U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

45–688 PDF 2008

S. HRG. 110–643 

GLOBAL INTERNET FREEDOM: CORPORATE 

RESPONSIBILITY AND THE RULE OF LAW 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 20, 2008 

Serial No. J–110–93 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

STEPHANIE A. MIDDLETON, Republican Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Republican Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JON KYL, Arizona 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

JOSEPH ZOGBY, Chief Counsel 

BROOKE BACAK, Republican Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Coburn, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma ........................ 4 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 90 

Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois .................... 1 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 95 

WITNESSES 

Chandler, Mark, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Cisco 

Systems, Inc., San Jose, California .................................................................... 12 

Ganesan, Arvind, Director, Business and Human Rights Program, Human 

Rights Watch, Washington, D.C. ........................................................................ 10 

Samway, Michael, Vice President and General Counsel, Yahoo! Inc., Miami, 

Florida ................................................................................................................... 8 

Wong, Nicole, Deputy General Counsel, Google Inc., Mountain View, California ..................................................................................................................... 6 

Zhou, Shiyu, Deputy Director, Global Internet Freedom Consortium, Bethesda, Maryland ................................................................................................. 15 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Responses of Mark Chandler to questions submitted by Senators Durbin 

Coburn ................................................................................................................... 36 

Responses of Arvind Ganesan to questions submitted by Senator Coburn ........ 47 

Responses of Michael Samway to questions submitted by Senators Durbin 

and Coburn ........................................................................................................... 50 

Responses of Nicole Wong to questions submitted by Senators Durbin, 

Brownback and Coburn ....................................................................................... 63 

Responses of Shiyu Zhou to questions submitted by Senator Coburn ................ 81 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Amnesty International USA, New York, New York, statement .......................... 83 

Chandler, Mark, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Cisco 

Systems, Inc., San Jose, California, statement ................................................. 86 

Computer & Communications Industry Association, Washington, D.C., statement ...................................................................................................................... 92 

Ganesan, Arvind, Director, Business and Human Rights Program, Human 

Rights Watch, Washington, D.C., statement ..................................................... 98 

Harris, Leslie, President/CEO, Center for Democracy & Technology, Washington, D.C., statement ........................................................................................ 107 

New York Times, November 10, 2008, article ....................................................... 117 

Palfrey, John G., Jr., Clinical Professor of Law & Executive Director, and 

Colin Maclay, Managing Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 

Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, statement .......................... 119 

Reporters Without Borders, Lucie Morillon, Director and Clothilde Le Coz, 

Internet Freedom Director, Washington, D.C., statement ............................... 128 

Samway, Michael, Vice President and General Counsel, Yahoo! Inc., Miami, 

Florida, statement ................................................................................................ 138 

Wong, Nicole, Deputy General Counsel, Google Inc., Mountain View, California, statement .................................................................................................. 141 

World Organization for Human Rights USA, Washington, D.C., statement ...... 152 

Page

IV 

Zhou, Shiyu, Deputy Director, Global Internet Freedom Consortium, Bethesda, Maryland, statements ............................................................................. 157 

(1) 

GLOBAL INTERNET FREEDOM: CORPORATE 

RESPONSIBILITY AND THE RULE OF LAW 

TUESDAY, MAY 20, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in 

room SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. 

Durbin, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Durbin, Cardin, Whitehouse, and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Chairman DURBIN. The Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on 

Human Rights and the Law will come to order. I notice the witnesses are still standing, so I will ask at this point if they will 

please raise their right hand and repeat after me. Do you affirm 

that the testimony you are about to give before the Committee will 

be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help 

you God? 

Ms. WONG. I do. 

Mr. SAMWAY. I do. 

Mr. GANESAN. I do. 

Mr. CHANDLER. I do. 

Mr. ZHOU. I do. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the 

witnesses have responded in the affirmative. Please be seated. 

The subject of this hearing is ‘‘Global Internet Freedom: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law.’’ After a few opening remarks, I will recognize my colleague Senator Coburn, the Subcommittee’s Ranking Member, for an opening statement, then turn 

to our witnesses. 

I just might say that this morning I visited the Newseum for the 

first time, as part of a taping of a cable show for Illinois. It is a 

very impressive place to visit. And I could not think of a more timely visit in light of this hearing. They have on display there a map 

of the world and a grading system as to which countries in the 

world are most open and free when it comes to speech and press 

and the basic freedoms which we have enshrined in our Constitution. And, sadly, too many are found deficient—even our own country, in many respects, deficient in aspiring to the values that are 

part of our credo as Americans. This was a perfect visit in terms 

of what we are doing today in talking about the question of InterVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
2 

net freedom and the responsibility of American companies around 

the world. 

There is a tendency to view human rights as just a foreign policy 

issue, but in this Subcommittee we have learned that is an inaccurate perception. Our world is growing smaller every day, a process accelerated by the Internet revolution. We have seen that 

human rights violations in other countries can affect us. To take 

one example, this Subcommittee has discovered that over 1,000 

war criminals from other countries have found safe haven in the 

United States of America. On the other side, the actions of the U.S. 

Government and U.S. companies affect human rights in other countries. 

In future hearings, we are going to explore the impact of corporate America on other fundamental human rights, but today we 

are going to focus specifically on the role of U.S. technology companies in Internet freedom around the world. 

In 1791, the First Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, 

enshrining freedom of speech as the first fundamental right of all 

Americans. The First Amendment became an inspiration not only 

to Americans but to everyone around the world and inspired many 

to throw off the yoke of oppression. 

The year 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After World War II, under Eleanor Roosevelt’s leadership, the United States spearheaded the ratification 

of the Universal Declaration, which recognized freedom of expression as a fundamental right of all people. The advent of the Internet has allowed billions of people to exercise this right more fully. 

But the Internet is not free for everyone. Contrary to early predictions that the Internet could not be controlled, many countries 

censor the Internet and jail online dissidents. In Egypt, blogger 

Kareem Amer is serving a 4-year prison term for entries on his 

blog relating to Islam and President Hosni Mubarak. Now, just last 

month, 27-year-old Esra Abdel-Fattah was arrested after forming 

a group online to protest the high price of food in Egypt. She was 

released only in return for her promise to give up Internet activism. 

In Cuba, citizens can be jailed for using the Internet for 

counterrevolutionary purposes. Cuban telecommunications Minister 

Ramiro Valdes said on February 27, 2007, that the Internet was 

a ‘‘tool for global extermination.’’ 

In Burma last fall, the military junta imposed a blackout on the 

Internet when images of Buddhist monks protesting the military’s 

rule started appearing online. 

And in China, dozens of bloggers have been jailed, including Hu 

Jia, who was recently sentenced to 31⁄2 years in prison based in 

part on online essays he wrote criticizing the Chinese Government’s human rights record. Three and a half years in prison simply for exercising his freedom of expression. 

Over 30,000 Internet police monitor the Web in China, and the 

so-called Great Firewall of China prevents Chinese citizens from 

receiving accurate information about China’s human rights record 

in Tibet and Darfur, among other subjects. The so-called Internet 

cops that are pictured here, these little cartoonish figures, pop up 

3 

periodically to remind users in China that their Internet usage is 

being monitored by the government. 

In today’s hearing, we will examine the role that American companies play in Internet censorship. At the outset, let me acknowledge the obvious: This is not a black- and-white issue, and it is not 

an easy issue. U.S. technology companies face difficult challenges 

when dealing with repressive governments, but these companies 

also have a moral obligation to protect freedom of expression. 

You will see in the opening statements of virtually every witness 

here a statement stating that their companies, their corporate philosophies, are in favor of freedom of expression. I think that is good 

and right, but it really creates a standard for them and for us. And 

there is no question that some have fallen short of the mark on 

more than one occasion. In fact, perhaps it is time for Congress to 

consider converting this moral obligation into a legal obligation. 

Human rights groups have accused Cisco of providing network 

equipment that forms the backbone of the Great Firewall of China 

and is used by other repressive countries to censor Internet and 

monitor users. I want to note that last week the Subcommittee received some troubling information about Cisco’s activities in China, 

which has been reported in the press, and I have had a meeting 

with Cisco, Mr. Chandler and others, to discuss it. This information 

has been shared with them and will be discussed further today. 

Software produced by American companies such as Fortinet and 

Secure Computing has reportedly been used to censor the Internet 

in Burma and Iran, respectively. Google received significant public 

criticism when it decided to launch Google.cn, a China-specific 

search site that removes results to conform with China’s censorship 

policies. We will show you some illustrations later in the hearing. 

And Microsoft removes the blogs of Internet activists from their 

blogging service in response to requests from repressive governments. 

Not all the news is negative. Around the world, Internet activists 

are breaking down the walls of censorship. In Cuba, for example, 

students use flash drives, digital cameras, and clandestine Internet 

connections to post blog entries and download information. Yoani 

Sanchez, a Cuban blogger, poses as a tourist at Internet cafes to 

make posts on her blog. She was recently named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People of 2008. Activists like Dr. Shiyu 

Zhou have developed technology that allows users to break through 

firewalls and avoid censorship. 

Three of our witnesses—Yahoo!, Google, and Human Rights 

Watch—have been working for almost 2 years on developing a voluntary code of conduct for Internet companies that do business in 

repressive countries. I look forward to hearing about the status of 

this long-awaited initiative, and I challenge all here who are interested in the subject no longer to tolerate the delay in reaching this 

agreement. 

As access to Internet continues to spread and change the way we 

inform and express ourselves, our Government and American companies will be challenged to promote free speech and not to facilitate repression. With our collective efforts, perhaps someday the 

Internet can fulfill its promise of empowering all people to exercise 

their right to seek information and express their opinions freely. 

4 

[The prepared statement of Senator Durbin appears as a submission for the record.] 

I want to recognize Senator Coburn for an opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM COBURN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Senator Durbin. Again, another 

compelling hearing for this Subcommittee on Human Rights and 

the Law. 

Senator Durbin and his staff are to be commended for their dedication of the issues of such heavy import. This relatively new Subcommittee has already proven to be quite a force, introducing bipartisan legislation to address genocide, human trafficking, and 

child soldiers. These bills are already well on their way to bringing 

justice to victims of the most egregious human rights abuses. 

The Genocide Accountability Act has already been signed into 

law. My congratulations. The Child Soldiers Accountability Act 

passed the Senate by unanimous consent. And the Trafficking in 

Persons Accountability Act awaits consideration by the full Senate 

after receiving unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary 

Committee. 

This kind of progress is unusual in today’s partisan atmosphere, 

but Senator Durbin and his staff have ensured success by reaching 

across the aisle to work together to tackle very complex and critical 

issues for freedom throughout the world. Under his leadership, we 

have approached every issue objectively, studying issues closely 

and talking to experts at both hearings and behind the scenes. In 

doing so, we have developed reasonable proposals to close gaps in 

current law that have inadvertently allowed the United States to 

serve as a safe haven for human rights perpetrators. 

Today, we address the issue of Internet freedom. Nearly 1.5 billion people now use the Internet, 220 million of which reside in 

China. This number has more than doubled since early 2006 when 

the House of Representatives first held a hearing on this issue. The 

growth is explosive and, amazingly, China now has the largest 

Internet population in the world. The introduction and widespread 

use of this technology in countries like China is one of the most exciting developments of our day. Information is power. That information can become freedom, and the more that Chinese citizens 

have access to that information, the more open their society will inevitably be. 

Of course, nobody understands the power of the Internet better 

than the governments who seek to repress their societies. I have 

already mentioned China, but that country is not the only government with such pernicious censorship. According to Reporters 

Without Borders, at least 62 cyber dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, with more than 2,600 websites, blogs, or discussion forums which were closed and made inaccessible in 2007 

alone. The group has identified countries where Internet freedoms 

are restricted, which are China, Cuba, North Korea, Belarus, 

Burma, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, 

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. It named 11 

additional countries as ‘‘countries under watch.’’ It is my hope that 

5 

today’s hearing will shed light on how pervasive Internet censorship has become around the world. 

This is not the first time Congress has addressed the issue of 

Internet freedom. The House of Representatives, led by Congressman Chris Smith and the late Congressman Tom Lantos, held two 

recent hearings and have thereby created a thorough record for our 

benefit. I would like to thank my colleagues for their dedication to 

the issue and the detailed groundwork that they have already laid. 

The House hearings explored and established the factual record 

surrounding the relatively short history of American companies 

that have provided Internet service in countries where censorship 

is required by law. Those hearings examined in detail the steps 

and missteps of the companies as they began doing business in unfamiliar territory. 

Mr. Chairman, it is my hope today that we will tackle the challenge of discussing possible solutions for the problems that face 

these companies. While understanding that the past is an important aspect of shaping solutions for the future, it is my hope that 

we can avoid relitigating the same issues that have already been 

discussed at length. Our panel of witnesses, which includes the industry experts and human rights advocates, should be able to explain the progress that has been made since the last hearing on 

this issue and answer questions that will help us better understanding the challenge of preserving Internet freedom around the 

world. 

While the focus on this hearing is worldwide, it is also my hope 

that while the eyes of the world are on China in response to the 

massive earthquake and also there is some anticipation of the 

Summer Olympics, China’s eyes are also on us as we criticize government censorship of the Internet and call for more freedom for 

their citizens. I view this time as an opportunity to show the people 

of China what freedom looks like and also to let the Chinese Government know that its actions have not gone unnoticed. This is just 

another opportunity to lead by example, which is what I hope 

American Internet companies doing business in places like China 

will also choose to do. Their presence in these places is important, 

and it is crucial that they operate on the side of those seeking freedom rather than oppression. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Coburn appears as a submission for the record.] 

I thank the Chairman, and I look forward to the witnesses’ testimony. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Senator Coburn. And I want to 

just add I appreciate the kind remarks at the outset, and none of 

this would have happened had we not been able to do it on a bipartisan basis. We have a very good positive, working relationship, 

and I know that that is going to continue. 

And let me also acknowledge, as Senator Coburn has, the fine 

work that was done by the late Congressman Tom Lantos, a friend 

of many of us, who really led on this issue, and Chris Smith, who, 

again, made it a bipartisan effort in the House and continues to 

have an abiding interest in progress on this issue. We will work 

with our House colleagues on any legislation that we develop. 

6 

The record will reflect that we have sworn in the witnesses. Our 

first witness is Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel at Google. 

Ms. Wong is co-editor of ‘‘Electronic Media and Privacy Law Handbook.’’ She was one of the founders and first editors-in-chief of the 

Asian Law Journal. In 2006, Ms. Wong was named one of the Best 

Lawyers under 40 by the National Asian-Pacific American Bar Association. She received her law degree and master’s degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley. 

Thank you for coming today. Your entire statement will be made 

part of the record, if you would like to summarize it at this point. 

After all the witnesses have spoken, we will ask questions. 

STATEMENT OF NICOLE WONG, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, 

GOOGLE INC., MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA 

Ms. WONG. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to discuss 

with you the issue of Internet freedom. My name is Nicole Wong, 

and I am Google’s Deputy General Counsel. In that role, I am responsible for helping to address limits on free speech that Google 

faces around the world. 

Google’s commitment to freedom of expression is at the core of 

everything we do. Our company’s mission is to organize the world’s 

information and make it universally accessible and useful. We provide Internet users with products that let them quickly and easily 

share, receive, and organize digital information. In theory, any person can use our free products that enable individual expression and 

information access. 

However, freedom of expression on the Internet is not embraced 

universally. For example, since 2007, our YouTube video-sharing 

site has been blocked in at least 11 countries. In the last couple 

of years, we have received reports that our Blogger and Blog*Spot 

sites are being blocked in at least seven countries. And our social 

networking site, orkut, has been blocked recently in three countries. 

With that in mind, I would like to make two main points in my 

testimony this morning. First, Google enables freedom of expression on a global platform, even as we deal with government efforts 

around the world to limit free expression. Second, governments 

around the world can and must do more to reduce Internet censorship. 

Let me begin with an example of how our products are used as 

tools for free expression in countries that have attempted, and in 

some cases succeeded, in restricting speech in other media. 

When the military government of Burma cracked down on protests by tens of thousands of Buddhist monks in the fall of 2007, 

it tried to do so outside of the public eye. During the protests, foreign journalists were kicked out of the country, national media was 

shut down, and Internet and cell phone services were disrupted 

within Burma in an effort to prevent information leaking out about 

the extent of the violence. Nevertheless, tools like Blogger and 

YouTube were used by citizen journalists to share videos of the protests and information about the extent of the blackout, enabling 

the rest of the world to witness the human rights abuses taking 

place within that country. 

7 

Because our technologies and services enable every person with 

an Internet connection to speak to a worldwide audience and, conversely, to read the stories and see the images posted beyond their 

national borders, Google has become a regular focus of governmental efforts to limit individual expression. 

Just to fill out this picture, let me give you two examples. Over 

the past year in Turkey, the courts have blocked the entire 

YouTube site multiple times, for several days each, because of videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey, who has now been dead for 70 years, and 

other videos deemed by the Turkish Government to be threatening 

to their state, such as videos promoting an independent Kurdistan. 

Under Turkish law, these types of content are crimes. While we 

have been engaged with Turkish officials for many months, it has 

been difficult to even know which videos have been the source of 

complaint in order to address or challenge those bans. 

Another example: In China in October 2007, at a time when the 

Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the 

Communist Party Congress convened in Beijing, YouTube was 

blocked throughout China. While we were not informed of the exact 

cause of this suppression of speech and we did not ourselves remove any videos, access to the site in China was reinstated only 

following the conclusion of the Party Congress. 

These are just two examples. Since the start of 2007, by our 

count Google services have been blocked, in whole or in part, in 

over 24 countries. As governments censor content online, we recognize that Internet companies have a shared responsibility to protect these important speech platforms and the people who use them 

as we deploy our services around the world. 

Every day Google works to advance human rights through a variety of initiatives. As a start, we work hard to maximize the information available to users in every country where we offer our services. To the extent we are required to remove information from our 

search engine, for example, we make efforts to tell our users by 

placing a notice on the Search Results page. In China, we believe 

we are the least filtered, most transparent search engine available. 

Google has also taken a leading role in working with companies 

and human rights groups to produce a set of principles on how 

companies respond to government policies that threaten speech and 

privacy online. We are also working with human rights bloggers 

and other groups to help them use our products to promote free 

speech online and to develop technology designed to defeat Internet 

censorship. 

So let me now turn to my second point. We believe it is vital for 

the U.S. Government to do more to make Internet censorship a 

central element of our bilateral and multilateral agendas. 

Mr. Chairman, the testimony I submitted to the Committee 

today includes detailed recommendations building on existing 

human rights mechanisms to reinvigorate the international community’s commitment to free expression. There are two in particular I would call to the Committee’s attention. 

First, we have become convinced that a single company can only 

do so much to fight censorship regimes around the world, and to 

meet the challenges in this area. We recommend increased promiVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
8 

nence, authority, and funding be given to the State Department 

and the USTR. We continue to urge governments to recognize that 

information restrictions on the Internet have a trade dimension. 

The bottom line is that much, much more can be done by the 

U.S., and at the international level by countries that respect free 

expression online, to ensure that individuals, companies, and others can use the Internet as the free and open platform it was designed to be. 

I would like to conclude by thanking the Subcommittee for helping to highlight the importance of the Internet to free expression. 

It is only with the attention and involvement of leaders like yourselves that we can make real progress in the effort to combat censorship throughout the world. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wong appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Ms. Wong. 

Our second witness is Michael Samway. He is the Vice President 

and Deputy General Counsel at Yahoo! Mr. Samway leads Yahoo!’s 

Business and Human Rights Program. He is also on the board of 

Yahoo!’s Human Rights Fund. Mr. Samway earned his B.S. and 

M.S. from the highly respected Georgetown University School of 

Foreign Service, was a Fulbright Scholar in Chile, and received a 

JD/LLM in International and Comparative Law from Duke Law 

School. 

Mr. Samway, thank you for joining us. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL SAMWAY, VICE PRESIDENT AND 

GENERAL COUNSEL, YAHOO! INC., MIAMI, FLORIDA 

Mr. SAMWAY. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, members of the Subcommittee, my name is Michael Samway, and I am 

Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Yahoo! I also lead 

Yahoo!’s global human rights efforts. I appreciate the opportunity 

to testify before you today. 

At Yahoo!, we are deeply committed to human rights and to 

being a leader among technology companies in this area. Our company was founded on the principle that promoting access to information can fundamentally improve people’s lives and enhance their 

relationship with the world around them. In the period since 

Yahoo!’s creation in 1994, the power and ubiquity of the Internet 

has exceeded even our most far-reaching expectations. 

The Internet has dramatically changed the way people obtain information, communicate with each other, engage in civic discourse, 

conduct business, and more. Even in countries that restrict people’s 

ability to communicate with one another or access information, people are still finding meaningful ways to engage online. Over the 

last week alone, we have seen just how important new communications technologies can be in places like China. Internet and cell 

phone resources have proven invaluable as government authorities 

and individuals contend with the aftermath of a devastating and 

enormously tragic earthquake in the Sichuan province. 

With the goal of bringing Yahoo!’s technological tools to people 

around the world, we embarked on a mission to expand our business globally in the late 1990’s. As one of the first Internet compaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
9 

nies to explore the Chinese market, we launched a service with the 

belief that providing the people of China with innovative tools to 

communicate, learn, and even publish their own views was one effective means to improve their way of life. 

We were joined in this strategy of engagement by many in Congress and in both Democratic and Republican administrations 

alike. With the sporadic pace of political progress in China as well 

as the need for companies there to adhere to local laws, we have 

also learned that expanding into emerging markets presents complex challenges that sometimes test even the important benefits of 

engagement itself. 

While Yahoo! has not owned or had day-to-day control over 

Yahoo! China since 2005, we continue to be concerned about the 

challenges we faced in that market and will certainly face in other 

markets in the years to come. 

Skeptics have questioned whether American Internet companies 

should engage in these countries at all. Yahoo! shares these concerns, and we have confronted these same questions about engagement in challenging markets. Yet we continue to believe in the 

Internet’s transformative power and, on balance, its constructive 

role in transmitting information to, from, and within these countries. And we are committed to doing our part through supporting 

individual and collective action. 

Governments, because of their enormous leverage, have a vital 

role to play. To that end, we have asked the U.S. Government to 

use its leverage—through trade relationships, bilateral and multilateral forums, and other diplomatic means—to create a global environment where Internet freedom is a priority and where people 

are no longer imprisoned for expressing their views online. 

Our CEO, Jerry Yang, has met personally with State Department officials and earlier this year wrote a letter to Secretary Rice 

urging the State Department to redouble its efforts to secure the 

release of imprisoned Chinese dissidents. Secretary Rice raised this 

issue with senior Chinese officials, and since then we have seen 

Members of Congress echo this call for U.S. diplomatic leadership. 

We hope these efforts will both intensify and bear fruit. 

We are also taking steps on our own. Jerry Yang announced the 

Yahoo! Human Rights Fund in November 2007, as part of a broader effort to address human rights challenges in China and around 

the world. We have partnered with noted dissident and human 

rights activist Harry Wu, who is here with us today, and the 

Laogai Research Foundation to establish this fund. 

The Yahoo! Human Rights Fund will provide humanitarian and 

legal support to political dissidents who have been imprisoned for 

expressing their views online, as well as assistance for their families. A portion of the fund will also be used to support the Laogai 

Research Foundation’s educational work to advance human rights. 

In order to fuse our global business with responsible decisionmaking on human rights issues, we have also established the 

Yahoo! Business and Human Rights Program. A key pillar of this 

program is a formal assessment of the potential human rights impact of business plans we develop for new markets. This assessment examines the human rights landscape in a country, evaluates 

potential challenges to free expression and privacy, and offers straVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
10 

tegic approaches to protect the rights of our users through legal 

and operational structures, among other methods. Yahoo! then tailors its entry into the new market to minimize risks to human 

rights. 

Because it is so difficult for just one company to create systemic 

change, Yahoo! has also been a committed participant in a broadbased global human rights dialog. We are working with industry 

partners, academics, human rights groups, and socially responsible 

investors to develop a code of conduct that will guide technology 

companies operating in challenging markets. At Yahoo!, we are 

eager to make this global code a reality in the near future. 

As an industry pioneer, Yahoo! is proud to have explored new 

ideas and markets, helping drive the transformative power of the 

Internet. Just like others who have gone first, Yahoo! has learned 

tough lessons about the challenges of doing business in nations 

with governments unlike our own. Yahoo! is working intensively 

and at the most senior levels in the company to set the highest 

standards for decisionmaking around human rights. The initiatives 

we pursue at Yahoo! are intended to protect the rights of our users, 

improve their lives, and make the extraordinary tools of the Internet safely and openly available to people around the world. 

I appreciate the opportunity to tell you about these efforts to 

date and about our plans to continue to pursue a global leadership 

role in the field of human rights. I look forward to answering your 

questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Samway appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thanks, Mr. Samway. 

Our next witness is Arvind Ganesan, Director of the Business 

and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. He has published three books and numerous articles on business and human 

rights. In 2006, he was the editor of the Human Rights Watch report ‘‘Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet 

Censorship.’’ 

Thank you for being here. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF ARVIND GANESAN, DIRECTOR, BUSINESS AND 

HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. GANESAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to 

speak today, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. I 

would also like to thank members of the Subcommittee and, in particular, Senator Coburn. As somebody who is from Oklahoma, I 

have to say that my parents are thrilled about the prospect of me 

testifying in front of one of their Senators today. 

Human Rights Watch believes that the Internet is a transformative force that can help open closed societies and provide the 

near instantaneous flow of information to inform the public, mobilize for change, and ultimately hold institutions accountable. However, today there is a real danger of a Virtual Curtain dividing the 

Internet, much as the Iron Curtain did during the cold war. 

I would like to briefly address three issues in relation to global 

Internet freedom: the actions by some repressive governments to 

11 

restrict the flow of information and to punish individuals using the 

Internet; the ongoing efforts by industry to develop self-regulation 

to ensure that leading companies do not become complicit in 

abuses; and, finally, the prospects for government-led change. 

In 2006, the human rights problems related to the Internet in 

China came to light. Yahoo! had provided user information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of online activists, 

and U.S. companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, censor their search engines in China. This is in anticipation of what 

Chinese censors expect and in addition to what the Chinese Government’s firewall prohibits. 

But China is not the only government that actively tries to suppress its critics in the virtual world. Others have intimidated or silenced activists on the Internet by controlling both providers and 

users. 

The Russian Government is trying to replicate the Chinese firewall. It is promulgating a decree to spy on users, and it is also 

prosecuting an individual for posting a blog with an offensive suggestion that was ultimately critical of police corruption. And in 

January 2007, leading companies, including Yahoo!, Microsoft, and 

Google, along with human rights organizations, socially responsible 

investors, and academics, started a process to develop a voluntary 

code of conduct. The code was to contain a compliance mechanism 

to try to curtail censorship and protect user information. 

Initially, we had hoped that the process could help stop companies from censoring and ensure that they protect cyber dissidents. 

But almost 18 months later, there is no system in place. We are 

still negotiating. In the meantime, Internet users are no safer and 

censorship continues. 

Not every company is in the same place, nor is it fair to say companies do not care about human rights. And we have heard several 

examples of those approaches today. Those are laudable efforts, but 

they do not address steps companies should take to ensure that 

their operations do not contribute to abuses. 

Without disclosing the details of discussions within the initiative, 

I can say that a fundamental problem is that some companies continue to be very resistant to the idea of independent monitoring. In 

particular, they are resistant to a system that would allow for an 

independent third party to assess: one, whether or not companies 

have put policies into place to reduce censorship and protect users; 

two, that those polices are diligently implemented; and, three, that 

their implementation is actually effective in curtailing these 

human rights problems. Unfortunately, the preferred option for 

some companies is a system in which they will decide who the 

monitors are, what they will see, and will implement those standards at a pace convenient to them. 

In other words, companies will express support for human rights 

but also ask the public to basically trust them to do the right thing. 

Sadly, it is difficult to point to any company within the voluntary 

initiative that has robust human rights policies and procedures in 

place more than 2 years after the problems in China were disclosed. Google, for example, has actively resisted such efforts. On 

May 8th, Google’s board voted down two shareholder proposals. 

One called on the company to implement policies and procedures 

12 

to protect human rights, and the other called for a board committee 

on human rights. Sergey Brin, the company’s co-founder, abstained 

from the vote because he felt that these proposals were not the appropriate way to approach the issue. Instead, he suggested a company discussion might be useful. 

Google’s resistant stance and the lack of consensus on voluntary 

standards raise a fundamental question: What is holding up these 

companies from implementing an effective means to protect user 

privacy and to curtail censorship? 

My final point is on government. Legislation is an essential complement to a voluntary effort, and there is a promising bill in the 

House. A voluntary initiative will not apply to companies which do 

not join it, and it is difficult to see how it will be implemented 

under repressive governments who are very good at dividing and 

pressuring companies. Legislation would make it more difficult for 

repressive governments to force companies into becoming complicit 

in human rights abuses, and it might also encourage a more assertive U.S. foreign policy on these issues. 

A useful model for this approach is the Foreign Corrupt Practices 

Act. That act mandates that companies will face penalties if they 

do not put adequate systems in place to prevent bribery, and it contains penalties if they actually engage in corruption. A similar approach could work quite well in regards to the Internet and would 

easily complement a voluntary initiative since it would require a 

company to put systems into place to prevent abuses and would 

hold them accountable if abuses occurred. Unfortunately, the companies are apparently resistant to legislation, much like they are 

resistant to effective voluntary measures. 

Last weekend, news reports began to circulate about an Indian 

man who reportedly is facing charges for making critical and possibly vulgar comments about Sonia Gandhi online. He was reportedly identified with the help of Google because he was using their 

social networking site in India. We should not have to wait for another arrest to see progress from companies. 

Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ganesan appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. Ganesan. 

Our next witness is Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Cisco Systems. He has been with 

Cisco since 1996. He was previously General Counsel at StrataCom 

and Vice President and General Counsel of Maxtor Corporation. He 

is a member of several boards, including the Board of Visitors at 

Stanford Law, and the Advisory Council of the Woodrow Wilson 

International Center for Scholars in Washington. Mr. Chandler received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard and his J.D. from Stanford Law School. 

Mr. Chandler, thank you for joining us and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MARK CHANDLER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

GENERAL COUNSEL, AND SECRETARY, CISCO SYSTEMS, INC., 

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA 

Mr. CHANDLER. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Coburn, my 

name is Mark Chandler. I am Senior Vice President and the GenVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
13 

eral Counsel of Cisco. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. 

My company was founded 24 years ago by two Stanford graduate 

students. Today we have 65,000 employees around the world, more 

than 40,000 in the United States, including over 80 percent of our 

engineering. We are proud of the fact that we have added over 

8,000 jobs in the United States in the last 2 years in difficult economic times. 

I testified 2 years ago before Congressman Smith’s Subcommittee 

on the topic of global Internet freedom. As a company that supports 

free expression and open communication, we recognize the importance of driving policies to enable people the world over to benefit 

from the freedom and empowerment that the Internet can offer. I 

want to reiterate five key points from that testimony 2 years ago. 

First, Cisco sells the same products globally, built to global 

standards, thereby enhancing the free flow of information. 

Second, Cisco’s routers and switches include basic features that 

are essential to fundamental operation of the Internet by blocking 

hackers from interrupting services. protecting networks from viruses. 

Third, those same features without which the Internet could not 

function effectively can, unfortunately, be used by network administrators for political and other purposes. 

Fourth, in this regard, Cisco does not customize or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities in order to enable different 

regimes to block access to information. 

And, fifth, Cisco is not a service or content provider, nor are we 

a network manager who can determine how those features are 

used. These points were through 2 years ago, and they remain true 

today. 

I do want to directly address the Cisco internal presentation that 

was provided to the Committee last week, which was prepared by 

a Chinese engineer inside Cisco in 2002, designed to inform Cisco 

employees in China about the history and operation of China’s public safety organizations. I have the utmost respect for those like 

Professor Zhou who commit their lives and resources to the cause 

of free expression. And I am also grateful to him and to Ambassador Palmer and Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute for 

providing the presentation to us so we could translate it and review 

it in advance of today’s hearing. 

We were disappointed to find that the Cisco internal presentation included a Chinese Government official statement regarding 

combat and hostile elements, including religious organizations. We 

regret the engineer included that quote in the presentation, even 

by way of explaining the Chinese Government’s goals, and we disavow the implication that this reflects in any way Cisco’s views or 

objectives. 

The nature of that presentation has not been accurately described, however. The document consisted of 90 PowerPoint slides 

reviewing various Government projects, including no fewer than 12 

pages on the Beijing traffic management bureau and firefighting 

brigades. The presentation described products of various other companies, including China’s Ra Wei, and U.S. companies, such as 

Lucent, Harris, and Motorola, in providing equipment to the MinVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
14 

istry of Public Security. It also described in detail the role that Cisco’s standard networking products could play in facilitating communication. In no case—and I repeat, no case—did the document propose any Cisco products be provided to facilitate political goals of 

the government, and no reference was made to an application of 

our products to goals of censorship or monitoring. 

We do not know how the Chinese Government implemented filtering or censorship beyond the basic intrusion protection and site 

filtering that all Internet routing products contain, such as used by 

libraries to block pornography. 

For instance, Cisco does not provide the interception capabilities 

that comply with the CALEA statute in the U.S. We believe the 

mediation devices the Chinese Government uses for that purpose 

are altogether unique and developed and sold by Chinese companies. 

Mr. Chairman, you referred in your opening statement to other 

companies which do provide specialized security products and 

which Cisco has not. Our technology has helped connect the world 

in an unprecedented fashion. Perhaps the most vivid example of 

this in China is the response to last week’s earthquake. Within 

minutes, pictures and videos from the region were online, and contrast that with the situation in Tangshan 32 years ago when the 

world received no official confirmation for months that a quarter of 

a million people had been killed in a huge earthquake. Today, more 

than 220 million Internet users in China are testimony to the ability of the average citizen to find information which has been dramatically expanded. 

But the phenomenon of Internet censorship is, nonetheless, a 

global issue. Many governments around the world do not share our 

principles even as the Internet facilitates unprecedented communication. Around the world, governments do try to block citizen access to information. But Cisco complies with all U.S. regulations informed by human rights concerns which control sale of our products. 

The policy responses that the Senate must consider with regard 

to the Internet and censorship are complex. Among the questions 

we have historically raised are: Has the Internet helped spread a 

dramatic access to information in regions where content is, nonetheless, subject to limitations? And if countries that engage in censorship are to be denied U.S. Internet technology, will those countries establish a closed Internet of their own, thereby enforcing the 

Virtual Curtain that Mr. Ganesan referred to? 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I have read and thought a lot 

about these important and difficult issues, and I agree with experts, including many human rights activists, who are of the view 

that engagement with China and other nations is more likely to 

lead to positive change than isolation. I also believe, having worked 

in the information technology sector for decades, that the Internet 

is one of the greatest contributors to positive change and that we 

should do whatever we can to make as much information available 

to as many people as possible. This can be accomplished through 

an Internet that is maintained as one global system built to global 

standards. I believe the U.S. Government for more than 30 years 

15 

has pursued a consistent and sensible policy, and the fact that the 

Internet is robust in China is a powerful testament to that fact. 

Thank you again for inviting us to appear today before the Subcommittee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chandler appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thanks, Mr. Chandler. 

Our final witness is Dr. Shiyu Zhou. Dr. Zhou is the Deputy Director of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, an organization 

that creates software that allows citizens in repressive countries to 

break through firewalls and freely access the Internet. Dr. Zhou is 

the Vice President of New Tang Dynasty Television and an adjunct 

professor at Rutgers University’s Computer Science Department. 

He was previously on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Zhou, thank you for being here today, and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF SHIYU ZHOU, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, GLOBAL 

INTERNET FREEDOM CONSORTIUM, BETHESDA, MARYLAND 

Mr. ZHOU. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Coburn, I am proud 

to stand before you today on behalf of the Global Internet Freedom 

Consortium, a small team of dedicated volunteers connected 

through their common practice of Falun Gong, who have come together to work for the cause of Internet freedom. We constantly 

battle tens of thousands of Internet monitors and censors around 

the world so that millions of citizens inside repressive societies may 

safely communicate online and access websites related to human 

rights, freedom, and democracy. These men and women maintain 

operations out of their own pockets, but provide their products and 

support services to the citizens of closed societies entirely free of 

charge. 

The consortium has run the world’s largest anti-censorship operation since 2000. Our services currently accommodate an estimated 

95 percent of the total anti-censorship traffic in closed societies 

around the world and are used daily by millions of users. As of 

January 2008, the top five censoring countries with the most daily 

hits to our anti-censorship systems are: China, 194.4 million hits 

per day; Iran, 74.8 million hits per day; Saudi Arabia, 8.4 million 

hits per day; United Arab Emirates, 8 million hits per day; Syria, 

2.8 million hits per day. And there are also users from many more 

closed societies, such as Cuba, Egypt, Sudan, and Vietnam. It has 

been transforming the closed society in a peaceful but powerful way 

that must not be underestimated. 

Our tools have also been of benefit to U.S.-based organizations 

such as Human Rights in China, Voice of America, and Radio Free 

Asia, and even companies like Google and Yahoo!, who self-censor, 

since we bring the uncensored version of their services into closed 

societies. We have witnessed firsthand the effectiveness of anti-censorship technologies in improving information freedom for people in 

closed societies. During the democratic movements in Burma in 

late August 2007, our anti-censorship portals experienced a threefold increase in average daily hits from IP addresses originating in 

side Burma. After the protests broke out in Tibet on March the 

10th of this year, there was a fourfold increase in the number of 

daily hits to our portals from Tibet, with Tibetans desperately tryVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
16 

ing to send out information about the crackdown by Chinese authorities. Our anti-censorship tools are now one of the Tibetans’ 

few remaining links to the outside world. 

At the same time that we are battling the censors for the freedom of the people in closed societies, we are, unfortunately, finding 

strong indication that companies such as Cisco located in free societies may be involved in helping the Chinese security agencies 

monitor and censor the Internet, and persecute and prosecute Chinese citizens. 

In a 2002 Cisco China PowerPoint presentation entitled ‘‘An 

Overview of [China’s] Public Security Industry,’’ now in our possession, a Cisco China official in the Government Business Department listed the Golden Shield Project, the host project of China’s 

Great Firewall, as one of Cisco’s major target customers. In this 

document, which apparently lays out the marketing strategy for 

Cisco China to sell products to the Chinese Security Police, one of 

the main objectives of the Golden Shield was to ‘‘combat the ‘Falun 

Gong’ evil cult,’’ parroting the rhetoric of the Chinese authorities 

used to persecute Falun Gong. 

In the presentation page headed ‘‘Cisco Opportunities [in the 

Golden Shield Project],’’ Cisco offers much more than just routers. 

It offers planning, construction, technical training, and operations 

maintenance for the Golden Shield. Our research shows that the 

infrastructure of China’s Great Firewall coincides with the layout 

in Cisco China’s PowerPoint presentation. Cisco can no longer assure Congress that Cisco China has not been and is not now an accomplice and partner in China’s Internet repression and, whether 

directly or indirectly, its persecution of Falun Gong practitioners 

and other peaceful citizens in China. 

Anti-censorship technology can allow the people in closed societies to be less subject to manipulation by an unscrupulous leadership. Winning people over to a more open and free system via the 

Internet could very well be a way to avoid future conflicts that can 

cost lives. 

To our belief, reaching a critical mass of 10 percent of the 280 

million Internet users in all closed societies will result in the avalanche effect that could lead to the fall of the censorship walls in 

closed societies. 

The battle of Internet freedom is now boiling down to the battle 

of resources. The consortium has the know-how, experience, and capabilities needed to reach the critical mass in this coming year 

with just modest funding. We hope and trust the Senate and the 

Congress will grasp with what we believe to be a historic opportunity. Only when the U.S. shows more determination to keep the 

Internet open than the closed societies will to seal it off can there 

be the hope of information freedom and democracy for the citizens 

in all closed societies and a more peaceful tomorrow for all of mankind. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zhou appears as a submission for 

the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Dr. Zhou, thank you very much. 

Senator Coburn has another hearing that he has to attend, and 

I am going to allow him to ask questions first so that he can put 

17 

some questions on the record, and both of us will reserve the right, 

as will the other members of the Committee, to submit written 

questions after this hearing. 

Senator Coburn? 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your graciousness. 

Mr. Chandler, how do you respond to what Mr. Zhou just said? 

He has outlined not just the sales of equipment, but the management and advisement and counseling and training on how to affect 

censorship by the Chinese. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you. Once again I would reiterate the respect I have for the efforts that he undertakes to allow access to 

information that censors would otherwise preclude access to. 

I was appalled when I saw the line in the slides and very disappointed to see it even as a quote from a government official. 

There were several pages in the presentation which said here are 

the government’s goals with this project, the government’s goals 

with the next project. And the Golden Shield section has quite a 

few pages in the presentation devoted to different aspects of what 

they were trying to accomplish, including illegal drug interdiction, 

traffic management, and so forth. 

The description in there had to do with what generally involves 

network planning and layout, which is something you do when you 

sell routing and switching equipment. We do provide service for our 

equipment so that it can be fixed if it is broken, and that is the 

type of service that we provide, technical service so that people understand how to use the equipment. 

The only equipment that has been sold as a result of that is routing and switching equipment for essentially office automation and 

internal purposes within the Public Security Bureau. It has been 

a relatively small amount, I think, in the year after that presentation was made, and, again, we are talking about something that 

was 6 years ago. I think there was approximately $10 million of 

sales, and, again, office automation equipment more than anything 

else—in fact, exclusively. 

That is the nature of the implementation. There was nothing 

there that had to do with censorship, none of this kind of strong 

security products that the Chairman referred to in his opening remarks that would facilitate that type of communication interception. And I would point out just by way of example that when an 

issue arose a couple of years ago regarding someone who was arrested as a result of online posting, that was not done by the government because they were able to receive information from Cisco 

products. They had to go to the service provider in question and try 

to identify the individual by name. We are providing generic routing and switching equipment in these instances that we do not 

think facilitates the types of activities that I know are very troublesome to Dr. Zhou and to us as well. 

Senator COBURN. Dr. Zhou, the references to the 2002 presentation, do you have information outside of that 2002 presentation 

that would lead you to conclude that the facts are otherwise from 

what Mr. Chandler stated? 

Mr. ZHOU. Yes, we have. Actually, we have just submitted another document to the Subcommittee this morning. It is apparently 

18 

a sales pitch presentation by the same Cisco-China person who 

made the first 2002 document, to the public security police in 

China, showing how to use Cisco equipment to construct the Golden Shield Project in different cities and provinces, including Beijing. 

Senator COBURN. To Mr. Chandler’s point, though, even though 

they built it, they still have an ISP that they have to go through. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. ZHOU. I am sorry. The— 

Senator COBURN. Well, you can build it, but there is still an 

Internet service provider that people are using. So will they not 

and still have to use the complicit help of an ISP with which to 

identify someone? 

Mr. ZHOU. Well, Cisco’s routers have—it is a supercomputer. It 

has various functions. And the censorship, which is the thing that 

we are concerned most about, happens at the national gateway 

level, and so they can monitor, they can do content filtering, and 

they can do a hijacking of the DNS, and also they can do IP blocking so people cannot see websites. 

And in regard to the monitoring system you mentioned, Cisco 

also has other equipment, including voice and image recognition 

and other things, that could be used. And if you want to track 

down the users of certain going to certain IP addresses, well, so 

there are many ways to do that, and so there are other companies 

who are doing this, and Cisco is one of the major companies. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Our first two witnesses talked about 

using trade and enhancing our USTR in terms of our approach to 

censorship. Why not just, Dr. Zhou—rather than give it to a bureaucrat and create an anti-censorship center where we, in fact, 

make it so hard for them to censor that they give up, that he wins, 

that we get over the critical mass rather than do it through the bureaucratic maze? It obviously has not worked in the past on several 

other issues in China in terms of both the State Department and 

the USTR. Why would you make—why would you think that that 

would work through the Trade Representative or the State Department that China is going to change its policy? 

Ms. WONG. I will take that, because I think we have a number 

of recommendations that are in my testimony. And let me explain. 

I think the USTR is an important step. I think it is important 

to recognize that freedom of information on the Internet is a trade 

issue and that we can use that with other countries as we negotiate those agreements. But having said that, Senator, you are absolutely right. It is not a silver bullet. The Government has many 

tools in its toolbox, and we would actually encourage them to use 

a variety of them. 

We think the USTR one is a good one. We think greater prominence and authority given to the State Department would also be 

very, very helpful in our experience in talking to countries. Particularly there is a second generation of countries that are coming online, and they do not have the same values that we do on freedom 

of expression or governance, and to have State Department officials 

who could engage them on that level would be enormously effective. 

19 

Also, as a company, we support the development of tools that are 

intended to get around censorship of the Internet. We do that in 

a couple of ways, both directly supporting developers in that area, 

and also providing a code base for building on top of. There are a 

number of things, I think, that can be done. The USTR is one of 

them. 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Samway, do you want to comment on that? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Senator, that is a very good question. We are a 

technology company, and certainly technology is part of the solution, and we are going to explore Dr. Zhou’s organization and the 

technology offered. At the same time, it is also a human problem. 

It is a company challenge, and we are taking on the challenge at 

Yahoo! to build internal capacity to make responsible decisions on 

human rights. 

There is also an important role for Government to play, and we 

agree not only with using trade, but all the other, as Ms. Wong 

said, tools in the U.S. Government’s toolbox to emphasize that 

Internet freedom is a global priority. 

Senator COBURN. It may be my lack of knowledge, but I think 

that is already our policy. Is it not already our policy at the State 

Department? 

Ms. WONG. I believe there is a freedom-of-expression component 

to the State Department’s mandate. I think in our experience they 

have been very helpful with us in some instances with some governments. My sense is they could use greater resourcing, greater 

prioritization. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. Ganesan, what is your thought about what Dr. Zhou does 

and the likelihood that whether we have a Government-mandated 

committee look at this or a voluntary organization from industry 

look at it and have a tool up here that is above the box versus what 

he is doing below the box, which do you think ultimately is going 

to be more effective? 

Mr. GANESAN. Thank you. I actually think all of them will. I 

think that you do need to foster new technologies to get around 

firewalls and to get around censorship and to help people protect 

their privacy. 

At the same time, I think that Government can be more aggressive. The State Department, I believe, has a Global Internet Task 

Force, which it has now launched twice, I think, and so there is a 

lack of clarity as to what its ultimate purpose and its overall strategy is, and I think that that could be addressed. And I think trade 

policy could be useful, but it is important to bear in mind that 

these are long-term fixes and diplomatic fixes. The immediate fix 

may be fostering new technologies and, most importantly, getting 

leadership companies to do the right things. And the balance that 

we want to strike between a voluntary and mandatory initiative is 

that some things can be done voluntarily, providing the public has 

the assurance that what people say they are doing is actually done. 

But then there are going to be cases, like China or others, where 

the Government is just too good at picking off individual companies 

or pressuring them to do the wrong thing, in which case rules need 

to be changed so that they have a backstop which helps them move 

beyond that into something else. 

20 

Senator COBURN. Somewhat they are using their purchasing 

power to be able to influence what is happened. 

One last question, and I will submit the rest of mine for the 

record. Google participates in China, but you do not offer Gmail. 

Why not? Turn your microphone on, please. 

Ms. WONG. When we launched our services in 2006, we thought 

very carefully about how we could do that in a way that we would 

be maximizing the availability of information in China while also 

protecting user services. And we took a lot of lessons from the examples of companies that went before us. 

One of the decisions we made was that we did not want to host 

Gmail or Blogger or services that would include confidential, sensitive information that we might be required to provide to the Chinese Government. So the services that we currently offer in China 

include our search services, a map service, a local business service, 

and some others. 

Senator COBURN. But there other countries that have repressive 

regimes and Internet censorship where you offer Gmail. How is it 

you can do that in those countries and not in China? 

Ms. WONG. Because of the nature of how we have seen the government use information, we were particularly concerned about 

China. We do offer Gmail in other countries. Before we launch in 

countries, we do try to—we do an assessment of those countries in 

terms of both our risk of being compelled to produce information 

in those countries as well as what the government structures in 

those countries look like. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Senator Coburn. I understand 

you have to leave and you will submit some questions for the 

record. We are joined by Senator Whitehouse, and I would like to 

ask first some questions related to this Cisco PowerPoint, Mr. 

Chandler. 

First, do you know the person who was responsible for this 

PowerPoint presentation, which made the negative reference to 

Falun Gong and talked about using Cisco’s resources to train the 

Chinese Government in censorship and repression? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Well, first of all, I do not know him. I have never 

met him. I have never spoken with him. He is not a manager. He 

has nobody who reports to him. He is a first-level employee. I think 

he is four or five levels down in the Chinese— 

Chairman DURBIN. Does he still work for Cisco? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Yes, he does. The document did not propose on 

behalf of Cisco that Cisco combat in any way or adopt any of the 

government’s goals. It simply listed what the government’s goals 

were, and there were several pages within the document that do 

that. You will note on the chart that Mr. Zogby is holding up right 

now that the first two bullets from this government statement were 

crack down on Internet crimes and ensure security in services of 

public Internet, which are fairly straightforward goals for network 

administrators. 

There was not a proposal whatsoever in the Cisco document that 

Cisco be involved in censorship or monitoring. And, interestingly, 

just to draw on something that Professor Zhou said, the censorship 

21 

and monitoring that would occur would not be within that ministry, apparently, but as Dr. Zhou said, at the gateways where information comes in and out. And so that project that was referred 

to there did not seem to have any censorship or monitoring aspect 

to it with respect to anything Cisco could provide. 

Chairman DURBIN. Does this person still work for Cisco? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Yes, he does. I would note, by the way, that we 

have no video recognition, and the only voice recognition we have 

is so people can dial by picking up a phone and asking for their 

voice mail. So that is just not our product either. 

Chairman DURBIN. Now that this document has been made public, what efforts will your company make to clarify your position 

relative to Falun Gong and this type of conduct? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Well, first of all, the document is a 6-year-old description of the Chinese public safety organizations and how they 

were laying out their network plans based on what government officials were saying about them. 

With respect to our position, as I said in my testimony, the views 

of the government officials cited in it were not Cisco’s views then; 

they are not Cisco’s views now. That was an internal document describing the government’s goals that was used internally among 

Cisco employees, and but for the fact that it was put on the record 

here, would never have been identified with Cisco in any case, 

whatever our view. 

Chairman DURBIN. What internal systems or written policies 

does Cisco have so that your employees in China, or any other 

place, do not assist a government’s efforts at censorship and repression? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Well, it goes to the nature of our products. The 

principal thing that we do that is beneficial in that respect is that 

our products are built to global standards, and we sell the same 

products globally. So we do not customize them for those types of 

purposes in any way. And that is the fundamental principle that 

we have that applies globally. We do have 65,000 employees the 

world over; documents are generated every day describing the capabilities of our products. And it was inappropriate for him to include a political goal that— 

Chairman DURBIN. As a matter of record, I accept that, but my 

question was specific. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Yes. 

Chairman DURBIN. What internal systems or written policies do 

you have to make it clear to your employees not to engage in conduct that supports the Chinese Government’s censorship and repression? 

Mr. CHANDLER. We have a written, extensive code of conduct 

that refers to the way our products are to be used, what the aspirations of the company are, and we also have a corporate social responsibility organization that clearly sets forth in our annual review of that what the company’s support is for human rights globally, including the power of the Internet to do that. And employees 

who would customize our products in such a way as to undermine 

human rights would not be consistent with the code of conduct that 

we have. 

22 

Chairman DURBIN. Does your company inform government clients, in writing or otherwise, that they will not assist in efforts toward censorship and repression? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Given that our products do not do that, I am not 

sure the nexus for providing that kind of statement to a government in that the products that we provide as global standardized 

products for routing and switching of information simply are not 

applicable to that purpose. 

Chairman DURBIN. Dr. Zhou, would you like to react to Mr. 

Chandler’s comments? 

Mr. ZHOU. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We should consider a normal 

business procedure that Cisco and other companies use to do business with China, in which we have pre-sales services and also postsales services. 

In pre-sales services, you get the objectives of your client and 

make a proposal to them. Like in this PowerPoint, it tells Cisco 

people about the objectives of the Chinese police force and how to 

market Cisco products to the Chinese, including how to ‘‘combat 

Falun Gong.’’ 

After the sales, you have post-sales services by implementing the 

solution to achieve the objectives. That includes the (lower-level) 

design, customization, testing, implementation, plus training, 

maintenance, etc. 

Cisco routers are supercomputers. They can be used as a toy, but 

they can also be made into a A-bomb. It completely depends on the 

objectives of the client. 

Cisco can design it purposefully to accommodate the needs of the 

client, and that is what the other document submitted to the Subcommittee is doing—Cisco made it into an A-bomb to accommodate 

whatever the Golden Shield Project needs. 

Chairman DURBIN. I might say for the record that the other document you have referred to was given to the Committee about 5 

minutes before the hearing in Chinese. 

Mr. ZHOU. Right. 

Chairman DURBIN. And so— 

Mr. ZHOU. The English. The English. 

Chairman DURBIN. In English as well? 

Some of it is translated and some of it is not. We are still working on the translation, so I thank you for that. 

Mr. Chandler, I want to give you the last word on this, and then 

I want to ask some other questions, if I might. I would like to add 

to Dr. Zhou’s comments. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Sure. I think that there are several things that 

I think we can do and that are relevant and positive in this respect. Cisco does support the goals of the Global Online Freedom 

Act to promote freedom of expression on the Internet and also to 

protect U.S. businesses from coercion by repressive authoritarian 

foreign governments. In particular, we support section 104 that 

would establish an Office of Global Internet Freedom in the Department of State. We support restrictions on the ability of companies to locate within an Internet-restricting country electronic communications that include personally identifiable information, which 

we generally do not do in any case. And, finally, we also support 

title III, which would require the Secretary of Commerce, in conVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
23 

junction with the State Department, to conduct a feasibility study 

for the development of export license requirements regarding export of any items to an end user in an Internet-restricting country 

that would facilitate substantial restrictions on Internet freedom. 

We comply fully with the U.S. laws that exist today, including 

the Foreign Relations Authorization Act that was enacted in 1990 

and puts specific limitations on supply of certain crime control 

equipment to Chinese Government agencies. There is a lot that can 

be done. 

Chairman DURBIN. I am going to submit a question for the 

record relative to Commerce Department regulations on equipment 

that I hope you will have a chance to respond to through your company. And I would like to ask the others a few questions. I do not 

know if you have a few minutes, Senator Whitehouse. Do you? 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I am supposed to be on the floor shortly. 

Chairman DURBIN. Oh, well, go ahead. Senator Whitehouse, why 

don’t you go ahead and ask questions, and I will return after you. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I would appreciate it, Mr. Chairman. I will 

be quite brief. First of all, I want to thank you for holding this 

hearing, and I think particularly the emphasis on representing 

basic human freedoms and rights in our trade policies that Ms. 

Wong brought up and that has been discussed in this hearing is 

particularly important. I have been pressing in my brief time in the 

Senate for our trade policies to reflect basic things, like honoring 

property rights in countries that we have trade relationships with, 

honoring free press, and I think the discussion about honoring 

Internet openness and neutrality has been helpful to me in informing those views and other areas where I think our trade policies 

could effectively reflect our values better than they do. 

With respect to the American companies that are here before us 

today, let me ask you this: Are you selling products or services in 

China that are different than your standard products that have 

been customized or tailored—I think Dr. Zhou used the word 

‘‘customized′′—in any way to facilitate the repressive efforts of the 

Chinese regime? And I ask that question because it is a different 

question for me if, you know, we are selling a Ford car that is a 

standard Ford car and the Chinese police are using it for repressive 

purposes. That really does not necessarily trail back to the responsibility or culpability of the Ford Motor Company. On the other 

hand, if the American equipment is being tailored to support the 

repressive efforts in any way, that seems to me to raise a different 

question. 

So I would ask each of you, I guess Mr. Chandler, Mr. Samway, 

and Ms. Wong, if you could answer that for your respective companies. 

Mr. CHANDLER. No, we do not. 

Mr. SAMWAY. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. We do not sell 

equipment. The services that we offer on yahoo.com are available 

to Internet users all over the world in the same form— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. The same whether you are signing on 

France or India or U.S. or China? 

Mr. SAMWAY. That is correct, assuming you have access and it 

is not blocked. The local subsidiaries of any company will be required to comply with local laws, and that would be the case with 

24 

the companies that we no longer control but that is run by Ali 

Baba and called Yahoo! China. And we, like you, believe deeply in 

free expression and certainly in privacy. Those are our founding 

principles. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Ms. Wong? 

Ms. WONG. We offer a global service, which is our google.com 

service, the service you can access here in the United States. That 

is available throughout the world, including in China, and what we 

found prior to 2006, when we first launched our local service on 

google.cn in China, is that google.com would be frequently blocked, 

completely unaccessible to the people of China. And so after much 

discussion by our senior executives about how to still be able to 

provide meaningful information in China, we decided to offer a localized version on our google.cn domain, which is, in fact, compliant 

with Chinese law pursuant to our license requirements. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Do you do that in other countries as well? 

Ms. WONG. We do, actually. So our strategy in China and globally is to make as much information available as possible, and if 

information has to be removed, to be transparent with our users 

about that. So, for example, in Germany, which prohibits Nazi 

propaganda material, we will remove at the request of the government that type of material from our dot-de, our German local domain. That is the same, for example, in Canada, which has a law 

that protects certain groups and prohibits hate speech. Upon request, we will also remove that sort of information when found on 

our dot-ca, our local Canadian domain. 

In China, we likewise do the same and, candidly, with great reservation. That is why it took us so long to get into China in the 

first place. But we do comply with the local laws there. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman DURBIN. I want to followup, and if you could—I do not 

know if you have to leave immediately, Senator Whitehouse, but if 

you could show the two charts here from google.cn and google.com, 

we tried to find a reference here to something very generic, and so 

we decided it would be images—is that the first one? This is on 

Human Rights Watch, which, of course, Mr. Ganesan is here representing. And you will notice on the one on the right, when you 

log in Human Rights Watch, what is available on Google, and over 

here on the Chinese side, I think if I can find the translation here, 

what they have to say about it is—the cn site says ‘‘cannot find the 

Web page matching your inquiry.’’ So if you are looking for Human 

Rights Watch through google.cn, they basically say they do not 

know what you are talking about. But if you go to google.com and 

make the same request, there are some 35,000 entries that are 

available to you. 

Ms. Wong, is that what you meant earlier when you said you offered both of these? 

Ms. WONG. That is right. We do offer both of those. So google.com 

is always made available except when the Chinese Government 

itself decides to block us through its Great Firewall. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me show one other example, if I can, and 

this one is photo images that are available. This is through Yahoo!, 

and you will notice on the right, if you would type in ‘‘Tiananmen,’’ 

25 

you will receive Yahoo! images which reflect what happened in 

Tiananmen Square, the historic events in Tiananmen Square. However, if you go through the Chinese site here, you will notice that 

there are a lot of tourist postcard images of Tiananmen Square. It 

is a dramatically different presentation. This is what I believe the 

people in China are likely to see. They are basically being excluded 

from seeing the reality of what actually happened in Tiananmen 

Square. We use these just as examples so you understand what 

this is about in terms of drawing these lines. 

I am trying to step back here and put myself in your position for 

a moment in terms of world competition. I start this with the 

knowledge that 12 to 13 years ago, I was following very closely 

what was happening in the Baltic States. My mother was born in 

Lithuania, so I watched closely as they tried to separate from the 

Soviet Union and bring democracy. 

The thing that saved the Baltic revolution in Lithuania was the 

fax machine. It is hard to believe in this day and age that would 

be true, but the Soviets could not stop the fax machines. And they 

were humming 24 hours a day with information coming out of Lithuania and the Baltic States about what was really happening, because you could not find out on the ground, from official sources or 

otherwise, what was happening. So that very primitive and early 

technology I think had a lot to do with democracy coming when it 

did to the Baltic States. 

So my notion when we got into the debate about China and its 

free trade agreement was that there was no way that a central authority, a government in China, could control the glow of all those 

modems across China, that eventually that information would overwhelm any government’s effort at control. And I think that goes to 

the heart of why we are here today. 

There are two issues as I see it, and one is the complicity or cooperation of American companies in limiting information, because 

of government censorship or otherwise, to clients in foreign countries. And the second part we have not touched on but that we 

need to—I referred to it in my opening—is the privacy of individuals and the cooperation of American companies in identifying individuals who will then subsequently be arrested, charged, and imprisoned for seeking information or sharing information on the 

Internet. 

It strikes me there are two things here, the censorship policy and 

the privacy policy, that we have to ask about. And the obvious 

question is: Can we, should we, establish standards for American 

companies involved in global commerce when it comes to these two 

things? Should we declare it wrong for an American company to in 

any way cooperate with censorship and repression? 

Ms. Wong, what do you think? 

Ms. WONG. So you know, let me talk a little bit about the process 

that we undertook in going into China, which is prior to 2006 and 

launching our dot-cn product, which is censored. We found ourselves completely out of that market. For unexplainable reasons 

google.com would be blocked, with nothing getting through in 

China, much less politically sensitive material. And so what our 

senior executives wrestled with was would it be better to be there 

and be engaged and offer some level of information rather than to 

26 

be completely blocked for reasons that we are completely unable to 

control? 

And the most persuasive people that we spoke to when we were 

wrestling with that were actually Chinese users in China who used 

the Internet extensively. They said, ‘‘You will do more for us by 

being here than by staying out.’’ The classic diplomatic question of 

engagement, which is— 

Chairman DURBIN. I think I heard this same argument when it 

came to apartheid in South Africa, as to— 

Ms. WONG. Well, let me explain— 

Chairman DURBIN.—whether we should impose sanctions, have 

normal relationships, or—and there were some who argued, well, 

wait a minute, if the United States does not trade with South Africa, the South African people will not have as many products to buy 

and it will be hurting them, and they are not the culprits. It is the 

government. 

Ms. WONG. And that is certainly a valid argument in that case. 

Here is what our experience has been, and the reason why they 

told us to be there is that they believe that we would provide competitive pressure to cause other companies to do better. So let me 

give you an example of how that is. 

When we went into China, we decided that if we were going to 

remove search results, we would have a notice at the bottom of the 

page. The notice basically says there are some search results which 

are not appearing because of local rules, laws, or regulations. There 

was no other search engine in China doing it at the time that we 

went into China. After we did it, the other major search engines 

in China are now having a similar type of notice. That is a level 

of transparency that lets Chinese users know, even if our U.S. service is blocked, that something is missing in their search results. 

And we think that that is real evidence that we being there has 

moved things in the right direction. It is imperfect, and we know 

that. But we do think that something about being there is right. 

One more example, because I think that it is appropriate that we 

focus on the very difficult issues of political censorship in China, 

which we disagree with completely. Having said that, there is also 

something about being there, about having our open search box for 

Chinese users to go and ask any question they want, to exercise 

the muscle of asking any question they want and seeing what results they get back. That in itself, we think, makes it worthwhile 

for us to have a presence there. 

Chairman DURBIN. Mr. Samway, I would like your response to 

the same question. 

Mr. SAMWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also appreciate the opportunity now to talk a bit about the example that you raised on 

Tiananmen Square. Just below the surface in places like China, 

there is incredibly robust discussion, open discussion, and access to 

various subjects, whether they are local corruption, environmental 

issues, health issues. The recent earthquake in the Sichuan province is an example of how the Internet is transforming society in 

places like China. 

Senator Coburn made a reference that I thought was especially 

powerful when he noted that information itself is power, and that 

is what is available today more than ever before to Chinese citizens 

27 

despite the best efforts of the government. We believe deeply in 

free expression and open access to information, and like other companies, we also believe philosophically that engagement is good. 

Chairman DURBIN. So Dr. Zhou in his testimony, his full testimony, underscored the consequences of public censorship in another area we have not discussed—public health. He noted that the 

Chinese Government detained many people who attempted to disseminate information about the SARS epidemic in 2004. In 2006, 

Amnesty International testified before Congress that over 100 people had been arrested for ‘‘spreading rumors’’ about the SARS outbreak, which obviously affected people all over the world. 

So I guess my question to you is: You talk about the positive opportunities where the Internet can provide information, much like 

the early fax machines I referred to, that otherwise might not have 

been available. But how do you deal with the other side of that coin 

that Dr. Zhou raised? That is, when you are asked to be complicit 

through your companies in restricting the flow of information for 

the public good and public health, aren’t your hands a little dirty 

at the end of the day if you participate in that? Mr. Samway? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Well, Senator, it certainly is troubling, and we are 

troubled by the actions of the Chinese Government with respect to 

their own citizens. We take responsibility. We have learned valuable lessons, probably more than any other company in the room, 

and we are taking those lessons and implying them, taking individual steps and collective steps. We have been working, for example, as a participant in this broad-based global human rights dialog. Mr. Ganesan is one of the leading participants for the human 

rights groups. We believe collective action is critical. We also believe individual steps, independent of what we can do as a group 

of companies, are critical. We are taking this multi-pronged approach because we have learned important lessons. 

We also believe, as you know, Mr. Chairman, there is an inherent tension, there is always a tension in going into these emerging 

markets between opening up, allowing more access to be available, 

and what the government can do to try to control that access. And 

the SARS example I think is a very good one. At the end of the 

day, the government was unable to stop the tide of the flow of information, I believe, with respect to SARS. They tried to contain 

the health epidemic which threatened to become a global one, and 

ultimately, communication and awareness of the issue required 

them, essentially forced them, to come out into the open about the 

challenge. 

Chairman DURBIN. Before we go into the second aspect here, the 

right of privacy of individuals, I want to stay on this topic and let 

Mr. Ganesan and Dr. Zhou comment on what you have heard. 

From what we are hearing from Google and Yahoo!, it is better 

that we are there than not being there. The people would rather 

have us there in the country even if there is censorship. We are 

notifying people that what we put on the Internet is censored. And 

isn’t it at the end of the day a better policy to engage rather than 

to step back and disengage? Mr. Ganesan? 

Mr. GANESAN. Thank you. Well, I think that we all believe that 

the free flow of information is a good thing, wherever it is. But I 

28 

would draw a very strong distinction between what the companies 

are saying and what is actually happening. 

There is censorship that a government imposes by taking down 

a website or blocking Internet access. Then there is censorship that 

a company does by its own discretion, which is what is happening 

with search engines in China. There is the firewall, and then there 

is the choice of companies to censor. And the disclaimer, which is 

now about 2 years old—because Google did talk about it at the first 

hearings on the Internet before—is basically telling people that we 

censor. It is not saying we are reducing censorship, which is a separate issue. And what we have tried to do, both in terms of regulation and pushing for legislation, as well as through a voluntary initiative, is saying disclosing censorship is not enough, but actually 

actively trying to reduce it to where your minimum level is whatever the government says it is. Nobody is going to find a company 

culpable if a government does like what they did in Burma in September 2007, which is physically disconnect telecommunications 

lines to prevent access. But where people are going to look askance 

at a company is when they choose what to censor and they decide, 

in anticipation of what the government wants, what to censor. And 

what we are trying to do is get at that problem, because we know 

governments are going to try to restrict the flow of information, but 

what we would like to see is companies go beyond the disclaimer 

and actually reduce the amount of censorship going through. 

Chairman DURBIN. I am going to ask you about the code of conduct, and I want to come back to the Foreign Corrupt Practices 

Act, but first code of conduct. Why has this taken so long? Which 

companies are dragging their feet? What is the issue that has 

stopped our American companies from establishing a code of conduct so that we at least can say we are not being hypocritical, the 

values we have as Americans are reflected in our corporate behavior? 

Mr. GANESAN. The fundamental issue is a resistance to having 

some third party come in and actually attest that the companies 

are doing what they say they are doing. And I think the resistance 

from that is somewhat reflective—I think companies in general do 

not want to see third-party oversight—and also misguided, because 

people forget that the reason we are calling for a code of conduct 

and independent monitoring is because when the companies were 

given discretion on censorship and user privacy, they did not perform that great. That is why we are here today. That is why we 

were here 2 years ago and the like. 

So now we need somebody else to step in just to attest to the 

public that, hey, this process is in place, and if they commit to 

doing this, we can actually show you in some way that they are actually implementing these things, because the code of conduct is 

not to assuage Human Rights Watch or anyone else; it is to assuage a 20-something blogger in a country that wants to speak out 

about his government, and he needs to know that he is not making 

a Faustian bargain with a U.S. company, which is in exchange for 

posting information that might be problematic for a government, 

that he is not going to do it on a service that actually turns that 

information over to a government or stops it from being posted. 

29 

Chairman DURBIN. So, Ms. Wong, Mr. Samway, why won’t you 

agree to independent monitoring? Why is this code of conduct taking so long? 

Ms. WONG. Well, Mr. Chairman, we, in fact, were one of the 

founding companies to begin this discussion, and we are deeply 

committed to it. We have been at every meeting. We have been 

moving it along. And we agree, the 18 months has been a long 

process. 

Let me say two things very clearly. We would support an external audit. We are very optimistic that it will be finalized. Let me 

also say what our measure of success for this process would be. For 

us, the importance of having all of the companies and the addition 

of the human rights groups is not necessarily about looking at 

whether the companies are being held accountable to their processes. The point of having all of the companies stand together on 

important principles—like freedom of expression, requiring rule of 

law, you know, doing an assessment of the countries we go into— 

is so that the companies would stand together against the governments and hold the governments accountable. The measure of success of this process is whether we walk away with an ability to put 

pressure on governments to do the right thing. That is the problem 

that we are facing. 

Chairman DURBIN. Mr. Samway, are you agreed to independent 

monitoring, external audits? Will Yahoo! sign up for that? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will tell you what I 

have said to Mr. Ganesan in our private meetings without, I think, 

breaking the trust of the group. We unequivocally support independent assessment of company activities. 

Chairman DURBIN. Looks like we have an agreement, Mr. 

Ganesan. Bring out the papers and let’s sign up. 

So what is the obstacle? Why is this still going on for 18 months, 

the negotiations over a code of conduct? 

Mr. SAMWAY. At Yahoo! we are ready to move forward, as I mentioned in my testimony. 

Chairman DURBIN. Well, I hope that within the next 48 hours we 

will have an announcement. That would be terrific. 

Dr. Zhou, you have heard the companies explain that they believe they are doing the right thing by at least being in China, even 

if they are subject to the censorship standards and policies of that 

country. What is your reaction? 

Mr. ZHOU. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make two points. First, 

for companies like Google and Yahoo!, I would say that their selfcensorship in China can be more damaging than other kinds of censorship. This is because for Chinese people in such a closed society, 

they take Google and Yahoo! as role models of freedom of information. When they look at their websites and find the information, 

they believe it is factual and unbiased. Therefore for those not-somuch politically conscious people, this is deceiving—they get the information from Baidu, and get it from Google and Yahoo!, they 

compare them and conclude that, well, they are the same thing and 

that is the truth. 

The second point I want to make is that Google and Yahoo! do 

not have to bend their knees to enter China. They can just upright 

and walk into China by bringing down the firewall. They can 

30 

achieve this by either supporting companies like us or finding their 

own way. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me go to the second issue that I raised, 

the rights of the individual. Mr. Samway, it is my understanding 

that at the request of China, your company, Yahoo!, disclosed the 

identity of a person, Shi Tao, who was then later prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. Can you tell me, what kind of standards 

would Yahoo! use to decide that one of your customers should be 

subject to that sort of prosecution for what would be innocent conduct here in the United States? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Let me begin, Mr. Chairman, by saying that it is 

deeply troubling that people have gone to jail as a result of some 

connection to our company. We have also tried to take steps specifically with Mr. Shi. In particular, we have settled a lawsuit. We 

have also announced the Human Rights Fund and have been working closely with Harry Wu, a noted activist and human rights dissident based here in Washington, to create this fund to provide humanitarian assistance for dissidents such as Mr. Shi and other dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online. 

Chairman DURBIN. And so tomorrow if Yahoo! had a similar request from the Chinese Government to disclose the identity of 

someone who had been involved in what they considered to be illegal conduct or misconduct, what would your company do? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Well, as you know, Mr. Chairman, we currently 

have an investment in a company that runs the day-to-day operations of Yahoo! China. That company complies with the law, as 

would any Chinese company. Again, we are deeply troubled by the 

consequences of the restrictions on access to information and also 

the attempts by the government to seek disclosure of data on its 

own users. 

Chairman DURBIN. So you own 40 percent of the company, which 

if it received a request, I take it from what you said they would 

disclose the name of the person. Is that true? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Mr. Chairman, you make a good point about compliance with the law, which any Chinese company would be required to do in this case. Frequently, sir, it is not the name of the 

person. There is a request that comes in for a user ID that is not 

always identifiable to the person him- or herself. But, again, to us 

it is deeply troubling, and as I mentioned, we take responsibility 

for our own actions. We have learned valuable lessons, and we also 

want to take concrete steps working with partners, working on our 

own, to make responsible decisions in the future, to be a leader in 

human rights. 

And to give you one example, we currently conduct—and I think 

we may be the only company to publicly announce and commit to 

this—a human rights impact assessment before entering any market, and it covers the two pillars that you mentioned: free expression, which goes to censorship;, and user trust, which goes to privacy. We assess what the potential intersection points are with our 

products in the current human rights landscape in the country and 

design mitigation strategies to address those issues. 

Chairman DURBIN. Well, I am still a little bit troubled by this, 

because as I understand what you have told me, it is that you have 

31 

enlisted Mr. Wu, who is widely respected, and others. You have 

made investments, dollar investments, in human rights funds to 

support the families of those who are imprisoned. And you are committed to human rights. But at least through the company that you 

own a 40-percent share of, you are going to have a booming business with your human rights assistance fund because as you turn 

over more and more Chinese who are using your product for prosecution, there will be more need for assistance for their families. 

I am struggling with trying to reconcile here what your corporate 

goal is and your corporate image in this debate. 

Mr. SAMWAY. Well, as I mentioned, Mr. Chairman, our founding 

principles include promoting access to information. With respect to 

Alibaba, we also have exerted our influence with respect to the free 

flow of information in China. And to give two examples, one relates 

to search disclosure, and that is, notice to users on all search pages 

of Yahoo! China that certain results do not appear. There is also 

a notice on the registration page of Yahoo! China that indicates 

that the product itself is subject to PRC law. Now, those are forms 

of influence that we have tried to exert. It is a complex relationship, certainly, and Yahoo! China makes its own decisions day to 

day, not at the request of our team at Yahoo! But certainly we can 

exert influence; we have and will continue to explore avenues to 

exert that influence with respect not just to censorship but to the 

privacy issue you raise. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Wong, how does Google deal with its socalled complex relationship when it comes to disclosing the identity 

of your users? 

Ms. WONG. So we go through a similar struggle in terms of 

thinking through which countries we will enter and what services 

we will make available. And as I mentioned during my earlier testimony, in China we made a decision to launch only certain services. We do not offer Gmail or Blogger on our dot-cn, our Chinese 

service, specifically for the reason that we do not want to be in the 

position of potentially compromising someone engaged in political 

dissent. 

Chairman DURBIN. So Google decided they would rather not do 

business in those areas which were most likely to be compromised 

by Chinese law. 

Ms. WONG. That is correct. 

Chairman DURBIN. Mr. Samway, Yahoo! decided they would do 

business but through another company, and let me ask you: Was 

there a sensitivity to this same issue? You realized you were walking into areas with e-mail and blogging most likely to be monitored 

and prosecuted by the Chinese Government, but decided for economic reasons to do it anyway? 

Mr. SAMWAY. If I can give some context to the timeframe, we feel 

like we were Internet pioneers and moved in, in the late 1990s in 

the market, indeed before other companies even existed in the technology space. We moved into China to expand information, to expand the availability of information. We moved in at a time, as you 

know, Mr. Chairman, when the U.S. Congress was normalizing 

trade relations with China, encouraging not only American companies generally but American technology companies specifically to go 

into this market, to explore it. As a young company, but 5 years 

32 

old at the time, we entered this market—again, as a trailblazer, as 

a pioneer. And as I mentioned, we have learned tough and valuable 

lessons. We are also taking those lessons and enacting concrete 

steps to build capacity, not to gather a group of smart people 

around a table and figure out what the future of the Internet 

should look like, but building real infrastructure into the company’s DNA so that we can make responsible decisions on human 

rights. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Wong, I want to make sure the record is 

complete here. I have talked to Mr. Samway about a company in 

which they have an investment. Google has an investment in 

Baidu, which is the largest Chinese search engine. 

Ms. WONG. We do not have an investment in Baidu. 

Chairman DURBIN. You do not? 

Ms. WONG. No. 

Chairman DURBIN. I am sorry. Do you have an investment in 

any other— 

Ms. WONG. I believe we did previously and sold off that investment a few years ago. I can check that out for you. 

Chairman DURBIN. OK. Let me ask, then, on the Foreign Corrupt 

Practices Act. Mr. Ganesan has raised that, and I do not know that 

it is a complete analogy, but it is an interesting analogy. In 1977, 

we passed a law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is aimed 

at stopping U.S. participation in bribery and other corrupt practices of foreign governments. When the law was first proposed, it 

was criticized by the business community at the time. Congress 

recognized the importance of stopping American involvement in 

these practices that went against our values as a country. The Act 

has lessened U.S. involvement in supporting corruption around the 

world, and what is more, it led to several international agreements 

and conventions to stop bribery and corruption internationally. 

When we took the first step against this, much of the world was 

skeptical, but then followed suit. 

So let me ask both Ms. Wong, Mr. Samway, and Mr. Chandler: 

Do you see Mr. Ganesan’s suggestion that we should pursue something along the lines of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to be 

analogous to what we are discussing here? Is it a way for us to declare that certain practices of foreign governments are inconsistent 

with the values of our country and can even be prosecuted in our 

country? Mr. Samway? 

Mr. SAMWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to admit that I 

am not expert enough on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act itself 

to know the details to be able to compare. I will say that I think 

there are four important points in addressing this issue, one of 

which gets to the point you make on legislation. 

The first is for the government, the U.S. Government, collectively 

for governments around the world, to make Internet freedom a priority. There are different ways to do that. Again, governments have 

different tools in the toolbox to do that. 

The second way is for companies to build capacity on their own. 

We do not need to wait for a collective process, and I agree, independent assessment has been a point that has held us up recently. 

At the same time, this most meaningful part of collective action is 

really about companies building capacity to make responsible deciVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:59 Dec 10, 2008 Jkt 045688 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45688.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
33 

sions. Independent assessment is important. There are clear practical limitations. That is exactly what we struggle with, what we 

have been focused on most intensively, I would say, in the past few 

months. 

The third area where we can really create change is around collective action, and that is getting to yes in this global code of conduct, where we have a collaborative process with companies, 

human rights groups, academics sharing, learning, and helping to 

understand the challenges of the problem. 

The fourth area, which I think gets to your point, Mr. Chairman, 

is legislation. We support backstop legislation, something that protects U.S. companies, but not legislation that puts us in the untenable position of having to choose to violate a local law or choose to 

violate U.S. law. That is not sustainable or tenable for a U.S. company, and then we get back to the philosophical debate on engagement. And a company will ultimately have to choose not to go in. 

We support engagement. We support legislation that allows companies to act responsibly, that has appropriate limitations, and a 

clear enough depth of understanding of what the challenges are we 

face on the ground. 

Chairman DURBIN. So, Mr. Ganesan, doesn’t that get to the crux 

of it here? When it came to foreign corrupt practices, we were dealing with issues that were nominally criminal already in the countries where they were being performed. In this situation, we are 

dealing with practices, such as censorship, which are nominally 

legal in the countries where we are finding it. Isn’t that a critical 

difference? 

Mr. GANESAN. It is a difference, but there are ways to deal with 

it. I mean, there are two elements of the Foreign Corrupt Practices 

Act. One is punishing someone for the act committed, and the other 

one—and this is what is important in this context—is ensuring 

that the companies have the systems or the capacity in place to 

prevent that act from occurring. So say we take user privacy and 

freedom of expression, non- censorship. We can certainly devise 

standards, in the voluntary process or otherwise, on what a company should be doing to reduce or minimize the risk of that happening, just like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act does with bribery. And we can legislate in a way that companies are bound to 

show that they are taking those steps internally to reduce censorship and reduce the risk to user privacy. 

Now, on the flip side, what happens when a company is in conflict with the local law? The Global Online Freedom Act tries to set 

out a process in which a questionable request from an Internet-restricting country, as designated by the Act and designated by the 

government authority within the Act, will—instead of having the 

company have to say no to that government, it sets out a process 

where the U.S. Government steps in and deals with it in a diplomatic manner. 

So, in other words, in a sense it raises the transaction cost for 

the repressive government because now instead of bullying a company, it has to go to the U.S. Government and deal with it in a 

diplomatic manner. And in a sense, it can reduce the transaction 

cost for an individual company, because it can say to them, much 

like companies have told us about the Foreign Corrupt Practices 

34 

Act, Hey, I cannot make this decision myself, I have to refer it to 

the U.S. Embassy or the U.S. Government entity within the Act. 

Now, that is, to our knowledge, a way to address the issue. And, 

yes, there may be certain downsides to it, but instead of dismissing 

it as saying it is a conflict of laws or some other problem, I would 

challenge companies to come up with an effective alternative that 

meets the same objectives and propose it as legislation, rather than 

only looking at what the negatives of existing proposals are. I 

mean, we are more than happy to work with companies to think 

about that, but we think it needs to be there, because we need to 

change the dynamics. Because as long as the dynamic is a company 

having to deal with a Government about a repressive request, with 

no backstop, whether it is the U.S. Government or anything else, 

we are going to have this dynamic endlessly. So we need to change 

the rules in some way. 

Chairman DURBIN. So, Ms. Wong, does that create a Catch- 22 

for your company if they comply with the Chinese standards in 

censorship and there is a law in the United States which says that 

is a criminal act? How do you deal with that? 

Ms. WONG. There would absolutely be a tension, and we have 

worked through that not just with China, but with many other 

countries around the world that assert their jurisdiction on the 

same areas. 

Having said that, Mr. Chairman—and I am glad you raised it, 

because we have talking about it at our company, at our senior executive level, over the last several weeks—we would support legislation in this area because we do feel like it is the thing that will 

bring all the companies to the same place. It may be the most effective way to deal with the other countries. 

Chairman DURBIN. So let me ask two wrap-up questions here of 

things that still I have a question in my mind that you testified 

to. Reporters Without Borders notes that Google is financing 

Baidu, the Chinese company that is a market leader in search engines. And you are saying that is not true. 

Ms. WONG. We are not investors in Baidu. 

Chairman DURBIN. OK. And, second, when it came to the code 

of conduct, as I understand it, Yahoo! said they would sign onto the 

code as is, and I think your statement was that you supported external audits. So would you accept the code of conduct as it currently is written? 

Ms. WONG. We have put another proposal on the table. It involves external audits. I think that that is what we are currently 

working with the human rights groups on the nature of those audits, what is measured, how it is measured, who does the measuring. But we are confident that that will get finalized. We are optimistic it will get finalized. 

Chairman DURBIN. And you can be confident that we are going 

to be watching you to make sure it does get finalized. After 18 

months in this lightning fast communications world that we live in, 

what is slowing this down? Please, I hope that everyone will work 

in good faith to complete it. 

Thank you for this fascinating and interesting panel, and the 

very expert testimony we received today. As I said, the hearing 

35 

record is going to remain open for a week for additional materials 

from interested individuals and questions for the witnesses. 

At the end of the day, I am going to be sitting down with Senator 

Brownback to—or, pardon me, Senator Coburn—and Senator 

Brownback, for that matter—to discuss whether we are going to introduce legislation similar to that pending in the House or craft our 

own along these lines. I really think this is a critical area that we 

need to address forthrightly and honestly. 

I want to salute some unsung heroes on my staff: Joe Zogby, who 

inspired me to ask for this Subcommittee and has been my leader 

on so many of these issues; Talia Dubov; Jaideep Dargan; Reema 

Dodin; Corey Clyburn, a legal intern; and Heloisa Griggs. They 

have done an awful lot of work to make this hearing a success. 

Thank you all for being here. There will be statements for the 

record from a number of organizations that will be entered without 

objection, and since there is no one here to object, so ordered. The 

Subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions for the record follow.] 

36 


45688.001
37 


45688.002
38 


45688.003
39 


45688.004
40 


45688.005
41 


45688.006
42 


45688.007
43 


45688.008
44 


45688.009
45 


45688.010
46 


45688.011
47 


45688.012
48 


45688.013
49 


45688.014
50 


45688.015
51 


45688.016
52 


45688.017
53 


45688.018
54 


45688.019
55 


45688.020
56 


45688.021
57 


45688.022
58 


45688.023
59 


45688.024
60 


45688.025
61 


45688.026
62 


45688.027
63 


45688.028
64 


45688.029
65 


45688.030
66 


45688.031
67 


45688.032
68 


45688.033
69 


45688.034
70 


45688.035
71 


45688.036
72 


45688.037
73 


45688.038
74 


45688.039
75 


45688.040
76 


45688.041
77 


45688.042
78 


45688.043
79 


45688.044
80 


45688.045
81 


45688.046
82 


45688.047
83 


45688.048
84 


45688.049
85 


45688.050
86 


45688.051
87 


45688.052
88 


45688.053
89 


45688.054
90 


45688.055
91 


45688.056
92 


45688.057
93 


45688.058
94 


45688.059
95 


45688.060
96 


45688.061
97 


45688.062
98 


45688.063
99 


45688.064
100 


45688.065
101 


45688.066
102 


45688.067
103 


45688.068
104 


45688.069
105 


45688.070
106 


45688.071
107 


45688.072
108 


45688.073
109 


45688.074
110 


45688.075
111 


45688.076
112 


45688.077
113 


45688.078
114 


45688.079
115 


45688.080
116 


45688.081
117 


45688.082
118 


45688.083
119 


45688.084
120 


45688.085
121 


45688.086
122 


45688.087
123 


45688.088
124 


45688.089
125 


45688.090
126 


45688.091
127 


45688.092
128 


45688.093
129 


45688.094
130 


45688.095
131 


45688.096
132 


45688.097
133 


45688.098
134 


45688.099
135 


45688.100
136 


45688.101
137 


45688.102
138 


45688.103
139 


45688.104
140 


45688.105
141 


45688.106
142 


45688.107
143 


45688.108
144 


45688.109
145 


45688.110
146 


45688.111
147 


45688.112
148 


45688.113
149 


45688.114
150 


45688.115
151 


45688.116
152 


45688.117
153 


45688.118
154 


45688.119
155 


45688.120
156 


45688.121
157 


45688.122
158 


45688.123
159 


45688.124
160 


45688.125
161 


45688.126
162 


45688.127
163 


45688.128
164 


45688.129
165 


45688.130
166 


45688.131
167 

Æ 


45688.132