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February 19, 2006

I Don’t Know, Sir, Y’all Are The Ones With The Largest Military In Human History

This is what I get for actually watching C-SPAN 2

February 18, 2006

Dear Representative _____________,

I watched last week’s hearings of the House subcommittee on International Human Rights on C-SPAN 2 with great interest, and not just because I wrote my undergraduate these on the political impact of the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network. Rather, given the recent media focus on the actions of certain leading U.S.-based Internet firms operating in the People’s Republic of China, I was eager to hear from both the representatives of those companies as well as from the interested members of Congress on this highly charged issue.

The members of the House subcommittee were eager to learn more about the role of Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and Microsoft in helping the government of the People’s Republic of China to control Internet access with that nation’s borders. Specifically, the subcommittee members wanted to discuss how these four companies had assisted China in “censoring” the Internet in China, and how those companies’ actions might have aided in the violation of international standards of human rights.

The perspective of the subcommittee was that each of these companies was guilty of horrific complicity in China ("U.S. technology companies today are engaged in a sickening cooperation decapitating the movements of Chinese dissidents," according to subcommittee chair Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.), greedily trading their ethics for a slice of the burgeoning Chinese market for online services. Instead of a reasoned discussion of what are certainly a set of challenging and engaging issues that raise a number of important questions about the evolving global digital economy, what ensued was a session of grandstanding whose irrelevance and opportunism had been unmatched since last spring’s hearings on steroids in baseball. Never mind that many of the subcommittee members seemed to have minimal familiarity with the actual businesses involved; many felt empowered to attempt to embarrass the companies’ representatives with questions that were more “bombastic accusations” than “reasonable inquiries.”

At one point, a subcommittee member asked each of the four companies’ representatives in turn if they had made any effort to “contact the families of the people affected by your policies” in China. Of course, none of the company reps would offer a “no” in response (for fear of being turned into an out-of-context sound bite), even if it was unclear (a) exactly whose family they should each be contacting and (b) what they should do when they contacted them. Each of the company reps patiently tried to explain that they didn’t know what the Representative was talking about as the Representative haughtily accused them of cold indifference to the plight of the Chinese people, whose alleged oppression they had enabled.

The real shame of the subcommittee hearing was the complete absence of irony in the accusations of the subcommittee members. If I remember correctly, the U.S. Government had requested that three of these firms divulge confidential information about their users just a few weeks ago. This wasn’t in a far-off land; this was on U.S. soil, and was justified as essential to generic goal of combating terrorism in the United States. If the subcommittee was so concerned about these companies compromising their values in the face of heavy government pressure, perhaps a discussion of their interactions with our own government would have been more appropriate.

Even more troubling was the underlying assumption of the subcommittee that it was somehow the responsibility of these four companies to be an arm of U.S. foreign policy, and specifically U.S. human rights policy. As a citizen, I would be more than pleased to have Congress investigate how U.S. corporations are contributing to human rights abuses around the globe. But these four companies would be nowhere near the top of my list. And by “nowhere near the top,” I mean that the list would be 40 pages of single-spaced Times New Roman 10-point font, and they would be on page 39. Perhaps we could start with an examination of how the petroleum industry (backed by our armed forces) is responsible for propping up some of the most corrupt regimes in the world? Say what one will about China, but at least little girls in China are allowed to go to school. To attempt to humiliate these companies – companies who have contributed more to the progress of humankind in the past five years than the energy industry has in the past fifty – was vulgar.

Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft are changing the way people communicate and access information in a way that is unprecedented in human history. They’re also turning in healthy profits for their shareholders. And they didn’t need to kill anyone (much less topple any governments) to do it! They’re all American companies. We should be proud of these companies – they are the height of American innovation, and a reminder that America can still lead (and win) without compromising its values.

If the House subcommittee for Human Rights is so interested in human rights policy in China, perhaps they should ask the Chinese ambassador to stop by for a coffee. After all, that’s one of the things that the government typically handles: talking to other governments. If this is such a serious issue, there are a number of diplomatic levers that our government can pull. I just don’t know that hassling the folks who run the Internet companies is one of those levers.

Sincerely,

ThatKidInTheCorner
Somewhere over America

Posted by thatkid at February 19, 2006 9:30 AM under The Papers

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