The House Foreign Affairs Committee has called for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and senior vice president Michael Callahan to testify on the company's practices in China at an upcoming hearing. The company is accused of providing false testimony to Congress during previous hearings about the role that the company played in assisting with the Chinese government's efforts to imprison dissidents.
The dispute revolves around the case of Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was imprisoned by the Chinese government for "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities" after he used a foreign web forum to anonymously publish information about the persecution of pro-democracy activists. Chinese officials ascertained Shi Tao's identity by obtaining his e-mail records and IP address from Yahoo.
In a testimony before Congress, Callahan claimed that the nature of the investigation wasn't revealed to the company. That claim was later challenged by human rights group Dui Hua. The human rights group published a translated version of the Chinese government's request which revealed that the charges against Shi Tao were in fact known to the company when they rendered assistance in capturing him. The head of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs responded by condemning the company. Now, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) wants to get to the bottom of the matter.
The Committee wants Callahan and Yang to come back for another hearing which is scheduled for November 6. "Our committee has established that Yahoo! provided false information to Congress in early 2006," said Lantos in a statement. "We want to clarify how that happened, and to hold the company to account for its actions both before and after its testimony proved untrue. And we want to examine what steps the company has taken since then to protect the privacy rights of its users in China."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071017-congress-accuses-
yahoo-execs-of-lying-about-assisting-with-arrest-of-chinese-dissident.html
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