Yahoo, Google, and Cisco all trekked over to the Senate today to sit for an hour under the grandfatherly, but strangely stern eye of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). The subject was "Internet freedom," but this turned out to be code for "censorship in China." While all three companies lamented censorship and the role that their products or services played in supporting it, each suggested that it was really the role of the US government to take up the censorship issue. But when Durbin pressed the idea of legislation that would outlaw certain behaviors of US-based companies operating in other countries, the "we need more government involvement" rhetoric seized up faster than an unventilated Xbox 360.

By the end of the hearing, Durbin was the only Senator in the room, and he ended the event with an announcement that some sort of legislation would soon be forthcoming, possibly modeled on a recent House bill. Yahoo, Google, and Cisco, however, made clear that they would prefer the issue be seen as a trade barrier (like some EU proposals), or that the State Department do more to address censorship through its Global Internet Freedom Task Force. UN treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which China has not signed) were covered by Google, while Yahoo talked up its own meetings on Chinese censorship with Condoleezza Rice. Even some forms of legislation would be acceptable, so long as the law was designed more to protect US companies than to punish them.

Durbin and witnesses from Human Rights Watch and the Global Internet Freedom Consortium sounded less convinced, though, that multinational corporations were truly doing as much as they legally could to avoid censoring information. Arvind Ganesan of Human Rights Watch said that a "virtual curtain" on the Internet was replacing the old "Iron Curtain" that separated the world into computing spheres of influence. He called out search engines for censoring information "in anticipation" of what censors wanted, not merely in response to government requests. He also suggested that the industry's voluntary program to craft a code of conduct for dealing with censorship issues was going nowhere after 18 months of negotiations. Some companies remain resistant to "independent monitoring," he noted, saying that Google has "actively resisted such efforts.

Shiyo Zhou of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium referred to an recently unearthed six-year old internal presentation from a Cisco China engineer that outlined the Chinese government's approach to Internet security and censorship in the course of 90 PowerPoint slides. Shiyu argued that the presentation showed Cisco's interest in powering China's "Golden Shield," and he charged that the company was aiding Chinese repression. A Cisco representative expressed "regret" at some of information conveyed in the presentation, but said that Cisco sells only globally standard routing equipment in China and in no way customizes its products to aid censorship.

But some of the hearing's toughest statements were made by Durbin. After Google's Nicole Wong claimed that engagement with China was better than isolation, Durbin said that the answer reminded him of corporate arguments regarding apartheid in South Africa. When Yahoo explained how it set up and Internet human rights fund in November 2007 to offer legal support for dissidents who express their views online, Durbin retorted that Yahoo seemed bent on keeping the fund busy due to their 40 percent stake in a Chinese search engine that would continue to turn information over to the government upon request.

The companies fought back vigorously, with Google perhaps providing the best responses. The company had not yet rolled out Gmail in China, Wong noted, since it could not guarantee that it would not have to turn over confidential information to the Chinese government. In addition, Google was the first search engine to offer a notice whenever results were censored; as a result of this innovation, Wong said that most Internet search engines in China have since followed suit.

Still, it didn't appear to mollify Durbin, and this sort of issue carries bipartisan appeal. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who was present at the beginning of the hearing, claimed that "China's eyes are on us" and that the US government and corporations need to show the Chinese "what freedom looks like." There's little time left in the legislative year for any new legislation to pass, but these companies have been on the hotseat with Congress for two years now and might be wise to ramp up their education and lobbying budgets in 2009.

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