Rick Siegel Prespectives on Freedom and Liberty

Yahoo, Inc has asked the US Federal Courts to dismiss a lawsuit filed in their alleged role in the capture and imprisonment of two Chinese dissidents. Claiming that US law has no jurisdiction over its actions in other countries against their citizens. Thus claiming complicity in foreign government corruptions by U.S. Corporations outside U.S. borders relieves those who profit from those very operations, Yahoo Inc. in the U.S.A., from responsibility.

The legal beagles for Yahoo argue that U.S. laws governing issues such as privacy rights, torture, false imprisonment, etc do not apply to any action Yahoo may have made pertaining to Chinese citizens for actions that occurred in China. So I wonder why the American Taliban was dragged from Afghanistan to the USA for his crimes there? Double dealing standards?

The complicated jurisdiction cases will be based on “doing business”. If it is shown that these entities can be, and are in fact, used and accessed in the USA then jurisdiction will be had. But the legal leapfrogging to avoid the obvious has already done damage and reminded people of the culpability and lack of privacy in online services like Google, Yahoo! and MySpace.

The case involves several dissidents that were arrested, jailed and tortured as enemies of the state from information provided by Yahoo and their Hong Kong subsidiary Yahoo Hong Kong ltd. One defendant, Wang Xiaoning, an editor of a freedom publication was arrested in 202 and charged with “incitement to subvert state power” and was tossed in jail with a 10-year term.

Another plaintiff in the case is Shi, a reporter for Contemporary Business News in China and wrote for political change. He was arrested in 2004 and accused of publishing state secrets. In 2005 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland will hear the case slated for November 1, 2007 before Judge Claudia Wilken.

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