I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 275 
To promote freedom of expression on the Internet, to protect United States 
businesses from coercion to participate in repression by authoritarian 
foreign governments, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 5, 2007 
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey (for himself and Mr. WOLF) introduced the fol-
lowing bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and 
in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to 
be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
A BILL 
To promote freedom of expression on the Internet, to protect 
United States businesses from coercion to participate 
in repression by authoritarian foreign governments, and 
for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Global Online Freedom Act of 2007’’. 
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(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Findings. 
Sec. 3. Definitions. 
Sec. 4. Severability. 
TITLE I—PROMOTION OF GLOBAL INTERNET FREEDOM 
Sec. 101. Statement of policy. 
Sec. 102. Sense of Congress. 
Sec. 103. Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. 
Sec. 104. Office of Global Internet Freedom. 
Sec. 105. Annual designation of Internet-restricting countries; report. 
TITLE II—MINIMUM CORPORATE STANDARDS FOR ONLINE 
FREEDOM 
Sec. 201. Protection of personally identifiable information. 
Sec. 202. Integrity of personally identifiable information. 
Sec. 203. Transparency regarding search engine filtering. 
Sec. 204. Transparency regarding Internet censorship. 
Sec. 205. Protection of United States-supported online content. 
Sec. 206. Penalties. 
Sec. 207. Presidential waiver. 
TITLE III—EXPORT CONTROLS FOR INTERNET-RESTRICTING 
COUNTRIES 
Sec. 301. Feasibility study on establishment of export controls. 
Sec. 302. Report. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
(1) Freedom of speech and freedom of the press 
are fundamental human rights, and free flow of in-
formation on the Internet is protected in Article 19 
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 
which guarantees freedom to ‘‘receive and impart in-
formation and ideas through any media regardless of 
frontiers’’. 
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(2) The Internet has been a success because it 
quickly provides information to its more than 
972,000,000 users globally. 
(3) The growth of the Internet and other infor-
mation technologies can be a force for democratic 
change if the information is not subject to political 
censorship. 
(4) The Internet has played a role in bringing 
international attention to issues the discussion of 
which are forbidden by authoritarian foreign govern-
ments, such as attempts by the Government of the 
People’s Republic of China to suppress news of the 
severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak 
in 2004. 
(5) The rapid provision of full and uncensored 
information through the Internet has become a 
major industry of the United States, and one of its 
major exports. 
(6) Political censorship of the Internet degrades 
the quality of that service and ultimately threatens 
the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both 
in the United States and abroad. 
(7) Authoritarian foreign governments such as 
the Governments of Belarus, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, 
Laos, North Korea, the People’s Republic of China, 
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Tunisia, and Vietnam block, restrict, and monitor 
the information their citizens try to obtain. 
(8) Web sites that provide uncensored news and 
information, such as the Web sites of the Voice of 
America and Radio Free Asia, are routinely blocked 
in such countries. 
(9) In June 2003, the Government of the So-
cialist Republic of Vietnam arrested, convicted of 
‘‘spying’’, and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment 
and 3 years house arrest (later reduced on appeal to 
5 years imprisonment and 3 years house arrest) Dr. 
Pham Hong Son after he translated an Internet ar-
ticle titled ‘‘What is Democracy’’ from the Web site 
of the United States Embassy in Vietnam. 
(10) According to the Department of State’s 
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the 
Government of Vietnam in 2004 tightened control of 
the Internet, requiring Internet agents, such as 
cyber cafes, to register the personal information of 
their customers and store records of Internet sites 
visited by customers. The Vietnamese Government 
also monitored electronic mail, searched for sensitive 
key words, and regulated Internet content. 
(11) The Government of the People’s Republic 
of China has employed censorship of the Internet in 
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violation of Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution, 
which guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the 
press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, 
freedom of procession, and freedom of demonstra-
tion. 
(12) This censorship by the Chinese Govern-
ment promotes, perpetuates, and exacerbates a 
xenophobic—and at times particularly anti-Amer-
ican—Chinese nationalism, the long-term effect of 
which will be deleterious to United States efforts to 
prevent the relationship between the United States 
and China from becoming hostile. 
(13) Technology companies in the United 
States that operate in countries controlled by au-
thoritarian foreign governments have a moral re-
sponsibility to comply with the principles of the Uni-
versal Declaration of Human Rights. 
(14) Technology companies in the United 
States have succumbed to pressure by authoritarian 
foreign governments to provide such governments 
with information about Internet users that has led 
to the arrest and imprisonment of cyber dissidents, 
in violation of the corporate responsibility of such 
companies to protect and uphold human rights. 
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(15) Technology companies in the United 
States have provided technology and training to au-
thoritarian foreign governments which have been 
used by such governments in filtering and blocking 
information that promotes democracy and freedom. 
(16) Technology companies in the United 
States should develop standards by which they can 
conduct business with authoritarian foreign govern-
ments while protecting human rights to freedom of 
speech and freedom of expression. 
(17) The United States supports the universal 
right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) APPROPRIATE
CONGRESSIONAL
COMMIT-
TEES.—Except as otherwise provided in this Act, the 
term 
‘‘appropriate 
congressional 
committees’’ 
means— 
(A) the Committee on International Rela-
tions of the House of Representatives; and 
(B) the Committee on Foreign Relations of 
the Senate. 
(2) FOREIGN OFFICIAL.— 
(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘foreign offi-
cial’’ means— 
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(i) any officer or employee of a for-
eign government or any department, agen-
cy, state-owned enterprise, or instrumen-
tality thereof; or 
(ii) any person acting in an official ca-
pacity for or on behalf of any such govern-
ment or department, agency, state-owned 
enterprise, or instrumentality. 
(B) 
STATE-OWNED
ENTERPRISE.—For 
purposes of subparagraph (A), the term ‘‘state- 
owned enterprise’’ means a commercial entity in 
which a foreign government owns, directly or 
indirectly, more than 50 percent of the out-
standing capital stock or other beneficial inter-
est in such commercial entity. 
(3) INTERNET.—The term ‘‘Internet’’ means 
the combination of computer facilities, telecommuni-
cations 
facilities, 
electromagnetic 
transmission 
media, and related equipment and software, com-
prising the interconnected worldwide network of 
computer networks that employ the Transmission 
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol or any successor 
protocol to transmit information. 
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(4) INTERNET CONTENT HOSTING SERVICE.— 
The terms ‘‘Internet content hosting service’’ and 
‘‘content hosting service’’ mean a service that— 
(A) stores, through electromagnetic or 
other means, electronic data, including the con-
tent of Web pages, electronic mail, documents, 
images, audio and video files, online discussion 
boards, and Web logs; and 
(B) makes such data available via the 
Internet. 
(5) INTERNET JAMMING.—The term ‘‘Internet 
jamming’’ means jamming, censoring, blocking, 
monitoring, or restricting access to the Internet, or 
to content made available via the Internet, by using 
technologies such as firewalls, filters, and ‘‘black 
boxes’’. 
(6) INTERNET-RESTRICTING
COUNTRY.—The 
term ‘‘Internet-restricting country’’ means a country 
designated by the President pursuant to section 
105(a) of this Act. 
(7) INTERNET
SEARCH
ENGINE.—The term 
‘‘Internet search engine’’ or ‘‘search engine’’ means 
a service made available via the Internet that, on the 
basis of query consisting of terms, concepts, ques-
tions, or other data input by a user, searches infor-
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mation available on the Internet and returns to the 
user a means, such as a hyperlinked list of Uniform 
Resource 
Identifiers, 
of 
locating, 
viewing, 
or 
downloading information or data available on the 
Internet relating to that query. 
(8) LEGITIMATE FOREIGN LAW ENFORCEMENT 
PURPOSES.— 
(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘‘legitimate 
foreign law enforcement purposes’’ means for 
purposes of enforcement, investigation, or pros-
ecution by a foreign official based on a publicly 
promulgated law of reasonable specificity that 
proximately relates to the protection or pro-
motion of the health, safety, or morals of the 
citizens of that jurisdiction. 
(B) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—For pur-
poses of this Act, the control, suppression, or 
punishment of peaceful expression of political or 
religious opinion, which is protected by Article 
19 of the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights, does not constitute a legitimate 
foreign law enforcement purpose. 
(9) 
PERSONALLY
IDENTIFIABLE
INFORMA-
TION.—The term ‘‘personally identifiable informa-
tion’’— 
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(A) includes any information described in 
section 2703(c)(2) of title 18, United States 
Code; and 
(B) does not include— 
(i) any traffic data (as such term is 
defined in section 201(b) of this Act); or 
(ii) any record of aggregate data that 
does not identify particular persons. 
(10) SUBSTANTIAL
RESTRICTIONS
ON
INTER-
NET FREEDOM.—The term ‘‘substantial restrictions 
on Internet freedom’’ means actions that restrict or 
punish the free availability of information via the 
Internet for reasons other than legitimate foreign 
law enforcement purposes, including— 
(A) deliberately blocking, filtering, or cen-
soring information available via the Internet 
based on its peaceful political or religious con-
tent; or 
(B) persecuting, prosecuting, or otherwise 
punishing an individual or group for posting or 
transmitting peaceful political or religious opin-
ions via the Internet, including by electronic 
mail. 
(11) UNITED
STATES
BUSINESS.—The term 
‘‘United States business’’ means— 
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(A) any corporation, partnership, associa-
tion, joint-stock company, business trust, unin-
corporated organization, or sole proprietorship 
that— 
(i) has its principal place of business 
in the United States; or 
(ii) is organized under the laws of a 
State of the United States or a territory, 
possession, or commonwealth of the United 
States; 
(B) any issuer of a security registered pur-
suant to section 12 of the Securities Exchange 
Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78l); and 
(C) any foreign subsidiary of an entity de-
scribed in subparagraph (A) or (B) to the ex-
tent such entity— 
(i) controls the voting shares or other 
equities of the foreign subsidiary; or 
(ii) authorizes, directs, controls, or 
participates in acts carried out by the for-
eign subsidiary that are prohibited by this 
Act. 
(12) UNITED STATES-SUPPORTED CONTENT.— 
The term ‘‘United States-supported content’’ means 
content that is created or developed, in whole or in 
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part, by a United States-supported information enti-
ty. 
(13) UNITED
STATES-SUPPORTED
INFORMA-
TION ENTITY.—The term ‘‘United States-supported 
information entity’’ means— 
(A) any authority of the Government of 
the United States; and 
(B) any entity that— 
(i) receives grants from the Broad-
casting Board of Governors to carry out 
international broadcasting activities in ac-
cordance with the United States Inter-
national Broadcasting Act of 1994 (title 
III of Public Law 103–236; 22 U.S.C. 
6201 et seq.); 
(ii) in coordination with the Inter-
national Broadcasting Bureau, carries out 
all nonmilitary international broadcasting 
activities supported by the Government of 
the United States in accordance with such 
Act (other than the international broad-
casting activities supported by the Broad-
casting Board of Governors as specified in 
such Act); or 
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(iii) receives grants or other similar 
funding from the Government of the 
United States to carry out any information 
dissemination activities. 
(14) UNITED STATES-SUPPORTED WEB SITE.— 
The term ‘‘United States-supported Web site’’ 
means a location on the World Wide Web that is 
owned or managed by, or is registered to, a United 
States-supported information entity. 
SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. 
If any provision of this Act, or the application of such 
provision to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, 
the remainder of this Act, and the application of such pro-
vision to other persons not similarly situated or to other 
circumstances, shall not be affected by such invalidation. 
TITLE I—PROMOTION OF 
GLOBAL INTERNET FREEDOM 
SEC. 101. STATEMENT OF POLICY. 
It shall be the policy of the United States— 
(1) to promote as a fundamental component of 
United States foreign policy the right of everyone to 
freedom of opinion and expression, including the 
freedom to hold opinions without interference and to 
seek, receive, and impart information and ideas 
through any media and regardless of frontiers; 
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(2) to use all appropriate instruments of United 
States influence, including diplomacy, trade policy, 
and export controls, to support, promote, and 
strengthen principles, practices, and values that pro-
mote the free flow of information, including through 
the Internet and other electronic media; and 
(3) to deter any United States business from 
cooperating with officials of Internet-restricting 
countries in effecting the political censorship of on-
line content. 
SEC. 102. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) the President should through bilateral, and 
where appropriate, multilateral activities, seek to ob-
tain the agreement of other countries to promote the 
goals and objectives of this Act and to protect Inter-
net freedom; and 
(2) to the extent that a United States business 
empowers or assists an authoritarian foreign govern-
ment in its efforts to restrict online access to the 
Web sites of Radio Free Asia, the Voice of America, 
or other United States-supported Web sites and on-
line access to United States Government reports 
such as the Annual Country Reports on Human 
Rights Practices, the Annual Reports on Inter-
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national Religious Freedom, and the Annual Traf-
ficking in Human Persons Reports, that business is 
working contrary to the foreign policy interests of 
the United States, and is undercutting United 
States taxpayer-funded efforts to promote freedom 
of information for all people, including those in un-
democratic and repressive societies. 
SEC. 103. ANNUAL COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS 
PRACTICES. 
(a) REPORT
RELATING
TO
ECONOMIC
ASSIST-
ANCE.—Section 116 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 
1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151n) is amended by adding at the end 
the following new subsection: 
‘‘(g)(1) The report required by subsection (d) shall 
include an assessment of the freedom of electronic infor-
mation in each foreign country. Such assessment shall in-
clude the following: 
‘‘(A) An assessment of the general extent to 
which Internet access is available to and used by 
citizens in that country. 
‘‘(B) An assessment of the extent to which gov-
ernment authorities in that country attempt to filter, 
censor, or otherwise block Internet content, as well 
as a description of the means by which they attempt 
to block such content. 
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‘‘(C) A description of known instances in which 
government authorities in that country have per-
secuted, prosecuted, or otherwise punished a person 
or group for the peaceful expression of political, reli-
gious, or dissenting views via the Internet, including 
electronic mail. 
‘‘(2) In compiling data and making assessments for 
the purposes of paragraph (1), United States diplomatic 
mission personnel shall consult with human rights organi-
zations and other appropriate nongovernmental organiza-
tions.’’. 
(b) REPORT RELATING TO SECURITY ASSISTANCE.— 
Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 
U.S.C. 2304) is amended by adding at the end the fol-
lowing new subsection: 
‘‘(i)(1) The report required by subsection (b) shall in-
clude an assessment of the freedom of electronic informa-
tion in each foreign country. Such assessment shall in-
clude the following: 
‘‘(A) An assessment of the general extent to 
which Internet access is available to and used by 
citizens in that country. 
‘‘(B) An assessment of the extent to which gov-
ernment authorities in that country attempt to filter, 
censor, or otherwise block Internet content, as well 
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