cooperate. If they fail to correct whatever circumstances led to this cooperation in an atrocity on their part, then we can all shake our fingers and go "shame, shame, shame!". But for now, no.
It is interesting how we attack Iraq for being totalitarian (official excuse) and we embargo Cuba decade after decade for the same reason. China however is totalitarian and we not only encourage investment there we allow our companies to aid and abet their oppression. Nice set of double standards we have.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Where there is a democratic process of accountability, assassination is just murder. It's when there is no practicable system of holding people responsible for their actions that vigilantism is unfortunately required. Moreover, it is only warranted when its measures are commensurate with the crimes or social problems which are being addressed. What crime is Hugo Chavez guilty of? Is it infeasible for his accusers to avail themselves of a duly constituted court with the power to adequately redress their grievances?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-