State Department Seeks Business Aid Against Internet ‘Conduct Code,’ Repressive Regimes

SAN FRANCISCO -- A State Department official denounced an Internet code of conduct proposed in the U.N. General Assembly by China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan last month. Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said Tuesday the system would replace the historical “multi-stakeholder governance” of the Internet with a “system dominated by centralized government control.” At the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, he defended the U.S. government’s emphasis on intellectual property protection, “sometimes seen as in conflict with Internet freedom.”

"More censorship, more surveillance and more restrictions” by governments on digital communications technology have resulted from the Arab Spring, Posner said. Governments are using bots to delete posts and block email, employing sophisticated deep-packet inspection and keylogger technologies to spy, and exercising “overbroad state control” over users, companies and technologies, he said.

All sectors of U.S. society must “work together to push back” against efforts to dominate cyberspace, or the Internet won’t survive in its current form, Posner said. He solicited the help of companies, which he said “have more global influence than ever” before, in what will be a “long, tough struggle” for “human rights.” The most promising growth markets for information and communications technology companies in coming decades will be in the developing world, where “repressive regimes are getting hold of the latest, greatest Western technologies” to spy on their populations, Posner said. “With a great code comes great responsibility,” he said. He said companies can’t shirk responsibility for what governments do with the technologies they buy from them.

Posner praised Google, Microsoft and Yahoo as showing leadership through their Global Network Initiative. He recommended that the companies follow the example of clothing makers in finding the right approach to rights abroad, and he listed elements of a suggested corporate strategy. Banding together to pursue industry best practices often is crucial to success, Posner said.

Facebook Vice President Elliot Schrage called “law enforcement and national security” justifications for government restrictions “the greatest threat to human rights” in the world. “We need to have transparent standards” for action on these grounds, he said. This kind of standard is needed for all kinds of restrictions on expression, all over the world, he said.

"I don’t believe that the biggest threat to the Internet comes from the usual suspects,” governments in developing countries branded as notoriously repressive, Schrage said. First World governments have proven just as dangerous, he said. Even in the San Francisco area, “people call for shutting down the Internet or mobile services when security requires,” he said, alluding to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system’s recent cutoff of cellular access in some stations to prevent a demonstration.

Internet intermediaries must be protected from criminal liability over expression by others, Schrage stressed. “It’s about the foundation of openness that makes advocacy possible.”

Bob Boorstin, Google’s public-policy director, denounced the proposed PROTECT IP Act in Congress as “a fundamental threat to free expression.” He said it would put the U.S. government in the business of doing, in the name of copyright protection, what repressive regimes are criticized for.

"You've got to be ready to lose some money to protect human rights, and not enough companies are ready to do that,” Boorstin said. Many of his comments tracked Posner’s. But Boorstin said he wanted to “throw a little water” on the “tremendous amount of talk” that technology has been “driving social change.” Much of it has been “hype,” he said. The “Arab Spring has turned into a military-controlled winter” in Egypt, Boorstin said. “What happens online does not magically transfer itself offline to the real world.” The continuing power of broadcasting is underestimated, he said. “That’s how you make a difference in the developing world.” Boorstin praised Microsoft for issuing licenses to Russian nongovernmental organizations after the national government used copyright protection for the company’s software as a basis for seizing materials from the groups.