Yahoo is in hot water after the U.S. Congress said it needs company executives to explain at an upcoming hearing why Yahoo gave alleged false information in a testimony regarding the case of an imprisoned Chinese dissident.
Digital Journal — The House Foreign Affairs Committee said Michael Callahan, Yahoo’s senior vice president and general counsel, testified last year that the company didn’t know why the Chinese government asked Yahoo for personal information about Shi Tao, a pro-democracy advocate.
China has since imprisoned the dissident for 10 years.
But in July, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights group, released documents that showed that Chinese police had written to Yahoo about Shi in a case of “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities,” a charge often used against political dissidents.
The House Committee is requesting the presence of both Callahan and Yahoo CEO Jeffrey Yang at a Nov. 6 hearing to defend their testimony in light of what the Dui Hua Foundation discovered. Yahoo responded by issuing a statement, saying:
As the Committee well knows from repeated meetings and conversations, Yahoo representatives were truthful with the Committee. This issue revolves around a genuine disagreement with the Committee over the information provided.
Yahoo is in the midst of a firestorm over how it handled the Shi case in a country where human rights limitations extend to the Net. A lawsuit filed against Yahoo charges the company with violating U.S. and international law by providing the Chinese government with personal information about Shi and others, leading to their arrest.
Bringing the Yahoo-China case back into the spotlight once again raises the issue of how cooperative Internet companies should be with government and police. To many people, helping police capture pedophiles on MySpace is a no-brainer. But what about political activists in China? Or private emails exchanged between a U.S. senator and a gay prostitute? What the Yahoo lawsuit will set as precedent will undoubtedly affect future cases where Net companies are liable for providing personal information of its users. Anyone interested in their own online privacy would be wise to follow the lawsuit, and its fallout, with careful observation.
