Yesterday, I attended Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s policy address on Internet Freedom at the Newseum in Washington, DC. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to ask Secretary Clinton a question after her speech. I am gratified and humbled to see that the Wall Street Journal and CNet also thought my question was relevant to the discussion about Internet Freedom.
The Secretary had stated in her speech that U.S. technology companies need to refuse to support politically-motivated censorship. This, Clinton said, is not only the morally right thing to do but also makes sense from a business standpoint, as consumers will ultimately choose the firms that act as responsible stewards of customers’ information and provide comprehensive search results.
This all sounds sensible – but in practice, technology companies might find themselves torn between safeguarding these principles and protecting their employees and equipment from acts of revenge by authoritarian governments.
I wanted to know from the Secretary what the State Department would do to help a U.S. tech company with a subsidiary in China whose employees are being taken to jail and whose equipment is being hauled away because the company refuses to give information about its users to the Chinese government.
Secretary Clinton responded that the government “obviously speaks out” on those individual cases. Additionally, the State Department is hoping to engage in a very candid and constructive conversation with the Chinese Government. The Secretary said that U.S. officials have had a positive year of very open discussions with their Chinese counterparts which has led to a foundation of understanding between the two countries. She added that the two countries disagree on important issues – that notwithstanding, the US wants to encourage and support increasing openness in China because this will further add to the dynamic growth and the democratization on the local level that is already occurring in China.
Clinton added that the government would continue to speak out on individual cases. But on the broader set of issues, she hopes that the two countries will have the kind of discussion that might lead to a better understanding and changes in the approach that is currently being taken, she said.
This all sounds promising – but tech companies would likely feel more confident standing up to requests for censorship or user information from authoritarian governments if the Secretary had been more concrete about what the State Department is going to do to support them in those situations.
A video of the full speech and the Q&A is available here.