The headlines that Yahoo had handed over Chinese journalist and democratic activist Shi Tao’s e-mails and IP address to China’s secret police dominated the news last year. This sent a panic through an industry usually praised for its social responsibility and unaccustomed to external scrutiny. Congress called in the general counsels of four of our leading high tech firms – Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo – to account for their collaboration with the Chinese government. In the course of events, it became clear that the problem in the high-tech sector was not isolated but endemic.
Author: Michael Likosky is a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and author of “Law, Infrastructure and Human Rights,” (Cambridge University Press).