Yahoo Executives Asked to Testify Before House Committee about Shi Tao

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has asked Yahoo executive to testify at a hearing next month regarding false and misleading information that Yahoo gave to Congress last year. The testimony has to do with Yahoo's disclosure of the identity of a Chinese man that has now been imprisoned by the Chinese Government for posting pro-democracy sentiments on a website.

Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Chinese authorities after police found out that he had written information under a false name about media censorship in China on the website, Democracy Forum, which is based in the United States. Shi Tao had been an editor and reporter for a Chinese newspaper. Yahoo disclosed Shi Tao's identity as the request of Chinese police including his email contents, IP address, and log-on history. Yahoo claimed to have no knowledge of the case when Yahoo's senior vice president testified before Congress last year.

Yahoo!'s Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang has been asked to appear next month, on November 6, as well as Michael Callahan, the senior VP that gave the false testimony last year. Callahan also serves as Yahoo!'s general counsel.

Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) said in a statement released by the House Committee, "We have now learned there is much more to the story than Yahoo let on, and a Chinese government document that Yahoo had in their possession at the time of the hearing left little doubt of the government's intentions." He continued, "US companies must hold the line and not work hand in glove with the secret police."

Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA) stated that the Committee "has established that Yahoo! provided false information to Congress in early 2006. We want to clarify how that happened, and to hold the company to account for its actions both before and after its testimony proved untrue. And we want to examine what steps the company has taken since then to protect the privacy rights of its users in China."

The inaccuracy of Callahan's testimony came to light earlier this year, when a San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights advocacy group for China, disclosed documents that are proof that Chinese authorities had asked Yahoo! for information about Shi Tao in 2002. Shi Tao is currently appealing the verdict against him to the Hunan Higher People's Court, claiming that the police used improper methods of obtaining evidence against him. Shi Tao is also suing Yahoo! and it's Hong Kong subsidiary for damages.

Source: House Committee on Foreign Affairs