Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Tech Companies Getting Spanked by Congress

China, a US competitor and notorious human rights violator has benefitted from the best technology Silicon Valley has to offer. The worst being software and instructions for Chinese cops written by Cisco to bust people spreading irksome ideas--irksome to the Chinese government anyway.

Google has seen their stock price take a dive because some investors are PO'd that the "Don't Be Evil" company sold it's free speech soul for the almighty dollar (aka Shareholder Value). While brave Chinese people risk life and limb fighting for freedom or at least unbiased news, government transparency, and maybe even a more liberalized government, US companies undermine this process by giving the government tools to censor information, restrict access to news and hunt down "bad thinkers."

These same companies are extremely liberal in their politics--99% of Google's political contributions went to Democrats in the 2004 election. Aren't these the same people crying foul at the 1700 wiretaps in the US (yes that is the full number of wiretaps by all governmental agencies in the US)? Aren't these the same companies who refused to give the US government the URLs of child traffickers and pornographers? Why, yes they are. Why would these same companies facilitate this reprehensible Chinese Big Brother state that they so despise and fear here?

Please spare me the argument that the US should be above this and the Chinese can only control their people with Communism and Dictatorial rule--a friend actually told me this. I swear, Middle Eastern people really can't deal with democracy, African people can't really deal with democracy, and Oriental people, too. What, democracy is for rich, white people only? Better people. Smarter people.

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