Swanky Conservative

Pajamas Media is tracking bloggers’ reaction to the Google-China deal. Dean Esmay’s handcuffed Google graphic is good and is probably a more effective graphical statement than my Google Earth: China Edition graphic.

I can’t help wonder if in a few years, we’ll read something like this from Google’s board:

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein’s regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.

That is part of the statement Eason Jordan, then CNN news director, penned in the New York Times after we liberated Iraq from Saddam’s regime. Jordan wrote the piece in an attempt to tell the world they’d cooperated with Saddam for years and had not reported things they saw. They censored the news and now Google’s doing the same, censoring information in order to gain access into a country run by corrupt dicators who oppress the basic freedoms of their citizens.

More: OK. I thought about this some more. On a web board I frequent, the discussion, when not devolving into liberal vs. conservative arguments, is largely focused around it being OK for Google to do this because we already buy all sorts of products made in China. I don’t think this is a valid argument because Google, along with Microsoft and Cisco, are in the business of access to information.

Information is not like a “made in china” soccer ball or sneaker. It’s the lifeblood of knowledge and is extremely powerful as a tool for social change and definition. Remember the stories of Japanese throwing themselves off cliffs at Okinawa? They did that because they were told American soldiers were barbarians and suicide was better than being under our rule. Information is a powerful tool for either good or evil.

The Chinese government is a communist regime. They control what information their citizens have access to. Google, Microsoft and Cisco have decided to play along in the name of the dollar with the ChiComs. These are people who fear losing control like the Kremlin did in the late 80s. Then, people got access to radio and tv from Western Europe. There were no gateways to those signals that could be turned off or redirected. Soviet-bloc people learned over time that life was good outside the Soviet area of control. When a revolt started in one Soviet satellite, or there was no food or gas in another, people in other Soviet states found out via radio & tv waves. The real story was drastically different than what was said on Pravda.

The government already controls Internet access in China. Google, Microsoft and Cisco are making it infinitely easier for them to do so. Microsoft allows China to block access on MS’s searches and communities to certain topics, discussions, searches, etc. Google will do the same. Cisco handed Chinese law enforcement surveillance and monitoring tools. It’s akin to inking a deal with the KGB or Gestapo where you give them all the surveillance cameras and listening devices they need.

These companies have agreed to basically stand side by side with the ChiComs’ oppression of liberties and freedoms.

I understand the free market idea of allowing businesses free reign. The ChiComs don’t play along with the parallel ideal of individual freedom as well. I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that this business deal is not evil.

More: Be sure to see Joy of Tech’s comic on the subject.

More: Linking to Outside the Beltway’s Traffic Jam.