Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
In the aftermath of an incident that raised ethics questions about the responsibilities of U.S. Internet firms operating overseas, Yahoo executives were hammered by members of the U.S. Congress last week over the company’s cooperation with Chinese law enforcement officials, who used information from the company to track down and jail a pro-democracy journalist.

USA Today reports that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and general counsel Michael Callahan apologized to the House Foreign Affairs Committee for Yahoo’s role in helping the Chinese government make its case against the journalist.

But the executives refused to commit to any specific changes of policy, reports Wired. Nor did they endorse a bill pending before Congress that would prevent companies like Yahoo from supplying overseas law enforcement with information that would personally identify users.

The controversy revolves around a demand by Chinese officials for user information that eventually led to the arrest of Shi Tao, who was sent to jail for 10 years after Yahoo furnished information about his online activities.

According to the Associated Press, Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan insisted that his company did not know the real nature of the Chinese investigation and said he “cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if, in my personal view, the local laws are overbroad.”

Committee chairman Tom Lantos bristled at the characterization. “Why do you insist on repeating the phrase ‘lawful orders’? These were demands by a police state,” Lantos said.

“While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,” Lantos also said, according to the AP report.

Family members of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, another cyber-dissident jailed in a separate case, told the Wall Street Journal that they hoped the hearing would help motivate action for their release.