Corpwatch cites Tom Zeller Jr. article for The New York Times

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco Systems came under fire at a House human rights hearing on Wednesday for what a subcommittee chairman called a "sickening collaboration" with the Chinese government that was "decapitating the voice of the dissidents" there.

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That suggestion drew an incredulous response from Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican. "Most favored nation status?" he said, "Who lobbied for that? Come on. The corporations did."

Previous stroy via Corpwatch: Canada: Nortel Helps Build China's Surveillance Technology

Based in Lubbock, Texas, (CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc) boiler-plate blog-footer reads: 'the most influential hacking group in the world'):

China has consistently been rewarded for bad behavior - by everyone. By the European Union, by America, Canada, Australia, the UK, ad nauseaum. China has always demanded special treatment, and has gotten it. So it's not really a big surprise that we're having a "censorship" problem in China. Come on, ladies. Pretend to be surprised. Pretend like Western companies haven't been bootstrapping Chinese censorship online for the past ten years. Pretend like Cisco, Websense, et al, haven't been working with Peking [1] to build a better Goolag. CULT OF THE DEAD COW has been screaming about this from day one. Where have you been?

Richard C. Morais, (Cover story for Forbes)

. . . with engineering help from half a dozen Western firms, the Chinese Communist Party has erected a huge apparatus to censor free speech. A ragtag crew of hacker dissidents may succeed in tearing it down.
In a windowless room in New York City a computer engineer with owlish glasses--call her “Jenny Chen”--peers at a color-coded bar graph on her PC screen. Her group is launching attacks on the Chinese wall of censorship that blocks access to sites discussing verboten topics like civil rights and democracy. The graph displays how many Chinese that month evaded the country’s censorship to condemn the Chinese Communist Party.

Chen, a Beijing-born woman of about 40, runs her own IT businesses. Her group, and like-minded “hacktivists” (as they call themselves) spread around the globe, are chipping away at the Golden Shield, the term that describes the filtering system that censors the Internet and e-mail of China’s 110 million Internet users. The invaders slip contraband words and ideas in and out of the country via such means as mass e-mails, proxy servers that aren’t yet blacked out and code words that aren’t yet on government blacklists.

openDemocracy hosted an evening of debate at the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research,

China ruthlessly represses free speech online, and has developed the most
sophisticated Internet censorship practise in the world. What does this mean for
100 million Chinese Web surfers, and for the international technology companies
who court their custom? Can the West really persuade China to open up to the
World Wide Web, or will China teach the world how to lock down the Internet,
and its promise of global freedom of speech?

Speakers included, Isabel Hilton China expert and editor, openDemocracy.net, Kenneth Cukier, Technology and public policy correspondent, The Economist, Bill Thompson, Freelance writer and commentator, and Becky Hogge, Technology editor, openDemocracy.net

In a seperate article published today Isabel Hilton sums up the dilemna China's censors face Beijing's media chill

This series of incidents presents a sharp question for China's censors: what is the greater danger for China, to allow official corruption and abuse to continue unchecked, or to allow a free press to investigate such abuses? The current government in Beijing appears to have decided that the price of holding on to power is increased repression. The warnings that are now coming from inside as well as outside China say this policy is dangerously self-defeating.

Further to GOFA's provisions for circumvention technologies?

Smith said he was encouraged by efforts by U.S. companies to develop anti-censorship technology that will enable Chinese citizens to access the entire Internet filter-free and detect monitoring by Chinese officials....

"....I believe our government also has a major role to play in this critical area, and that a more comprehensive
framework is needed to protect and promote human rights. This is why I intend to introduce The Global Online Freedom Act of 2006 in the coming week to promote freedom of expression on the Internet.

There are some encouraging and innovative public and private efforts already
underway in this area. Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance, allows
Windows based computers to become proxies for Internet users, circumventing
local Internet restrictions. Through the efforts of the U.S. Broadcasting
Board of Governors' fund of a mere $100,000, VOA and Radio Free Asia's
websites are accessible to Chinese Internet users through proxy servers
because of the technology of Dynaweb and UltraReach.

Earlier this month, the technology firm Anonymizer announced that it is
developing a new anti-censorship technology that will enable Chinese
citizens to safely access the entire Internet filter-free. The solution will
provide a regularly changing URL so that users can likely access the
uncensored Internet. In addition, users' identities are apparently protected
from online monitoring by the Chinese regime. Lance Cottrell of Anonymizer
said it "is not willing to sit idly by while the freedom of the Internet is
slowly crushed. We take pride in the fact that our online privacy and
security solutions provide access to global information for those under the
thumb of repressive regimes."

The Inquirer notes:

The University of Toronto has worked out a way to help those trapped behind the blocking and filtering systems set up by restrictive governments. The system is designed to disable the Great Firewall of China and prevent countries running repressive control over the net ever succeeding. The software known as Psiphon overcomes one of the main problems of using anti-filter programs. If a user is found by authorities, they can discover everything that a user has been up too.

China's Economic Reforms Depend on the Free Flow of Information says the State Dept.

James Keith, senior adviser at the State Department's Bureau of East Asian
and Pacific Affairs, told the subcommittee: "China's leadership recognizes
the centrality of the Internet and the free flow of information in providing
the economic data to make China's market-oriented reform possible, but its
effort to regulate the political and religious content of the Internet is
counter to our interest, to international standards, and we argue, to
China's own long-term modernization goals."

The FT’s Richard Waters talks to Bill Gates about the issue of censorship in China during the RSA Security Conference 2006 in San Jose.

FT: Should the US government establish guidelines to regulate how internet companies deal with censorship in countries like China?

BG: I think something like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a resounding success in terms of very clearly outlining what companies can’t do and other rich countries largely went along with that. That’s a great thing. I think – [it] may be that idea [will] come along. I hope the people who make those things are sophisticated and not over-simplistic.

You could make a rule – let’s say, should I be allowed to do business in Germany? Germany bans Nazi hate speech – the US clearly constitutionally protects that. Should I do business in Germany? Or child pornography, the US view is very different than others. I don’t think that a [rule] that said you shouldn’t do business in some place whose standards aren’t identical to the US would work. Clearly people like ourselves are glad to go along with whatever reasonable things gets laid down. That’s why its part of the dialogue.

The internet overwhelmingly makes information available. It is not possible to block information, it is just not. You can make it so that the average person who just clicks on popular websites, with no extra effort, certain things don’t show up there. But in terms of actually blocking information… it’s bad news if you like to block libelous websites, or child pornography, or various things, copyright stealing. It’s very hard to do blocking. You can only take the very direct paths. And particularly if you put something up that says, we took this thing down, think of the time period between when you put it up and when it comes down and how people can cache that. It’s hard to block information. It’s so night and day versus when newspaper publishers and TV owners were small chokepoints that controlled the distribution of information.

So, I think people have to [understand] what a open tool the internet is, despite any firewall stuff or any takedown orders that get given. People need to really understand what a tool for openness it is.

EFF's Danny O'Brien has released a memo calling for A Code of Conduct for Internet Companies in Authoritarian Regimes that includes 'Support for Technologies that Innovate Around Censorship and Surveillance':

Censorship of foreign sites by oppressive regimes is a limitation of free trade and free expression. The Internet benefits from technology that lets communication pass unhindered from one end to end. And citizens everywhere deserve the right to privacy. Free governments benefit from sponsoring anti-censorship and anonymizing software, such as those supported by the United States' International Broadcasting Bureau. But companies, too, stand to gain from investing in development that might lead to an opening of previously closed societies. If U.S. companies find that oppressive governments block or impede their Internet services, they should not simply give in to the threat. By working together on ways to surmount Internet control they will not only be providing wanted new products to 1.3 billion new customers, they will help open trade and communications between all countries, and all citizens.

EFF's Cory Dotcorow commenting last year on Google's proxy accelerator in BoingBoing[links to post 'Harsh words for US tech firms from House at China 'net hearings']

It would be great to see Google setting up a Tor node with similar resources to this, though, and enabling some more robust anonymity.

EFF's memo is clear on where to draw the line on relevant export controls:

Don't Do Direct Business with Forces of State Oppression Companies should be prohibited from providing intentional ongoing support and assistance to those who abuse human rights in foreign countries. While many products such as filtering software, Internet monitoring programs and programs to unlock protected data can have multiple uses, American companies should not be actively and knowingly providing services that facilitate censorship or repression.

Following US politician's attacks on Internet companies yesterday Declan McCullagh reveiws the provisions of GOFA.
An interesting feature of yesterday's dialogue was a renewed emphasis on circumvention technology as a credible - if only partial - solution to the problem of internetcensorship. One congressman enquired if any of the companies were at this time developing anti-censorship software - general bafflement - blank stares and barely audible denials.

2:42 [p.m./15 Feb, 2006] - Burton: "Do any of you have any counter-censorship software available for download or purchase? Do you plan to? Is that possible?". A stunned look of silence from the panelists.(Redstate)

. In a subsequent exchange the representatives of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco said they would be open to bidding for contracts to facilitate internet freedom under the proposed GOFA legislation. Is the future of dissent: Hacking Chinese censorship!?

Sharon Hom cautioned against this 'guerilla warfare'-style intervention over the longer term, arguing that the U.S. did not want to enter into an 'arms race' with China's censors. Hom pointed towards HRIC’s E-Activism Project to support Chinese citizens’ increasing activism and promotes the free flow of information in China by building a technology platform that uses proxy server technology and a weekly e-newsletter sent to hundreds of thousands of subscribers in China. The project includes the development of six interrelated Web sites with online Chinese publications, tools for accountability, and online advocacy resources.

Independent: Google ranks censorship as a trade issue

Google pledged yesterday to reconsider its controversial decision to launch a self-censored web search business in China, if it looked as if the internet was failing to improve freedom of expression in the People's Republic.

And it suggested Western governments should treat state censorship as a "barrier to trade" that can be raised in multinational trade negotiations with China. The company's comments came as it and other powerful technology firms were lambasted by a Congressional sub-committee and accused of being "accomplices" to human rights abuses in China, cravenly submitting to state censorship to maximise their profits.

Telegraph: Companies under fire for China 'disgrace'

At a committee hearing at the House of Representatives, Democratic congressman Tom Lantos told representatives from Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft that they had amassed great wealth and influence "but apparently very little social responsibility".

"Your abhorrent actions in China are a disgrace," he said. "I simply don't understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night."

Times Online:

John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor, who studies the internet, told The Times that the booming number of bloggers and internet users in China “makes the job of a Chinese censor an impossible job”. He said: “The Chinese Government is going to lose the war.”

Rebecca MacKinnon posts the discussion draft of GOFA 2006. (see previously GIFA 2005).