Lindsay Beck BEIJING (Reuters) - Envoys of Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, arrived in China on Wednesday for secretive talks on allowing more autonomy for the Buddhist region, Tibet's government-in-exile said. The BBC:

The meeting with Chinese officials is the fifth since contacts resumed in 2002. Discussions are conducted behind closed doors and details rarely emerge.

Correspondents say there have been no tangible results from talks so far.

The Dalai Lama - who is based in northern India - says he wants only autonomy, not independence, for Tibet.

China has refused to comment on the talks.

reuters AlertNet

Dalai Lama said on Wednesday he would be happy to meet members of the militant group Hamas but acknowledged it may be too soon for Israel to talk to the Palestinian election winner.

Live from the 'innaugural bloggers row' for this hearing are: Rebecca MacKinnon. Tim Chapman at Town Hall. Human Events Online The New York Times,

In a crowded House hearing room, Representative Christopher Smith, Republican of New Jersey, unleashed a scathing condemnation of four American Internet and technology companies — Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco — for a "sickening collaboration" with the Chinese government and for "decapitating the voice of the dissidents" there.

Prepared testimony: The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, The Honorable James A. Leach, Mr. James Keith, The Honorable David Gross, Mr. Michael Callahan, Mr. Jack Krumholtz, Mr. Elliot Schrage, Mr. Mark Chandler, Ms. Libby Liu, Mr. Xiao Qiang, Ms. Lucie Morillon, Mr. Harry Wu, Ms. Sharon Hom



Live: webcast.

1801(GMT): Google's testimony begins.

HRIC's Sharon Hom at the congressional hearings this afternoon

Preparations for the 2008 Olympics have attracted the participation of foreign
companies across diverse sectors, including construction, advertising,
architecture, legal services, surveillance and communications. The
beneficiaries of the Olympic Games, and as such of the contracts agreed to
between foreign companies and Beijing as the host city, have always been
presented as the people of Beijing, and more broadly, of China. This is
documented not only in China's numerous promises to the International
Olympics Committee before being granted the right to host the Games, and
also in its 2002 Olympic Action Plan. During the Olympics, security
equipment and infrastructure will be operated by the government. How will
the hardware and technical know-how be used after the Olympics? The post-
Olympics use of this equipment and these technologies must be transparent
and monitored. Given China’s human rights record, what are the impacts on
privacy rights if these technologies are exported to other countries?
Any industry-wide code of conduct or specific legislation should move beyond
the narrow conception that technologies are used in isolation of one another.
The lines between online technologies and offline actions have been blurred.
Technologies such as Internet Web browsing, VoIP, e-mail, instant messaging,
SMS, podcasting, and more, work in interrelated spheres, impacting
journalists, students, activists, organizations, and individuals in their access
to and dissemination of knowledge.

Any recommendations and guidelines should not ignore the challenges and
opportunities that lie ahead in the expansion into the collateral uses of
surveillance or the restrictive uses of a particular technology. For example,
SMS messages will not only be increasingly filtered, but could also be
integrated into database systems used to store and track required pre-paid
cell phone user information, with serious implications for users who may send
and receive politically-sensitive messages.

Harry Wu:

A friend of mine recently tried to access some politically sensitive websites while
at an Internet café in a remote, small city in Xinjiang Province. The police quickly
showed up to arrest him. I don’t know who supplied the technology enabling the police to
track my friend’s Internet surfing, but I am pretty sure that U.S. technology was involved.
The PRC’s Ministry of Public Security has been continually upgrading and expanding its
$800 million “Golden Shield” project- a government-sponsored surveillance system that
was begun in 1998. The Golden Shield’s advanced communication network was
supposedly aimed at improving police effectiveness and efficiency. However, China has
also used the “Golden Shield” as a way of monitoring Chinese civilians. The project will
help prolong Communist rule by denying China’s people the right to information. In
order to develop the “Golden Shield,” China has utilized the technologies of a number of
foreign companies, such as Intel, Yahoo, Nortel, Cisco Systems, Motorola, and Sun
Microsystems. The “Golden Shield Project” would not have been possible without the
technology and equipment from these companies.

Xiao Qiang, China Internet Project at the Graduate
School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley:

The challenge in front of us, Mr. Chairman, is to find a way to help these information
technology companies work in concert, perhaps with some of the world’s great research
universities, to establish a set of guiding principles for the entire information and
communication technology industry. These principles, or standards and practices, should
transcend individual companies’ own relationship to any given market. In other words,
to seek collective ways to find the ability to resist demands for information or technology
that violate fundamental human rights .

Civiblog launches new community news interface :

Civiblog is very proud to unveil a new look for the Civiblog community. Civiblog users now have acccess to ease of use features. The new Civiblog provides dynamic new ways to follow the discussions throughout the global Civiblog Community. With the new Civiblog it is easy to follow the new and growing members of the Civiblog Community. Civiblog is an international initiative with the aim of giving voice to individuals and organizations involved in global civil society. We provide platforms and resources for NGOs, activists, dissidents and individuals at risk through the medium of blogging.

Amnesty USA press release brought to my attention on today's hearings:

(Washington, DC) - On the eve of an important Congressional hearing to evaluate the role of U.S. companies in Chinese state repression of free expression, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) calls on all U.S. companies in the technology sector to take immediate steps to ensure that they stop any actions that could undermine human rights. In particular, U.S. companies should work together to bring an end to restrictions on freedom of expression and information on the Internet. Amnesty International welcomes the hearing and urges lawmakers to better regulate the actions of U.S. companies overseas.

"The high-tech sector is still dominated worldwide by U.S. companies," said Mila Rosenthal, Director of AIUSA's Business and Human Rights Program. "Those companies should be spreading U.S. values around the world, like free speech and the right to peaceful political expression, instead of helping the Chinese government silence and squash its internal critics.

"Patrick Henry said, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' If he were sending that message today in China from his Yahoo! e-mail account, he could be locked up for 10 years for political subversion."

"The Chinese government is a noted human rights abuser, and U.S. high-tech companies are facilitating Chinese repression, including the imprisonment of political dissidents," said T. Kumar, AIUSA Advocacy Director for Asia & the Pacific. "We will work with Congress to pass legislation to ensure that this aiding and abetting is stopped."

Amy O'Meara, of AIUSA's Business and Human Rights Program, and T. Kumar will attend tomorrow's hearing. Both are available for interviews. To schedule one, please contact Jason Disterhoft at 202-544-0200 x312 (o) or 617-784-6181 (c).

AIUSA's presence at the hearing continues its work on U.S. high-tech companies' human rights responsibilities in China. On February 1, T. Kumar testified at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus Members' Briefing on human rights and the Internet in China. The same day, AIUSA mobilized the public by launching an online action urging Yahoo! to use its influence to secure the release of journalist Shi Tao. Unsurprisingly, China has been known to block access to Amnesty International's Web site.

As Amnesty International and other organizations have reported, all of the companies testifying tomorrow have been implicated in Chinese censorship. Cisco has provided technology used to censor and control the use of the Internet in China. Microsoft has removed Chinese blogs that mentioned democracy and other forbidden words and concepts. Google has recently moved its servers behind China's firewall to let the government censors limit Chinese searches. Yahoo! has turned over information to the Chinese government that identified peaceful political dissidents, who are now serving long prison terms.

Contact: Jason Disterhoft at 202-544-0200 x312 (o) or 617-784-6181 (c)