HRC:

In the 108th Congress, the provisions of the "Global Internet Freedom Act" (H.R. 48) were subsumed into the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2004-05 (H.R. 1950) and passed by the House on July 16, 2003. Christopher Cox reintroduced the bill (H.R. 2216) in the 109th Congress in May 2005. If passed, the act would authorize $50,000,000 for FY2006 and FY2007 to develop and implement a global Internet freedom policy. The act would also establish an office within the International Broadcasting Bureau with the sole mission of countering Internet jamming by repressive governments.

Update: Google's Human Rights Caucus briefing submitted via blog.

A secret Pentagon "roadmap" on information opeartions, personally approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not "targeted," any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and posted on the Web, the 74-page "Information Operations Roadmap" admits that "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa," but argues that "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of U.S. government intent rather than information dissemination practices." Several press accounts have referred to the 2003 Pentagon document but today's posting is the first time the text has been publicly available. Sections of the document relating to computer network attack (CNA) and "offensive cyber operations" remain classified under black highlighting.

Adam Brookes, BBC Pentagon correspondent comments,

When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone. It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system. "Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads. The slogan "fight the net" appears several times throughout the roadmap. The authors warn that US networks are very vulnerable to attack by hackers, enemies seeking to disable them, or spies looking for intelligence. "Networks are growing faster than we can defend them... Attack sophistication is increasing... Number of events is increasing."

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum". US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum". Consider that for a moment. The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet. Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?

The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon. And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military's ambitions for it.

Mark Fiore's iRepress - Search & Repress!

India, China and Google seemed to dominate the discussion yesterday at Microsoft's breakfast discussion in Davos. Bill Gates and Tom Friedman debated their flat-world theory, the Chindia effect, hi-tech education and development agendas. Comparing India and China, Gates argued that the challenge for India was to take the latest technology being developed to the villages in the country. Bangalore also came in for comment, as Friedman recalled his experiences there. He said that Bangalore had its islands of high technology, but a few hours out of the city took you back several centuries. Friedman spoke about the education crisis in the US. Elaborating on what the Bill Gates Foundation was doing in this sphere in the US and referring to the quality of higher education improving in China, he said we could expect Beijing or Shanghai to be part of the top 25 education destinations in the future. He also referred to India's IITs.

Gates surprised tech industry participants when he said the majority of Microsoft’s research and development will remain in the United States 10 years from now. When asked about Google's business practices in China, the richest man in the world said that he thought the internet "is contributing to Chinese political engagement" as "access to the outside world is preventing more censorship".

Irene Khan writing in the Times from Davos.

At a dinner here on Wednesday night about business and human rights (which was attended, unsurprising, by only a minority of business leaders, and a majority of NGOs!), the discussion returned to Google and China. While acknowledging that Google has taken some steps to be transparent about self-censorship, I said that it is being short-sighted and has gone against the core values of the IT industry to promote access to information. As I see business leaders defer to the Chinese government’s restrictive policies, I remember Chris Patten’s strategy: don’t give in, stare them down. Treat China like you would treat any other country, and the Chinese will then respect you more.

The latest stage of Google's move into China has proved controversial, but Bill Thompson believes it has made the right decision

But if we in the West, with our liberal political culture and our attempts to build open societies, do not engage with China then we lose the opportunity to influence them and convince them of the benefits that this brings. If the Chinese government fears instability then we should offer help and advice and support, not closed borders and locked doors. Different circumstances require different responses, and just because sanctions were the right way to put pressure on apartheid South Africa does not mean that a technology blockade is the way to influence China. Constructive engagement in a way that respects but also challenges local law seems a far better option, and that, for all its risks, is what Google is attempting to do. They may make some money out of it, but that's fine, because they may also show the Chinese leadership that openness can bring benefits as well as pose threats.

According to John Stith U.S. Congressional Representative, Chris Smith (R-NJ), chairman of the International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee, plans to convene hearings on February 13th as part of an investigation into Chinese business dealings, and he has some interesting questions for the companies,

then there's always the national security issue. As charges of the Chinese government hacking into defense department computers and British parliament computers continue to surface where do these companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and all the others place their loyalties. If it becomes a matter of national security, would these companies get out? Would they assist their own country over China? I may be throwing a little gas on the fire, but this is certainly something to consider in today's environment.

The MacArthur Foundation has awarded $3 million to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and its partners to advance their collaborative study of state-sponsored Internet filtering worldwide through the OpenNet Initiative. In recent years the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a joint project among the University of Toronto, Cambridge University, Harvard Law School, and now, Oxford University, has produced a series of snapshots mapping internet censorship and surveillance practices on an international scale - a global MRI of the internet.

Statements from OpenNet Initiative Principals:

"Over the last several years, the OpenNet Initiative's careful and intensive research has put a spotlight on Internet filtering and surveillance practices worldwide, raising serious questions about the transparency and accountability of states and corporations who participate in them," said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. "The MacArthur Foundation's support for the Berkman Center and the OpenNet Initiative will help to sustain and broaden this research over the coming years."

"The contest between states, corporations, and individuals shaping the technology and rules that govern the Internet is at the core of the new geopolitical environment, and will define civil liberties in the coming decades," said Rafal Rohozinski, director of the Advanced Network Research Group, Cambridge Security Programme (Cambridge University). "The MacArthur Foundation's generous support to the OpenNet Initiative will ensure that the debate defining the appropriate balance between national security and civil liberties is supported by credible comparative research."

Prof. Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard Law School and Oxford University, has brought the Oxford Internet Institute into ONI. Writing recently Zittrain said

Collaborative is the key word. What is needed at this point, above all else, is a 21st century international Manhattan Project which brings together people of good faith in government, academia, and the private sector for the purpose of shoring up the miraculous information technology grid that is too easy to take for granted and whose seeming self-maintenance has led us into an undue complacence.

(London/ Davos): Google's launch of a self-censoring Chinese search engine is the latest in a string of examples of global Internet companies caving in to pressure from the Chinese government. The service curtails the rights of Chinese Internet users to the freedom of expression and freedom of information enjoyed in other countries.

Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan said:
"While acknowledging that Google has taken a number of steps to ensure access of Chinese users to the Internet, Amnesty International is nonetheless dismayed at the growing global trend in the IT industry.”

"Whether succumbing to demands from Chinese officials or anticipating government concerns, companies that impose restrictions that infringe on human rights are being extremely short-sighted. The agreements the industry enters into with the Chinese government, whether tacit or written, go against the IT industry’s claim that it promotes the right to freedom of information of all people, at all times, everywhere.”

Last year, Microsoft launched a portal in China that blocks use of words such as 'freedom' in blog text. The company recently closed down the blog of Zhao Jing, who used the blog name Michael An Ti, after he supported a strike against the politically-motivated sacking of an editor at the Beijing News.

Yahoo has admitted revealing email account details of the journalist Shi Tao to the Chinese authorities, who was peacefully exercising his right to impart information, a move that contributed to his prosecution and sentencing to 10 years in prison.

"Agreements between global corporations and the Chinese authorities has entrenched Internet censorship as the norm in China," said Irene Khan. "Internet companies justify their actions on the basis of Chinese regulations. In fact, such agreements and the resulting self-censorship, violate both international standards and China's own constitution, which protects freedom of expression."

International law guarantees the right to freedom of information and the free flow of ideas across borders. While some restrictions on these have been developed over the years, the manner in which IT companies are freely submitting to opaque Chinese policies, is unacceptable.

"The Internet heralded unfettered access to information in a borderless world. Instead, companies are helping governments build borders to prevent their citizens from accessing information," said Irene Khan.


Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org

For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org

Google's Answer to the China Question suggests T-Salon? I suggested this exact solution to Google PR people from my 'office' in Berkeley, Ca. in 2002 (old doors for office furniture, not included).

Google's announcement this morning that it has launched a Chinese version (Google.cn) of its hugely successful search engine may seem like no more than a footnote in the fast-moving history of the internet, writes The Guardian in today's leader. Backlash as Google shores up great firewall of China reports Johnathan Watts in Jinan. The world's favourite search engine admits inconsistency with its corporate ethics. Meanwhile, Google remains at loggerheads with US justice department says Julian Borger in Washington.

. . . privately, UK civil servants familiar with NISCC's investigation agree that the attacks on the UK and US are coming from China. This almost certainly means some state sanction or involvement - perhaps even a "shopping list" of requirements.

Some of the attacks have been aimed at parts of the UK government dealing with human rights issues - "a very odd target", according to one UK security source.

There is another, more compelling reason. "Hacking in China carries the death penalty," says Professor Neil Barrett, of the Royal Military College at Shrivenham. "You also have to sign on with the police if you want to use the internet. And then there is the Great Firewall of China, which lets very little through - and lets [the Chinese government] know exactly what is happening." The internet traffic to the UK, and its origin, would all be visible to the Chinese government. Finding the culprits would, in theory, be a simple process.

The Guardian has learned that the oldest modern democracy came under a sustained attack aimed at stealing sensitive information. It was launched by cyber criminals almost certainly operating in the world's next superpower, China.

The attack on the Commons may be the most eye-catching attack from Chinese-based hackers, but is certainly not unique.

According to a spokesman for MessageLabs, the company responsible for filtering malicious email from government networks, similar spy emails - called "targeted Trojans' - were noticed about 18 months ago. "There were not very many, maybe one every two months, but now they are coming in at the rate of one to two a week," said Maksym Schipka, MessageLab's senior anti-virus researcher.

Last June, the government sent out a warning in which Roger Cummings, the head of NISCC, spoke about the threat of attacks from far eastern gangs on the UK critical national infrastructure (CNI) - the key network of transport, energy, financial, telecommunication and government organisations. At the end of November, Cummings warned that targeted Trojans from foreign powers were a significant threat.

In mid-December, the Cabinet Office - which has overall responsibility for ministries - joined in the chorus at a conference at Glamorgan University. Senior civil servant Harvey Mattison, the head of accreditation for the Cabinet Office's Central Sponsor of Information Assurance, the unit responsible for protecting communications between government departments, gave a keynote address on the threat from the far east. "We were given the impression it was coming from one ISP in Guangdong," said a delegate.

PetroChina, the state owned operators of China's controversial West-East Gas Pipeline have chosen Nortel Networks to supply communications, both wired and wireless, along its 4,200-kilometre route. The pipeline is the longest in China, spanning nine provinces to transport natural gas from the rich Lunnan gas fields of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region all the way to the economic hub of Shanghai and other regions of the Yangtze River Delta. Nortel has been winning critical infrastructure network supply contracts with Chinese utilities: water, electricity and notably with China's railway networks. . & - like the Qinghai-Tibet railway

"This pipeline is being built more for political reasons than for economic reasons," said Dinakar Sethuraman, an analyst with World Gas Intelligence in Singapore. "Its prospects for profit are cloudy."

..

China's leaders have staked their credibility on the pipeline. It is a central component of the government's "Go West" initiative, pressed by President Jiang Zemin as a way to lift China's impoverished western provinces by pumping billions of dollars into the region.

I'm sure I've been on about this for a while -- the more precise timekeeping system planned for Galileo could prove to be a major competitive advantage for the system over GPS:

the US must now recognize that it is in a “chronographical arms race” with the EU, and it cannot be passive.

First Monday, the peer2peer-moderated publication on net culture and structure leads with a paper describing the history of the Catalan campaign to win the ‘.cat’ domain against political opposition from the former conservative Spanish government and the reluctance of some decision–makers within ICANN circles. The paper "discusses the concomitant factors needed to support the greater use of any minority language on the Internet".

In September 2005 ICANN approved the first top–level Internet domain to be dedicated to a particular human language and culture: ‘.cat’. This paper describes the history of the Catalan campaign to win the ‘.cat’ domain against political opposition from the former conservative Spanish government and the reluctance of some decision–makers within ICANN circles. While ‘.cat’ creates a precedent for greater use on the Internet of ‘minority languages’, there are significant hurdles for other candidates for language–based top–level domains. The paper discusses the concomitant factors needed to support the greater use of any minority language on the Internet.

The paper offers an outline of the history of the campaign for approval of ‘.cat’, cost of the campaign, the concomitant resources needed to support minority languages on the Internet, implications for other languages. The author, Peter Gerrand concludes,

the history of the campaign to win .cat clearly began as an expression of traditional Catalan nationalism, as shown by the initial preference for a country code .ct that had no chance of being accepted by the ISO Standard 3166 or by ICANN. Having been thwarted on that choice, the more astute protagonists developed the idea of ‘changing the passport for the dictionary’, putting aside any frustration with current political boundaries in Spain for the goal of achieving a truly global cultural focus in cyberspace for Catalan. Whereas support for .ct would have necessarily been limited to the region of Catalonia, the .cat concept was enthusiastically supported by 68,000 Catalan–speaking individuals and 98 organizations worldwide.

But the last hurdles to be faced were the cultural ignorance of some key individuals in the ICANN decision–making processes, and the sensitivities of ICANN Board members to the known sensitivities of the U.S. Government, which has the ability to veto ICANN decisions. The same political sensitivities and cultural limitations will face other language communities wishing to use the .cat precedent to win sponsored Top Level Domains for their own global language–based culture.

Winning a Top Level Domain will not be sufficient to promote much greater use or visibility of a ‘minority language’ in cyberspace. There are a number of important concomitant resources needed to promote the use of any language on the Internet. It is significant that the Catalans have covered all these bases through appropriate policies and investments.

SHEN ZHEN, China, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Golden Group Corporation (Shen
Zhen) Limited ("Golden"), the major subsidiary of China Security and
Surveillance Technology Inc. ("China Security"), has recently entered into 3
long-term contracts with police departments and major railways in the People's
Republic of China.

In 2006, a major milestone of Golden is going to begin the collaboration
with Police Departments in China. Golden has recently entered into 3 contracts
with police departments to share the traffic penalty on a pro-rata basis. The
contracts are on a long term basis with an average life of 10 years. The
company expects that the revenue from this segment will reach USD $12.2
million in 2006.

In addition, in 2005, Golden signed contracts with South Railway and Xi'an
Railway, the two major railways in China. These projects are expected to
generate a USD $1.3 million income for the company in 2006.

While RSF is calling for an ethical code for American Hi-tech companies doing business in China the EU is trying unsucessfully to engage China in a dialogue about its online censorship practices. This hasn't prevented China and the European Union signing a joint agreement to develop a high-speed, next-generation network. The project comes as both sides are working closely on the Galileo Project, an European alternative to the global positioning system developed by the United States. Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong explains how it all works, and he says U.S. companies need to take a stand against Beijing. Declan McCullagh notes new congresional intrest in the issue, Corporate America should not be "hand-in-glove with a dictatorship", while the Economist reports that there are signs that the concept of privacy is gaining currency in China...echoing the debates now common in western societies, many in China are beginning to bristle at the intrusiveness of nosy employers, data-mining marketers and ubiquitous security cameras.

Skype now filter phrases such as 'Falun Gong' and 'Dalai Lama' from the text instant messaging service bundled with their popular Video+VoIP service in China. Ben Elgin and Bruce Einhorn report in an article for Business Week (The Great Firewall of China) that despite a vast security appartus, technology may yet defeat the censors:

Despite the power and sophistication of China's censors, the march of technology may yet foil them. As more sites add podcasts and user-generated video, China's monitoring efforts will become far more complicated because it's harder to examine such material than it is to check text files.

"How do you filter when everybody has the capability to be their own video blogger?" asks Ross O'Brien, managing director at Intercedent Hong Kong, an IT consulting and research firm. But don't underestimate China's ability to control the Net, just as it has done in the past. Although the battle is far from over, the formula of getting companies to do much of the fighting may keep on serving China well

DNA/India:

Microsoft started the year with a PR disaster, of having to admit that they did indeed take the blog down on the request of Chinese authorities. The company abides by local laws in all countries it operates in, a statement said.

After the incident hit headlines, a lot of focus is now on the role of American technology in abetting the internet censorship and on information control by the Chinese government.

Apart from ensuring that sensitive information does not show up in search results, which is done with the help of software filters, the government reportedly employs over 30,000 human filters or internet police who track all that is being said or written in chat rooms, blogs and message boards and delete ‘inappropriate content’. Bruno Gussiani’s Lunch over IP understands that “it may be hard for a single company to take a stand alone, when others operating in the same industry don’t and are willing to bend over to please the political demands”. But nevertheless, “Microsoft is a special company, a highly symbolic one”, he says.

China, with over 100 million web users, is the world’s second largest Internet market. Companies like MSN, Google and Yahoo are caught between a commitment towards human rights and freedom of speech and the lucrative Chinese internet market, the precondition of which is compliance with censorship.

Prof.Tom Plate for the Korea Times:

As powerful as economics is in American decision-making, even more powerful is the role of public opinion. The Times may not be what it used to be in this area, but it is still a key player, it is very influential, and it helps set the tone for the U.S. news media's “national narratives” about foreign countries. Beijing should not expect “peaceful rise” journalism from America’s most prestigious newspaper if it is going to arrest and harass its people.

Does the current leadership in China wish the States to still view it in light of the gravely unfortunate image of the tank and lone dissenter at Tiananmen? Or does it wish to be viewed as a modernizing, increasingly responsible global player that wishes well to all and harm to none?

If the later is the goal, then arresting journalists and co-opting American corporations to unplug websites and blogs is not going to work in China’s best overall interest. Beijing is not stupid, of course, but it probably doesn’t realize what is at stake: Because of the kind of media system China still has, there is nothing in China remotely as independently influential as The New York Times. Beijing of course can do what it wants and more or less when it wants it, but we know in the States that it is a big mistake to mess with this newspaper.

An often overlooked aspect of our fight against Spam and malicious activity is our own contribution to censoring the Internet in China (also by extension other developing nations). What seems to have been missed is how we, as systems administrators and security professionals, also are contributing to the great firewall of China.

Here is how it works for those unfamiliar with the process: Millions of unlicensed, unsecured, and unpatched Microsoft desktops across China are turned into zombies networks by the bad guys. Those bot/zombie networks attack servers with Spam and malicious activity outside of China. Systems administrators around the world cutoff traffic to their network by blocking large blocks of IP addresses in mainland China. The average user inside China attempts to connect to websites outside China on those networks and fails. This failure to connect, both inside and outside China, is then attributed to the government sensors and the mystic of the firewall is reinforced. The effect is that the Chinese firewall, if only in part and inadvertently, is being reinforced by Western democratic countries and companies protecting their systems from China's infected computers.

Granted, that this is a very effective method of protecting networks. However, it would seem rather hypocritical of us to cheer for Open Source, the free flow of information, and criticize the Chinese Governments actions; while at the same time, with a couple dozen key strokes, we restrict millions of people from accessing information they so desperately need to further their development. Yes, we need to, and should, cutoff the spam and bot nets from the Internet; however, it needs to be done with more of scalpel and less of a howitzer.

Spencer Global on Microsoft's 'philanthropy' in the Third World:

I would say, that in our rush to help countries develop with food aid, economic aid, and such, that we also lend relief in the areas of technological aid. The obvious, and affordable solution: (drum role please) Linux and Open Source solutions. However, simply carpet bombing the developing world with Linux will not be sufficient. It will require the support of the developed countries and experts to aid in the training and deployment of Open Source solutions. As another Western IT worker in China pointed out, what is often overlooked outside China is that most systems administrators in China never even touched a computer until a few years ago. Further, if I may remind the reader, that poorly deployed servers and software, of any sort, are just as dangerous as Windows. The true doomsday scenario would be networks of millions of zombie computers running on fast, versatile, and stable Linux platforms across the developing world.

On the other hand, I would say that Microsoft in its rush to lock out the developing countries with disabled operating systems, restrictive licenses, and jack-booted copyright enforcement might not be such a bad thing in the long run; however, it is up to the Linux and Open source community to fill the vacuum that we so strongly advocated. Both Nature and the Internet abhor a vacuum.

The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG or 'upholdjustice' / zhuichaguoji ) has conducted an investigation into Microsoft's role in the Golden Shield project. This article is one part of a systematic exposure of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners via Golden Shield System and Internet monitoring:

Investigation on Microsoft’s Involvement in the Chinese Communist Party’s Human Rights Abuses

MailSieve

According to the web site of Microsoft (China), HTMMS (Hi Team Mail Monitor and Management System), which was developed based on Microsoft platforms, is designed to monitor and manage all email communication on network in various enterprises and organizations,…including Outlook Web Access and major free WebMail. “The professional edition of HTMMS is used in the Public Security, the National Security, the military and other important information security departments…from one computer, one or a multitude of 1000Mbps can be monitored simultaneously”, and it is mainly installed at the gateway of MANs (Metropolitan Area Network) to “monitor email transmission” and “to automatically intercept emails”. “The professional edition of HTMMS is called MailSieve, which has currently been installed in the communication departments of many large cities.”

ISA + EIM

Heguang Software group says on its website introduction that “Microsoft (China) Ltd. and Haitian Software Co. jointly released an Internet regulation system based on Microsoft ISA Server 2000 to monitor the behavior of enterprise staff members who access the Internet. This system can effectively monitor Internet activities such as browsing the Web, downloading through FTP and the receiving and sending of e-mails, which demonstrates the “double-effect” Internet security solution by Microsoft and Haitian. Heguang is the sole certified national retailer for this “new package”.

Microsoft developed monitoring and filtering software for the Chinese education system

Excerpt from Document No. 49: “the CCP central committee and the provincial committee are very concerned with the battle on the Internet. In order to continue and deepen the battle against ‘Falun Gong’ evil cult organization; aside from achieving the three “zero” targets, the battle on the Internet is the criterion by which the performance of the local work units and schools is judged…To better conduct the battle over the Internet and especially block information on the Internet is an important part of the battle against Falun Gong evil cult organization. The Party committees of schools must solidly intensify the leadership over the Internet struggle, organize forces and increase input…school leaders, especially the leaders in charge should periodically check on the situation and listen to reports, analyze the situation of the battle, make work arrangements; “610 Offices” of the schools should fully cooperate with the school Internet control units…actively organize and block information online; the school network center should strengthen their awareness of the battle on the Internet,… effectively implement the work to block information from the Internet.” The Document No. 49 [8] requires the monitoring of online information on campus network must be “round the clock, …strictly forbid people in schools and especially ‘Falun Gong’ members to visit ‘Falun Gong’ websites through the campus network and schools’ computer system, search, read, download or upload ‘Falun Gong’ materials.” The same document also states the fundamental method to ensure the information blockade online is to “pay great attention to the technology of web blockade, increase financial and technological input, and upgrade and renew with the latest technology in a timely manner.”

The Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security of China and Microsoft's “united laboratory”

On July 7, 2003, Microsoft China and the Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security formed “The third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security of China-Microsoft China Limited Information Security Technology United Laboratory.” [11] Zhang Xinfeng, an assistant to Minister of Public Security, deputy head and director of National Golden Shield Project Leadership Group; Li Runsen, the head for the Golden Shield Project Leadership Group and Head of the Commission of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Public Security; officials from Bureau 11 and Science and Technology Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security; and Huang Cunyi, President of Microsoft Greater China attended the opening ceremony held on the same day. Yan Ming, the head of the Third Research Institute said, “The founding of the information Security United Laboratory indicates that the Third Research Institute has taken another step forward in the cooperation of information security research.

China's Golden Shield

In his presentation at the Fourth Plenary Conference of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Public Security, Li Runsen, the Director of Science and Technology Committee said, “The goals of the ‘Golden Shield Project’ include six major aspects. They are the construction of the information network, the construction of applied system, the construction of Internet standards, the construction of security system, the construction of management system and the construction of monitoring system for public network information security. In addition, the ‘Golden Shield Project’ has one more major task, which is, to construct the ‘national information network security monitoring center.’ Upon completion, the project would be independently managed and run by Bureau 11, which would be in charge of the work on information network security nationwide.

WOIPFG finds a direct link between western telecom corporations' complicity in the construction of Golden Shield and the imprisonment, torture - and in three cases - the death of Falun Gong practicioners:

According to incomplete statistics, WOIPFG has found that as of the end of April 2004, as a result of Internet-related activities, 108 Falun Gong practitioners have been incarcerated, illegally sent to labor camps, and tortured. Three identified Falun Gong practitioners arrested for Internet-related activities were tortured to death. Among the Falun Gong practitioners who have been arrested and persecuted as a result of Internet surveillance, those with advanced degrees constitute a relatively high percentage.

It has been confirmed that among these 108 practitioners, at least eight are university professors and teachers from Qinghua University, Southwest University, Southwest College of Petroleum, Shenyang University of University Industry, Beijing University of Chemical Engineering, and the China Academy of Science.

In addition, more than 20 other victims of Internet surveillance have bachelor’s degrees or more advanced degrees. More than 12 have master’s degrees and Ph.D. degrees. Around 90% of these 108 Falun Gong practitioners are under 40 years old. The majority had good and stable jobs such as bank employees, company professionals, and governmental staff. Some of them were college students. These statistics are provided to show that the people who are being persecuted, vilified, and tortured by China’s suppression of freedom of information and belief are exemplary and law-abiding citizens.

For more information, please take note of WOIPFG's latest report at www.upholdjustice.org. If you would like to supply WOIPFG with more information, please email it to media@upholdjustice.org.

"… it’s a little strange to tie free trade to human rights issues, it is basically getting down to interference in internal affairs."

Bill Gates, then CEO of Microsoft, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jiang Zemin during a photo-op in Beijing, 1994.


Microsoft Corp. has acquiesed to a request of the Chinese government and shut down the internet journal of a blogger and NYT researcher who discussed 'politically sensitive' issues.

"When we operate in markets around the world, we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws as well as local laws and norms," said Brooke Richardson, of Microsoft's MSN online division.

Investigative journalist and blogger, Rebecca MacKinnon broke the story:

On New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the popular blog written by Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti. Now all you get when you attempt to visit his blog at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/mranti/ is the error message pictured above. (You can see the Google cache of his blog up until Dec.22nd here.)

Note, his blog was TAKEN DOWN by MSN people. Not blocked by the Chinese government.

Anti is one of China’s edgiest journalistic bloggers, often pushing at the boundaries of what is acceptable. (See a recent profile of him here, and an interview with Anti here.) His old blog at the U.S.-hosted Blog-city is believed to have caused the Chinese authorities to block all Blog-city blogs. In the final days of December, Anti became a vocal supporter of journalists at the Beijing Daily News who walked off the job after the top editors were fired for their increasingly daring investigative coverage, including some recent reporting on the recent police shootings of village protestors in the Southern China.

MacKinnon picks up on Article 19's latest position paper (produced with UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on
Freedom of the Media and the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
) : Joint Declaration: International Mechanisms for Freedom of Expression. The declaration calls for companies and governments to adhere to the following global standards:

· No one should be required to register with or obtain permission from any public body to operate an Internet service provider, website, blog or other online information dissemination system, including Internet broadcasting. This does not apply to registration with a domain name authority for purely technical reasons or rules of general application which apply without distinction to any kind of commercial operation.

· The Internet, at both the global and national levels, should be overseen only by bodies which are protected against government, political and commercial interference, just as freedom from such interference is already universally acknowledged in the area of the print and broadcast media. National regulation of Internet domain names should never be used as a means to control content.

· The right to freedom of expression imposes an obligation on all States to devote adequate resources to promote universal access to the Internet, including via public access points. The international community should make it a priority within assistance programmes to assist poorer States in fulfilling this obligation.

· Filtering systems which are not end-user controlled – whether imposed by a government or commercial service provider – are a form of prior-censorship and cannot be justified. The distribution of filtering system products designed for end-users should be allowed only where these products provide clear information to end-users about how they work and their potential pitfalls in terms of over-inclusive filtering.

· No one should be liable for content on the Internet of which they are not the author, unless they have either adopted that content as their own or refused to obey a court order to remove that content. Jurisdiction in legal cases relating to Internet content should be restricted to States in which the author is established or to which the content is specifically directed; jurisdiction should not be established simply because the content has been downloaded in a certain State.

· Restrictions on Internet content, whether they apply to the dissemination or to the receipt of information, should only be imposed in strict conformity with the guarantee of freedom of expression, taking into account the special nature of the Internet.

· Corporations which provide Internet searching, chat, publishing or other services should make an effort to ensure that they respect the rights of their clients to use the Internet without interference. While this may pose difficulties in relation to operations in certain countries, these corporations are encouraged to work together, with the support of other stakeholders, to resist official attempts to control or restrict use of the Internet, contrary to the principles set out herein.

On the flight from Paris I read an International Herald Tribune article by Nicolai Ouroussoff (As Israeli barrier goes up, views harden on all sides). The article focuses on Eyal Weizman's critique of the concrete barrier that is encircling Palestinian terriroty:

on a fundamental level, it is also a piece of architecture. And its construction has generated an architectural debate as charged as any in the political realm.

That debate has pitted strategists who mine the leftist architectural theories of the 1960s for ideas on contemporary urban warfare against architects who see the barrier as a perversion of those ideas, along with the utopian visions of Modernists who believed society's problems could be solved with concrete, glass and steel. It is not only unfolding in the halls of academia but in Israeli and American military circles. And it presents a vision of the wall as a system of complex, interweaving spaces - some concrete, some invisible - that is far from our normal perception of an international border.

At the center of this debate is Eyal Weizman, an Israeli architect and activist who has been a controversial figure in his homeland since 2002, when he published a report for a local human rights organization that essentially accused Israeli architects of being collaborators in colonizing the West Bank.

Building is never a neutral act, of course, and Weizman, 35, makes no distinctions between architecture and politics.

I first understood Eyal Weizman’s extraordinary cartography of Israeli control over the West Bank through a series of essays in openDemocracy and it really allowed me to see the Israel-Palestine conflict in a new way. What is rather interesting is that IDF's Operational Theory Research Institute has been reading into Deleuze:

Among the most provocative counterpoints for Weizman's analysis is Shimon Navez, a retired brigadier general in the Israeli Army. Navez, who revels in the kind of jargon heard in architecture studios, directs the Israeli Defense Forces' Operational Theory Research Institute, which trains senior military staff in innovative war tactics.

"We were looking for new modes of thinking that could be suitable to military strategy," he said. "The Americans were looking for technological solutions; we wanted to understand the whole depth of the problem. It struck us that architecture could be a very helpful metaphor."

Navez has little faith in the barrier, which he called "too simplistic, too vulgar" to accomplish its task. "It is a tragic regression in terms of strategy," he said. "It derives from a necessity, but in the longer range it will create a lot of damage - a lot of antagonism. It is a huge violation of space that will be hard to remove."

Navez speaks of "striated" and "smooth" spaces - of a world shaped by solid walls and a more fluid one virtually without boundaries. In his view, the West Bank is an example of smooth space.

It is segregated into carefully defined zones, some of them controlled by the Israeli military and others jointly with the Palestinian Authority. Satellite and aerial surveillance has become ubiquitous.
And an Israeli company is developing a handheld thermal-imaging machine that will let soldiers detect human figures through concrete.

Navez does not direct Israeli military policy. But his views have exerted an influence over a small group of Israeli generals whom he refers to as his "disciples."

He has also met with officials at the Pentagon and American military research groups like Rand to discuss urban warfare in the Middle East, where "swarming" - the idea that soldiers infiltrate enemy space like "clouds" in small, loosely coordinated groups - has become a catch phrase. In such a scenario, the traditional command structure does not apply. Urban soldiers communicate directly with one another in a fluid, amorphous world, free to react to whatever situation arises.

Compared to such a dystopian vision, a concrete barrier erected to separate Israelis from Palestinians can seem like an apparition from antiquity, a counterpart to the crude wooden barrier Trajan built to keep out warring tribes - to separate civilization from barbarity.

Yet to Weizman, these are simply two forms of the same evil. Navez, he said, "is simply trying to replace one form of control with another that is less visible."