Shi Tao was an editor with the Chinese publication Dungdai Shangba. He was a recently sentenced to 10 years in prison for communicating with foreigners via e-mail. His crime was ``illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities,'' a common charge in China used to suppress independent journalism. What makes Tao's case particularly worrisome is that Tao was tracked down via his supposedly anonymous Yahoo e-mail account with the cooperation of Yahoo's operations in China. Jerry Yang, one of the founders of Yahoo, as well as the entire corporation, has come under criticism in the Internet community for their cooperation. Yahoo's defense is that they have no choice but to comply with the laws of the countries in which they operate.
Yahoo's position is not courageous or noble, but it is hard to articulate a realistic alternative corporate position for Yahoo. The option of all major free e-mail suppliers like Yahoo, Google, and MSN pulling operations out of China would not seem viable. Even if these companies were willing to forgo such a lucrative market, many Chinese would be left with far fewer e-mail options and these would likely be even more controlled by the Chinese government
While it is clear that cooperation with the Chinese government's efforts to intimidate journalists facilitates repression, there are other cases that are not so clear. Should, for example, Yahoo cooperate with the US government, presumably acting with court authorization, to track down e-mailers using Yahoo to conspire to commit a terrorist act? On one extreme, one would not want Yahoo to cooperate with Chinese repression of journalism and at the other extreme we would expect cooperation against terrorism. In the close cases, it might not be wise to have Yahoo or other corporations deciding when cooperation would be warranted. Perhaps, the best we could expect from Internet providers like Yahoo is that they provide tools to help maintain privacy. Perhaps, if they incorporated encryption by default in their e-mail services, they could do far more to protect personal liberty.
The old conventional wisdom was that political and economic liberties are inseparable. If a government tried to allow economic liberty to release market forces and to grow wealth, it would inevitably lead to the destruction of barriers protecting political repression. Modern, economically free societies require transparency and rapid communication. It is difficult to maintain political control under such circumstances. This conventional wisdom held that putting political censors between people, slows down communication and is incompatible with the rapid pace of modern economies. Perhaps, this conventional wisdom is being shattered by rapidly evolving technology.
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