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US Laws may change because of China's Internet restrictions

Discussion in 'Legal Issues' started by mariush, Feb 21, 2006.

  1. #1
    Nearly every US company with a Web site located in China will have to move it elsewhere or its executives would face prison terms of up to a year, according to proposed legislation expected to be introduced this week in the US Congress.

    The highly anticipated proposal, created by Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican from the House of Representatives, in response to recent reports about censorship in China by Google, Yahoo and others, also makes it unlawful to filter search results or turn over information about users to certain governments unless the US Justice Department approves. It would also impose new export restrictions to those nations.

    "For the sake of market share and profits, leading US companies like Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft have compromised both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens", Smith said at a related hearing in the House on Wednesday.
    Smith, chairman of a human rights subcommittee, likened that cooperation to companies that aided the Nazis in World War II.

    Besides the relocation requirement, Smith's proposal says that:

    * A US corporation that offers a search service "may not" alter its results in response to the request of an "Internet-restricting country". That would permit ongoing censorship by Western nations such as Germany, which requires Google to filter Nazi-related sites from search results, or the United States, which imposes a similar requirement on search engines as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
    * Search engine companies must provide the Office of Global Internet Freedom - a new federal bureaucracy that would be created - with a list of verboten search terms" provided by any foreign official of an Internet-restricting country".
    * Any Web site with operations in the US must regularly provide the Office of Global Internet Freedom with a list of content deleted or blocked at the request of an Internet-restricting country.
    * A new set of federal regulations - apparently aimed at Cisco's routers and software used by the other companies - would be erected to criminalise certain exports to China, Iran, Vietnam and other Internet-restricting nations. Current law permits the export of "publicly available technology and software" to those nations. Those exports would no longer be permitted if software or hardware is exported for the purpose of "facilitating Internet censorship."


    Infractions can be punished, depending on the exact prohibition violated, by fines of up to $2 million and criminal penalties of up to five years of prison time.

    More info at :

    http://www.helpedia.com/news/US.Legislature.Suggests.China.Web.Crackdown-news98.html
    http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,39253438,00.htm
     
    mariush, Feb 21, 2006 IP
  2. advancedfuture

    advancedfuture Banned

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    #2
    If the USA is so against the whole censorship in China and wants everyone to pull their sites out of China.... Why are we still doing foreign trade with the dictatorship?? Oh yeah I forgot there's a double standard.
     
    advancedfuture, Feb 21, 2006 IP
    sachin410 likes this.
  3. Sparta

    Sparta Peon

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    #3
    What the hell?

    Thats like saying Cars that put black trim on their steering wheel are outlawed. It's completley stupid and arbitrary. All it will cause is stupid beaurcratic mess and open up stupid loopholes in other laws.
     
    Sparta, Feb 21, 2006 IP
  4. peterstannard

    peterstannard Peon

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    #4
    Stupid! How will this be enforced?
     
    peterstannard, Feb 22, 2006 IP
  5. keliix06

    keliix06 Active Member

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    #5
    It'll be enforced by Google moving their entire operation to another country and the US losing millions in tax dollars. Or maybe he didn't think of that before proposing one of the dumbest things ever.
     
    keliix06, Feb 24, 2006 IP
  6. pachecus

    pachecus Well-Known Member

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    #6
    I don´t think google will move their entire operation to anohter country, not to china for sure.
     
    pachecus, Feb 24, 2006 IP
  7. demosfen

    demosfen Peon

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    #7
    Maybe to Carribean
     
    demosfen, Feb 24, 2006 IP