The Online Freedom Act returns
Rick Nelson, Chief Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 3/1/2007
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US legislators have a sorry record dealing with technology, as I commented previously on this page (September 2004) when I criticized the ill-conceived “Induce Act.” But there are some situations in which legislative intervention might be beneficial, and one bill worth consideration is the "The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007," introduced by New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith.
Smith first introduced his bill last year, following a Congressional hearing during which Internet company officials were criticized for contributing to Internet censorship. That bill died, but Smith is optimistic that the resubmitted version will win approval, in part because of emerging shareholder support for the measure. "Investors are taking notice of the repressive business practices…and are starting to voice their opposition,” he said, adding that corporations need to “understand that it is good business to promote human rights.”
The bill would prohibit US companies from disclosing information that personally identifies a particular user except for “legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes," and it would allow aggrieved individuals to file suit in any US district court.
Smith's bill has some problems. New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has written that its passage could drive US companies out of some countries, leaving their citizens with no alternatives to homegrown and heavy-handed Internet-restricting technologies. And Rebecca MacKinnon, a blogger and assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, wrote earlier this year that the bill is “an overly blunt instrument” that promotes an “oversimplistic” good-country vs. bad-country world view.
The bill has some serious practical problems as well. How, for example, would a US company and foreign government agree on what constitutes “legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes” that would justify the company's disclosure of an individual's name? But I do agree with MacKinnon that the bill has helped to publicize the Internet censorship issue and has prompted shareholders and company management to focus on human-rights standards and practices.
MacKinnon advocates a nonconfrontational approach that might involve a voluntary global code of ethics for protecting privacy and freedom of expression. But at this point, I don't see that happening without the confrontational threat of a legislative blunt instrument.
