Senators weigh China's new laws on Web censorship Video
Senators weigh China's new laws on Web censorship Video Transcript
[ Background Music ]
>> Hello. I'm Kara Tsuboi CNET News.com. I'm joined by Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for News.com and Declan is here to discuss the judiciary hearing today that went on about this American tech companies doing business in China. Why don't you recap the hearing?
>> Sure and our colleague Anne Broache was there and her story is up on News.com today but this is an ongoing issue. You have American businesses with sort of American values, Google, Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft, and they're doing business in China. They have websites in China. They have data on their customers in China and so what rules apply? What moral code should apply? These are still open questions and so what happens is that Congress has been holding hearings every few months to sort of beat up on these companies. I mean this is again what happened today.
>> So it sounds like you are rather sympathetic for these American companies. You have to keep facing these tough questions that they're getting from the law makers.
>> Well, in part. In part yes and in part no, I mean we're journalist, we're in the media business. We understand free speech and it would be nice in a way if some of these companies stood up for free speech in the same way that some news organizations in China do some western news organizations that have gone in. But it's a very, very tough issue and some of what's happening now is political grandstanding. You have politicians who are angry at China because of their repression of say certain religions. They are angry at China because the Chinese are not letting their currency float and so it's coming out, it's bubbling out in hearings like this.
>> But these American companies are saying that they are simply complying by the laws of the host country.
>> They're following the law.
>> Right.
>> And if they don't like the law, they're trying to change the law but the law is on the books so what can they do? It's like imagine a say a Canadian company doing business here and Canada doesn't have a Patriot Act. The Canadian government doesn't even like the Patriot Act very much and then should the Canadian company get flocked for doing business in the US? This is actually something that didn't come up I mean in the case of a company in British Columbia. So it's what do you do if you're a US company? The best thing you can do is say, okay we can't control the laws in China but may be you US State Department, can. Please help us and apply diplomatic pressure on China. And this is kind of what's happening although it is a slow process.
>> It seems like Congress is going further than just diplomatic pressure. It sounds like they are actually talking about putting legislation on our books to help regulate legislation on their books. How is that gonna do any good?
>> It's going to drive some companies with margin overseas, right. I mean if you are a US company and you're shackled with all these weird regulations at where you can host data, where you can put your servers, right. You are going to say all has been equal. Let's just not comply with these regulations by moving our headquarters to Canada. Or imagine a Canadian company that does business in the US and starts getting pressure. It's got a lot of the host servers in the US because of the Patriot Act and our national security letters. It becomes really, really strange and I think it's probably a bad idea for Congress to put pressure on China through US companies. If you wanna do put pressure on China sure, go ahead and do it but beating up on the Cisco and Yahoo, Google is probably not the best way.
>> And just to reiterate for our viewers that when we talk about the pressure that these companies are facing it all comes down to internet monitoring essentially, it's what these three companies were answering the tough questions about. Is that right?
>> Two things really come to my mind. The first is internet monitoring. Cisco is selling general purpose. It seems there is some discussion of that today. Routers that can be used for good things and bad things just like a battery. You can use it for something good or you can use it for may be a torture device. If Cisco is selling general purpose devices to China should they be blamed? The second thing is hosting data on users in China and then being open to the Chinese Security Agencies and also censoring searchers is also in the case especially at Google.
>> Now as you said earlier that these hearings seem to happen every few months so I guess it's now a wait and see to see whose gonna be the next target, whose gonna be answering the tough questions next?
>> Probably, especially as the Olympics come up. I guarantee you're gonna see another one of these and also there's a talk about a code of conduct that some of these companies, US based companies are putting together that will probably be the focus of the next hearing.
>> All right. Well I'm sure we will check back in with you at the time of the next hearing if not sooner. Thank you Declan. I'm Kara Tsuboi CNET News.com. We'll see you next time. ^M00:04:31 [ Music ]
CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh and Kara Tsuboi discuss the latest Senate hearing on American tech companies doing business in China. Representatives from Cisco, Yahoo, and Google come under fire for abiding by the laws of the Internet-restricting country.
