Congress puts heat on tech industry on China






"Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not
understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," said Rep.
Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on a House International Relations
subcommittee on human rights. Lantos' California district includes the
high-tech empire of Silicon Valley.

Rep. Lantos represents my district, and despite being a Democrat I voted for him in every election he and I participated in. Why? Because he's a decent man who has done a good job of representing the 12th Congressional District in California over the years. I also like Rep. Lantos because he actually responds to e-mail sent to his office, unlike Senator Feinstein who sends out form responses that quite often are about a different topic than what you emailed her about or get your position wrong on the issue (I don't bother writing Sen. "Dim Bulb" Boxer... what's the point?). We don't always agree but he's always thoughtful in his positions and not prone to the influence of the MoveOn moonbat element that is increasingly in control of the Democrat party.

I'd encourage you to read Tom Lantos' story, he was a teenager in Hungary under Nazi occupation, and fought the Nazis as a member of the underground resistance, survived the Holcaust, immigrated to the United States and earned a PhD in economics from Cal.

Anyone who has read this blog knows I have been highly critical of Google's decision to censor their Chinese service, and while I have not been as vocal against Yahoo!, Microsoft, or Cisco, I am equally disturbed about their compromises in China. Intel gets an approving nod for telling the Chinese to go pound sand on the issue of having a Chinese-censor-equipped Wifi standard.

Tom Lantos understands evil, I am very supportive of his efforts to hold American technology firms accountable for enabling the Chinese authoritarian government to do use technology to further suppress and deny freedoms to the Chinese people. Lantos understands that by enabling the subversion of freedom we are endangering our long term security, not just for us as a nation but for the very ideals that the American tradition is built upon.

Comments

[Maxwell]

Dude,
I find it very ironic and hypocritical that Rep. Lantos can cry foul at Google for going into China, yet I'm sure that he was one of the many toothless politicians who voted to go into Iraq. And now your country is in a precarious position after making the wrong decision about "going in." Right?

I understand how difficult it probably was for Google and the others to go along with China's policy, but I agree with many sensible observers that it's better to engage with China instead of having them lock us all out.

[Mike Barer]

Tom had a fascinating life before he came to the US. He once dressed up as a Nazi soldier to rescue a Jewish prisoner.