U.S. companies should be lawfully restrained from exporting to countries that restrict citizen access to the Internet hardware or software that could be potentially used for surveillance, tracking and Internet censorship, said Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.).

Smith, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health and human rights, said during a Dec. 8 subcommittee hearing that he's introduced legislation (H.R. 3605) that will do so. Current trade laws, he added, don't take into account human-rights impacts of exports, and so don't create an incentive for U.S. companies "to evaluate their role in assisting repressive regimes."

The bill, which Smith dubbed the Global Online Freedom Act, would also require Internet companies to undertake due diligence reportable to the Securities and Exchange Commission on whether they enable the collection and sharing of personally identifiable information with repressive countries. The provision would apply to any company listed on U.S. stock exchanges, Smith said, including Chinese companies such as Baidu, Sohu and Sina.

(Baidu is a web search and Internet content company; Sohu is a search engine and Sina is an online media company that operates, among other things, micro-blogging service Weibo.)

During the hearing, Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director of Reporters Without Borders, noted that major Chinese technology firms agreed in November to adopt new government content guidelines. At the time Reuters reported that a Chinese language report from official state news agency Xinhua said heads of the companies pledged to "stop the spread of harmful information" on the Internet.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage
- go to the THOMAS page for H.R. 3605

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