Slashdot Mirror
Congressmen Condemn Companies for China Policies
koweja writes "Members of Congress have taken the step of criticizing various IT companies for their international policies. This includes Google and Microsoft, for what they call 'bowing to Beijing' and 'putting profits before American principles of free speech'. Most of the specific incidents have been covered on Slashdot already. Yahoo and MS countered by pointing out that event censored network access 'enabled far wider access to independent sources of information for hundreds of millions of individuals in China and elsewhere' than not entering China."
Google's response.
My apologies if this has been posted already.
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
Suppose you're a librarian and an FBI agent shows up and wants to know the complete list of books and websites this particular Muslim patron looked at. They don't have a court's warrant, but you still have to comply, of course. You're outraged, you want to scream, you want to protest, you want to blog, you want to write a letter to the editor, you want to call your congressman! Oops, nope, can't talk about that, sorry, it's illegal. That's freedom of speech for you, in these United States of America.
The same is true for bank employees, by the way, and everyone working with financial records, including casinos, pawn shops, U.S. Postal Office, car dealerships etc.