Congressional Commitee Rips Yahoo Execs

A number of readers sent word of the hearing by the US House Foreign Affairs Committee in which committee members raked two Yahoo execs over the coals. "While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," the committee chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said angrily after hearing from Jerry Yang and Michael Callahan about Yahoo's actions that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of a Chinese dissident. In 2004 Yahoo turned over information about journalist Shi Tao's online activities requested by Chinese authorities. In Feb. 2006, Yahoo's General Counsel Callahan testified that he had not known the nature of the investigation the authorities were conducting. He later learned that several employees of Yahoo China were aware at the time that the investigation involved "state secrets," but Callahan did not go back to Congress to amend his testimony. Committee members were withering in their disdain for Yahoo's refusal to help Shi Tao's family after his arrest.

Comments

PKB

[mastershake_phd]

Isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black?

Re:PKB

[joebagodonuts]

Oh please. This isn't about the reprehensibility of Yahoo's actions. This is about Congress being hypocritical. Neither party gives a hoot about the journalist getting jailed.

The irony here is that Yahoo's simply following the leadership that our elected leaders demonstrate. If our leaders have a problem with what's going on, they might want to look at how they are leading this nation, rather than hold disingenuous hearings.

So - the kettle/pot comments are appropriate considering the subject matter. And before you go much further condemning Yahoo - Check your belongings. How much of it says "Made in China"?

Re:PKB

[StevisF]

I don't really expect any level of ethical behavior from corporations. Corporations have two goals: increase the price of their stock and produce dividends for investors. To that end, they may accidentially or perhaps even intentionally act ethically, but it's certainly not to be expected. I do, however, expect the government to provide sufficient oversight of corporations.

I think what people are expressing is that the Congress should not expect ethical behavior from corporations when their actions have been ethically questionable and it's their job to regulate the corporations. Clearly in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, congress has allowed privacy and human rights to fall by the wayside worldwide.

Re:PKB

[smilindog2000]

Step 1: Congress makes it illegal to filter political content, or for any US corporation to aid in political sensorship'
Step 2: The bad guys close down their firewalls, but the US, EU, Canada, AU, etc, grow in prosperity and freedom through freedom of speech on the Internet
Step 3: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran all try to emulate our success, and tear down their firewalls.

The importance of freedom of political speech on the Internet can't be understated. It's the future of the world at stake.

Re:PKB

[russotto]

The same Congress would be screaming if a foreign corporation refused to provide US authorities information on someone the US decided was a "person of interest".

Re:PKB

[cheater512]

Step 1: Congress makes it illegal to filter political content, or for any US corporation to aid in political sensorship except content relating to the US government

There fixed it for you.

Hmm

[fiannaFailMan]

I wonder will these politicians be as robust in their denunciation of China's human rights record the next time a Chinese trade delegation pays them a visit.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

And, why aren't they yelling at AT&T for providing information to the Executive branch on the online activities of US citizens without a warrant? Is this not exactly the same thing as what Yahoo! is being lambasted for, except Yahoo! was *following* the law, and AT&T (and others) were *breaking* it?

Re:Hmm

[MightyMartian]

So if that's the beginning and end of corporate responsibility, then clearly IBM was quite right to help the Nazis exterminate Jews, Gypsies and other undesirables. Good to know that corporations doing business abroad shouldn't be held to any level of basic responsibility for human rights and human dignity, and should be nothing more than money making machines directing funds for any ol' human abusing shit hole to Western investors.

Bring on the blood diamonds! Who the fuck cares who gets abused! Money is the only thing worth consideration.

Re:Hmm

[iminplaya]

Is this not exactly the same thing as what Yahoo! is being lambasted for, except Yahoo! was *following* the law, and AT&T (and others) were *breaking* it?

It's quite simple really. If you're "with us", you're not breaking the law(when the president does it, it's not illegal). If you're "against us", you are.

Morally you are pygmies? Look in the mirror...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo's actions that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of a Chinese dissident.

Yahoo complied with a request from the government of a country that is on friendly terms with the US government for an investigation that involved "state secrets".

Since the US government is taking the position that you have no privacy in your email, ever, and they can read it anytime without getting a warrant, let alone for "National Security" investigations, it's a bit ridiculous to expect US companies to have stricter standards in other countries.

Note that I'm not saying Yahoo is innocent, just that the congresscritters are being hypocritical.

Re:Morally you are pygmies? Look in the mirror...

[rhombic]

Shi Tao should be thankful he was a "potential dissident" in China rather than being a "potential terrorist" in the US; a finite (10yr) jail sentence versus an indefinite sentence & waterboarding.

Good ol' Tom Lantos

[seaturnip]

From Wikipedia:

During a 1996 Congressional inquiry into the "Filegate" scandal, Rep. Lantos told witness Craig Livingstone that "with an infinitely more distinguished public record than yours, Admiral Boorda committed suicide when he may have committed a minor mistake." Boorda, the Chief of Naval Operations, had recently taken his own life after his right to wear Combat V decorations had been questioned. Lantos was criticized by some (including fellow Congressman Joe Scarborough) who interpreted the remark as a suggestion that Livingstone too should kill himself.

On May 3, 2000, Lantos was involved in an automobile accident while driving on Capitol Hill. Lantos drove over a young boy's foot and then failed to stop his vehicle. He was later fined over the incident for inattentive driving.

In June 2007, Lantos called former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder a political prostitute.

In October 2007, Lantos insulted Dutch parliament members, while discussing the War on Terrorism by stating that the Netherlands had to help the United States, because they liberated them in the Second World War, whilst adding that the upheaval over Guantanamo in Europe was bigger than over Auschwitz at the time.

I'm sure this is redundant already

[tsstahl]

but wouldn't they expect Yahoo! U.S. to rollover if presented for an information request on the basis of "national security"?

Yahoo! China has to follow the laws of that country, just as we expect Yahoo! U.S. to do so.

Maybe the U.S. Government should issue Letters of Marque to multi-national corporations...

I don't for a second condone what Yahoo! did on moral grounds. However, legally they acted as expected.

Re:I'm sure this is redundant already

[trolltalk.com]

"What if the law in the US says you cannot follow the law in China?"

... and what if China then passes a law saying you cannot follow US law?

Sovereignty means the country establishes the rules within their boundaries. If the US doesn't like it, they can always go to war with China. It will be the quickest war ever - China immediately dumps their vast US currency holdings on the open market, the US dollar becomes (even more) worthless within 1 minute due to programmed trading, etc.

China and Japan (and pretty much the rest of the world) are already looking to divest themselves of their reserves of US dollars, since Barneke has made it clear that he will destroy the dollar's value in a stupid attempt to delay the consequences of the collapsed housing bubble as long as possible, which will only make it worse when the time of reconning arrives,

The USD is no longer a "reserve currency". This has broad implications for the US' ability to "project force", and its loss of superpower status.

Re:Troll my ass

[MightyMartian]

Because he's not. If IBM can be raked over the coals for doing business with Nazis, then Yahoo, Google and Microsoft deserve no less. If De Beers can be raked over the coals for its role in the horrors of the African diamond trade, then Yahoo, Google and Microsoft deserve no less.

How precisely is Yahoo helping making China free by selling out dissidents? Explain precisely how Google is bringing freedom to the masses in China by censoring the Tiananmen Square incidents?

They are colluders, profiteers and immoral traitors to the societies in which they were created. Corporations exist as legal fictions in the industrialized world as a favor to their investors, but I see no reason that if those investors and those they put in positions of authority within the corporate entity decide to piss on the human rights that the industrialized world have taken since the Enlightenment to be inalieable that notions of legal fictions of personhood should stand. I think a consistent threat to strip corporations doing business in other parts of the world of their personhood, making directors and stockholders directly criminally and civily responsible for the actions of their foreign dummy companies would go a looong way. Let the cowards and villains in China's government persecute their own citizens, without the collusion of Western companies.

Make that the price of China doing business with the West.

Why trash the pygmies?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

They're a fine race of people that do not deserve to be grouped with Yahoo execs or even congressmen. Just because they lack lobby groups means its OK to mock their stature etc does it?

Let's see a Congressman get away with substituting in Black/Jew whatever and lasting out the day.