Congressional Commitee Rips Yahoo Execs 293
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.
PKB (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PKB (Score:4, Funny)
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Very nicely done. But think that only illustrates the point; both can kill, just one's death toll is much larger than the other, even though individual victims of the latter may be more notable.
Likewise, Congress passes laws that affect literally millions of people, many in a negative way, and yet here we have a congressional committee upbraiding a company for ruining one person's life with their policy. It's not that Yahoo!'s actions are qualitatively less repugnant than Congress's...it's just that the
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Think about it.
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"Shi Tao was sent to jail for 10 years for engaging in pro-democracy efforts deemed subversive after Yahoo turned over information about his online activities requested by Chinese authorities."
Guy gets 10 years for *having an opinion*?
What happened to "YRO"?
What's the Chinese government going to do if Yahoo! doesn't roll over and rat out Shi Tao?
Put the website in jail?
What a bunch of belly-crawling cowards...
There's no excuse for this.
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Step 2. Yahoo get blocked by the Great Firewall of China Step 3. ???? Step 4. No Profit from advertisements.
Re:PKB (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
There fixed it for you.
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Re:PKB (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:PKB (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PKB (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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... then you will never observe any if you don't demand it.
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Isn't that a problem?
Government oversight only goes so far and is often corrupted. In fact, it invites corruption. Shouldn't corporati
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yes, yes they do by a long way.
Every single senator and representative should be completely ashamed of themselves for the rampant crap they pull every single day in Washington DC.
Even just the damage done tot he USA with the patriot act covers it. I'm not even talking about the other stuff that makes the rest of the world gasp in disgust at us.
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When someone calls you a dirty, no good bastard, the last thing to say in your defense is "well, you're almost as bad."
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Re:PKB (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because a congressman might be hypocritical, doesn't make their arguments any less valid.
Re:PKB (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it can. This is not a logical syllogism situated in the abstract we are talking about, but rather an issue in which Congress no less than Yahoo! (and probably much more) has a role to play. If a Congressman upbraids a corporation for undertaking acts that are morally repugnant, did that Congressman also introduce or vote for legislation that would make such a stance a practical option for that corporation? Did congress rattle sabers over protecting Yahoo! China's executives if they were to defy Chinese law to aid the dissident? Threaten trade sanctions? Place restrictions on how and in what manner Yahoo!'s international subsidiaries can aid foreign governments? Any of those would have aided Yahoo! in making such a choice palatable to its board of directors and its shareholders, and given cover if Yahoo!'s executives wished to do the "moral" thing.
If Congress had in its power the substantive means to encourage Yahoo! to do the moral thing or at least give it legal cover to do so, and failed to so act, Yahoo! can indeed say "you too, asshole" and not be staking out a morally vacuous position. It might also help if Congress wasn't green-lighting retroactive immunity for similar crimes domestically; one might argue from that that Congress has shown it doesn't so much care about the rule of law when it comes to corporations complicit with government orders.
ad hominem tu quoque is not automatically a fallacious argument if the agent so identified is culpable in the very same matter (and not a merely equivalent matter) as the subject.
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But then Yahoo wouldn't be able to get all the stolen tax money from the Chinese slaves (err, population) by cooperating with the government.
Seems reasonable to demand your government step in when others do.
Re:Lantos Sucks (Score:4, Funny)
Re:PKB (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yahoo is not required to apply any 'moral' standards - whose morals should they use ?
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Bring on the blood diamonds! Who the fuck cares who gets abused! Money is the only thing worth consideration.
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When did congress call IBM out on that one? Where was the public outcry? Obviously, the resulting boycotts (if any) failed.
If anything, the IBM situation just goes to show that historically, Americans *don't* care about corporations' cooperation with oppressive governments. If they do, they certainly haven't shown it.
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
So we should make it illegal for Yahoo! to do in China what we make it illegal for them to not do here?
While I agree that the Chinese government is very much not nice, the same Congress that is chastising -- and threatening punishment -- Yahoo! executives is the same Congress that allowed damned near any government employee to demand the same information about any Yahoo! customer, in the United States, without a warrant, and prohibiting Yahoo! from telling anyone about it.
Every government in the world may operate by "Do what we say, not what we do," but it's still sickening to hear someone complaining about how awful it was that a Chinese citizen was imprisoned and tortured, yet know that that same someone has refused to do anything to stop American citizens from being imprisoned and tortured.
Human rights are for everyone, not just for foreigners.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Would that work for you, Mr. Philosopher, because you seem more interested in the moral relativism of something rather than the fact that it violates some fundamental precepts of human dignity?
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Article 5. [Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and the highest percentage of people in prison and on death row except for China]
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 8. [Gitmo]
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9. [Gitmo]
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10. [Gitmo]
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 12. [Warrantless wire tapping, and the nice comments about email we just heard from the FBI]
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13. [No, you don't have a right to a passport in the US]
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 21. [at least 2 million convicted felons are prohibited from voting, even after they finish their sentence]
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
Now I am not implying that the US--the country I chose to live in--is even close to China/North Korea/etc in oppression, but what happened to REPUBLICAN values?
I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.
Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address to the Nation
Oval Office
January 11, 1989
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How do the sins of this country in any way have a bearing on respecting basic human rights elsewhere?
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Even if you take this extreme, then Yahoo! still did the wrong action.
This whole hearing is bad for Yahoo!; weak management who didn't have the full story on something this big, bad publicity in non-China far-east Asia, bad publicity in the tech community around the world, potential new legal regulations in their home country, management has to spend time on this who
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Like it or not, a corporation ultimately has to play by the rules of the countries in which it does business. Which is really why the question is why Yahoo felt the need to go into a country which it should have realized would require it to help fight with dissidents.
In the long run, this will likely
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Yahoo is not required to apply any 'moral' standards - whose morals should they use ? ... Yahoo management's morals ? ... shareholder's morals ? ... politician's morals ? ...
Legal fictions aside, Yahoo is a composite of the people running it. No person anywhere at any time is EVER excused from ethical behaviour for any reason PERIOD.
While opinions about appropriate morals and ethics do vary between people and there is genuine room for debate, there is no excuse for applying none at all.
Multinational
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Theoretically they have an obligation to act legally, but we can see that they don't. As long as they're doing something to someone who can't afford to sue them they don't really have any compunctions at all.
If people did to corporate execs what huge lawsuits do to the people, execs might t
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Nobody here seems to really get it yet. Time for me to explain.
All the vitriol, the accusations, the namecalling, etc. on the part of Congress add up to...nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a damned th
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Morally you are pygmies? Look in the mirror... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Doesn't Yahoo know ... (Score:2, Funny)
Bad Yahoo, good AT&T (Score:5, Insightful)
Aha. OK. You can put me on your list now.
Dave
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(See my sig for details. In use since 1998)
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P.S. "Grassing up"??
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This is a true statement. American Indians were not recognized as humans until after the genocide and medical experiments we performed on them. Same for the Slaves, and the stories from WW-II of the internment camps we had for the Japanese Americans were made up nazi lies!
Oh, also we dont torture people, it's called enhanced interrogation.
oooh, having a politician calling you names (Score:2)
For a politican to call them "moral pygmies" must've been hard to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing.
pathetic
Depends on the politican, pal (Score:2)
Good ol' Tom Lantos (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm sure this is redundant already (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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What if the law in the US says you cannot follow the law in China?
There are plenty of laws that US citizens are supposed to follow while overseas even though the activity may be quite legal in the country they are dealing with. Mostly tax and sedition laws... But I suppose if they really wanted to, US congress could pass a law to outlaw doing business with people who don't respect human rights or democracy. Oh wait..
Re:I'm sure this is redundant already (Score:5, Interesting)
"What if the law in the US says you cannot follow the law in China?"
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.
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I agree with you, but it doesn't jive with the current way the Fed deals with foreign businesses. Do you remember when they arrested CEOs of foreign gambling sites whose servers were overseas and legal in the nations they operated in?
Same could be said about what is happening here. Of course they aren't going to go to war with China or even bring it up with Chinese lea
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Do you remember when they arrested CEOs of foreign gambling sites whose servers were overseas and legal in the nations they operated in?
That one was a little different because (to my knowledge) all those CEOs were American citizens who got busted when they came back to US soil.
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Really? Tell me when that happens, please. I mean, Warren Buffet has been saying that he's been bearish on the USD for ages, too, but guess what? The USD has gone through ups and downs and it has almost always come back up on top.
And btw, if China stops pegging their currency artificially against the USD, it would just as soon kill *their* economy as it would ours. I mean, hey,
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Last stats I saw were net ouflows of $69 billion in one month. That's a lot of investment "pulling up stakes."
If push comes to shove, why should China not use all the levers it has - including the "dump the dollar" nuke option - if the US keeps acting stupid wrt either currency or politics?
BTW - the US economy has had real double-digit inflation for the last 5 years. Taking the three things that people actually spend money on all the time - food, energy, and mortgages - out of the index is just as bad
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You can't keep running a "War on Terror" if you're broke. The US is dependent upon foreign lenders. And like the old saying goes, the debtor is slave to the lender.
China [census.gov] - on track to beat last year's 232 billion dollar deficit.
Japan [census.gov] - another 80 or 90 billion
OPEC [census.gov] - add 110 billion this year (or more likely 130 billion)
Oh, what the heck - lets just do the WHOLE DARNED WORLD [census.gov] Another $800 Billion Dollar trade deficit this year. The US consumer's credit card is maxed out.
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This seems quite simple to me: if a foreign company can't simultaneously abide by both its native country's laws and its host country's laws, then it should not be allowed to conduct business in the foreign country. Obviously our government is far too corrupt to enforce this.
all of the pygmies i have known (Score:3, Insightful)
Frackin hypocrites (Score:2)
Might bite em back (Score:2)
Tom Lantos (Score:2)
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/l000090/ [washingtonpost.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lantos [wikipedia.org]
Boy, getting lectured by this guy on morality... those poor Yahoo execs. It must have been hard not to burst out laughing.
Do ad-hominem attacks on Lantos (Score:2, Insightful)
Or for that matter, does your opinion of the US Govt make the oppressive Chinese government any better?
Cripes, it's like you're all a bunch of Michael Moore clones or something. US=bad, so everything else = good?
Moral giants of Washington, D.C. (Score:2)
Ignore the homeless, the ghetto, the pollution, the drug addicts, the crime, the Wal-mart, the blind political correctness, the perversion of religion and patriotism, the secret detention camps and the suburban blight on your way
The question is... (Score:2)
From TFA:
"Callahan has since acknowledged that Yahoo officials had received a subpoena-like document"
Following their law means "state secrets" laws too (Score:2)
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.
But Lantos dismissed their explanation, saying state secrets investigations in China are commonly recognized as frequently targeting dissidents.
Interesting that they just couldnt make the connection between "state secrets" and dissident prosecution when the evidence was all around them and well known. I wonder if any violations in that respect got trumped by The Almighty Stockholder(not to be confused with mutual fund holders). Nothing like cash to overlook your violation of "state secrets" law.
This illustrates one more case for trade regulations so that this problem stays solved.
Secret Gnomes (Score:4, Insightful)
I love Slashdots almost prescient ability to provide a fortune that bears on the topic. The US is going into the toilet, Bush's war needs to be paid for and that money is going to be coming from US' citizens children for quite some time to come. The government of the US exists within a moral vacuum, nobody asks if something is "right" they just ask if its "legal". From the Patriot Act denying first ammendment rights (you can't tell anyone - even your lawyer or a judge - if you've been served under that act effectively cutting due process out of the loop) to what is torture, waterboarding. I think they should all be lined up against a wall and shot. This would be satisfying but would not likely result in any improvements so something else must be done. The only thing I can think of that has any hope of leading us out of the quagmire is demanding full transparency out of government. So, no "secret" subpeonas, no "secret" detentions, no "secret" trials, no "secret" interrogation techniques, no secrets because thats where evil hides.
Fuck Bush. I think he's leading a great nation into ruin.
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Troll my ass (Score:2)
Please, someone explain why he's marked as a troll when, in reality, he's exactly right.
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He should know the only time the word "douchebags" is acceptable on
(Note that in some instances this may also work with the term "RIAA")
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Re:Troll my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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As pointed out in the article, Yahoo would have been putting their chinese employees at risk by refusing to turn over the information. Where's the moral superiority there? The only argument that can be made is that they shouldn't do any business at all in Chin
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Yahoo obeys the laws of China no matter how immoral you think those laws are.
They didn't sell out anyone.
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Re:I don't understand what Yahoo is supposed to do (Score:4, Funny)
dunno - wait it out and see if they come back an hour later?
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It's not like you have to work in China for the Chinese to get to Yahoo.com
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Tell the Chinese the US Government thinks you're douchebags and so we're not really gonna give you what you want?
Sure, that'll work real well.
They leave. China's a large market and I suppose a little tongue-lashing from a US kettle, I mean congressperson), about morality isn't going to bother them overmuch. The bad press they'll get over it is important to them however. Just look at Microsoft's market share after all the b
Re:"Hi Kettle. This is the United States calling.. (Score:2)
If Yahoo wants to criticize some of the idiotic things the U.S. gov has been doing lately, they may of course do so (hey I wish they would!), but it has no bearing on this case.
Why trash the pygmies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see a Congressman get away with substituting in Black/Jew whatever and lasting out the day.
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***ALL*** companies are amoral by necessity, and capitalism quickly forces amorality into immorality. No exceptions. No escape. Just profit and run before you
And political dissent means "dissidents"? (Score:2)
Interesting that the known translation for "Political Dissent" on Google comes up to
Whoops, it apparently ate the GB2312 midpost (Score:2)