Don't trust your phone company

When speaking about how U.S. and other multinational technology companies collaborate with political censorship and surveillance in China, I often conclude with this simple slide on the right. It is meant to illustrate the quandary faced by many internet and telecoms companies.  I ask: "What do you do when the user’s rights & interests and the host government’s interests are clearly in conflict?" The problem is by no means unique to China, it's global.

No country claiming to be democratically governed is immune, as we are reminded by today's revelations in USA Today that the NSA has collected a massive database of the phone calls made by tens of millions of Americans, using data handed over (without court order or FISA approval) by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.  Qwest (yay!) questioned the legality of the request and refused to comply. Civil rights and free speech groups are outraged. See reaction from the Center for Democracy and Technology here. If you visit the front page of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, you'll be reminded that they've been fighting AT&T's collaboration with the government's domestic spying program for a while, with a class action lawsuit filed in January. Their work, along with the CDT's, and that of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and many other free-speech fighters is extremely important.

Generally, I don't write much about U.S. telecoms and free speech battles on this blog because there are many bloggers out there who have much greater expertise on U.S. telecoms and U.S. law than I do, and I don't think I have much of substance to contribute - I would only be adding my personal rant to the pile of many other similar rants.

But it's time to make absolutely clear: As an American who has always been proud of the freedoms and opportunities I've grown up taking for granted, I'm gravely concerned and deeply ashamed about what is happening.

Now, the U.S. is far, far from being anything like China, where my friend Hao Wu has been under detention for almost 80 days with no charges, no formal arrest, no access to a lawyer, and his family has no idea where he is. I am quite confident the same thing will not happen to me no matter what I may say about my government on this blog, and am very confident that my blog host, Typepad, is under no pressure to censor me. But unfortunately, as a result of the Bush Administration's behavior, it becomes increasingly difficult for an American person to advocate for freedom of speech in China and be taken seriously.

That said, I'm not going to stop.  I will also continue to emphasize that ALL users of internet and telecommunications services must be protected from excesses of ALL governments, EVERYWHERE. 

This is why I have been critical of the Global Online Freedom Act, legislation introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Chris Smith, because its language and approach imply that U.S. corporate collaboration with governments against the rights and interests of users is only a problem in authoritarian countries - as defined by the U.S. government. That is obviously wrong. It is obviously a universal problem and to claim otherwise is dangerous.

But coming back to the first slide, and the fundamental, global problem we face today: Many - if not most - major multinational technology and telecoms companies seem inclined these days to prioritize their perceived obligations to governments over their obligations to individual users when the interests of government and user are not aligned.

We must make it clear as users, customers, investors, and as voters that this inclination is unacceptable. Click here for some guidelines on what to say if you have a chance to speak with your elected representative.

Comments

[e.r.]

I understand the spirit of your comment but, still, I find it very unfortunate. It's obvious that the issues are very different in democratic and authoritarian countries and they must be addressed in different ways (among many reasons because violations in a democracy are the exceptions, in a dictatorship are the norm). So, it's perfectly consistent a Freedom Act focusing only on authoritarian countries. At the same time it's right to criticize NSA programs. But making clear that we're talking about very different issues, very differents contexts and very different problems. Comparisons are not always useful to undesrtand. This is a clear example of comparison producing confusion.

[e.r.]

As for the sentence:

"But unfortunately, as a result of the Bush Administration's behavior, it becomes increasingly difficult for an American person to advocate for freedom of speech in China and be taken seriously"

of course it will give you some applauses by some leftwingers but, again,it's completely out of touch.
If for chinese people the problem were only a phone number list, I think we could be very, very, very happy.

That said, I really appreciate your work. A not so brilliant post sometimes just happens.

[bobby fletcher]

ER, I find your "USA is not China", "we are still better" argument troubling.

In what sense are we better when we the master of these ideals betrays or own principles?

[Hasan Diwan]

The British and American governments, under guise of protecting the citizenry from terror, have gone berserck. One needs only look at the cases of Craig Murray -- http://craigmurray.co.uk -- and Maher Arar to read what our governments will resort to to silence dissent and cover up their mistakes.

[mahathir_fan]

There is no surprise here except why did it take so long to expose this? I thought these eavesdropping and spying happened all the time during the cold war era in America.

America is a BI-AUTHORITARIAN state not a real democracy. There are only TWO political parties that have any chance winning the presidency.

If China were to split the Communist party into 2 political Communist parties, then the system in China is going to be nearly the same as America. That's all it takes to stoop to America's level. No other reforms are needed except for the Communist Party of China to split itself in 2 and we would have a system similar to America's 2 party system.

Also, America's cabinet ministers are not elected by the people. They are all appointed by the President. A lot of other democracies' cabinet ministers are also elected representatives. They have the people to answer to.

[e.r.]

Rebecca, dou you understand why I told you that your post was unsuitable? It was easily predictable that it would have uncorked the idiotarians bottle.

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

e.r., mahatir fan is my resident anti-U.S. troll and didn't need this post to come uncorked. Unfortunately it's not me who gives him ammunition, it's the current executive branch of my government. Naturally, one need look no further than Steve Colbert's recent White House roast of the President to show how fundamentally different the U.S. system remains from China's.

May it stay that way. I believe that Democracy is something that can't be taken for granted. It's like a relationship, if you don't work on it, if you don't fight to keep it healthy, one day you'll wake up to find it has evaporated. No nation is immune, IMHO.

[e.r.]

Rebecca, I share your last sentence but I mantain that it's preposterous to apply it to this situation.
Some articles you didn't quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051201656.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110008376
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/63582.htm
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/05/abcwapo_on_nsa_.html

Keep up the good job.

[e.r.]

First link was incorrect. This is right:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051201656.html

[e.r.]

Sorry, I can't post it right. I think you read it yesterday on WP.