ScienceDaily: Yahoo! sued in China torture case — Wow this could change things. Of course our government demands all sorts of records, but that’s ok.
A U.S. federal lawsuit filed in San Francisco against Yahoo! has accused the Internet company of abetting torture of pro-democracy writers in China.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court accused Yahoo! of being complicit in the arrests of 57-year-old Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese Internet activists, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Yahoo! was accused of releasing data that enabled the Chinese government to identify the activists.
The petition, part of an effort to focus on the conduct of U.S. companies in China as they seek to gain a foothold in that market, named Wang as a plaintiff, the report said. It was filed with the help of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, whose head claimed Yahoo! had reason to know that if it provided China with identification information the individuals would be arrested.
found by Bubba Martin
Abeding? is that a word?
politics and tech makes strange abedfellows
If you want to do business in China, you have to play by their rules. What was Yahoo! to do, kiss off the biggest freakin’ market in the world?
to number 1 poster and everyone else
“Abeding” and look at the left side ad. “Should CBS of Fired Imus?” Two head lines written surely not written by Mr. Dvorak but by 20 something caretakers who didn’t have to learn how to spell in school because it would have (would of?) damaged their self esteem. I have seen other misspellings that would have been caught by spell checkers; so hubris is involved with these errors too.
Did we ever define torture? Or is it like porn you know it when you see it?
#3 – I don’t happen to think that “doing business” is more important that upholding the principles of democracy and freedom. Yahoo is rich enough.
On the other hand, I fail to see how Yahoo is responsible for the actions of the Chinese government.
Folks talk about Iran, North Korea, and other places as dangerous enemies. But second from the top of my Axis of Evil list is China. (if you give a damn, Saudi Arabia is number 1)
Say, is anyone suing Blackwater? I heard the Chinese courts will take on cases by Abu Gahraib and Guantanamo torture victims.
Is there any impetus to demand Blackwater to evaluate their corporate policy of actually torturing people?
While Yahoo had no choice regarding laws of the land in China, Blackwater actively sought out and participated in our government’s global human rights abuse.
#6-
You mean like how the US government is upholding democracy and freedom here in the states?
It seems that the invasions of privacy the Chinese government are the same exact invasions the US makes? And that the US-sanctioned torture prisons for supposed ‘terrorists’ are exactly the same as the torture mentioned in China?
Coincidence?
hehe
Screw China. The rest of the world has enough other problems we can meddle in. 🙂
Short of physically invading the United States and torturing American citizens, there is nothing on earth that will stop corporations from doing business in China.
I’m not even one hundred percent sure about the above statement, since China now owns so much of American foreign debt and therefore, so much of America. Those with the moola make the rules, right?
There are just too many positive aspects relating to The Bottom Line and therefore executive bonuses to make corporations think twice about dealing with any murderous, repressive regime.
3. JT – Yes, Yahoo should have ‘kissed off the biggest freakin’ market in the world’. I don’t see how they had any choice but to kiss off that market – but they didn’t, Google didn’t and very few of the rest of them will have the honor to tell the Chinese to kiss off.
Google isn’t the only one aiding the modern phashists. Other western tech companies are all-too-eager to sell voice recognition software, content-blocking firewalls, packet sniffing software — all used to to suppress freedom of speech, freedom of religion and pro-democracy movements.
In my thinking, it is absolutely no different than when IBM gladly gave their technology to the Nazis which eventually made the holocaust possible.
http://tinyurl.com/3x4bvr
12. Excellent post. And I think we are all, complicit for allowing this to happen. I dont have the answer either, I am concerned we are turning into a nation much like Germany pre WW2. They must have had knowledge that their government was heading down an evil path, and willingly participated.
#8 – I don’t disagree with you that the current administration is no friend to democracy….
But I don’t think the nation, or the Democrats, or Independents, or most non-Bushie Republicans, or Libertarians, or Greens, or anybody else (including that tiny fraction of those who identify themselves as actual Communists for that matter) are ready to throw in the towel on freedom and democracy.
I’m surely not.
Haven’t used Yahoo or any of their various internet properties since they helped put Shi Tao in jail. There is a limit to how much you should cooperate in order to do business with the Chinese and they crossed it for me.
On the other hand, Hu and Wen are actually two of the better CCP leaders the Chinese have had. Change takes time, and they don’t control every decision as China is a big country with many power centers. There is hope I think.