Wei Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A529-W306

魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号：A529-W306

Release Date: March 5, 2010

发布日：2010年3月5日

Topic: Congressmen Meet with Human Rights Leaders to Lay out Strategy for Passage of Internet Freedom Bill

标题：国会议员们会见人权领袖，讨论如何促使美国国会通过保障互联网自由的法案

Original Language Version: Chinese (English at beginning, Chinese version at the end)

此号以英文为准（英文在前，中文在后）

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http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2010/report2010-02/SmithCmeeting100305HRleadersA529-W306.htm　which contains identical information.

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Congressmen Meet with Human Rights Leaders to Lay out Strategy for Passage of Internet Freedom Bill

Washington, Mar 1 -

Congressmen Chris Smith (NJ-04) and Frank Wolf (VA-10) met with a group of leading human rights advocates Friday to discuss the importance of Internet freedom. The human rights advocates have endorsed Smith's bill, the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), H.R. 2271, and discussed actions to promote the bill.

"The Global Online Freedom Act would give American IT companies the U.S.-Government back-up they need to negotiate with repressive governments," Smith said. "If the Chinese or Iranian government tells them to filter a search term, they can point to GOFA and say that U.S. law doesn't permit it. If the government's Internet police intercept a human rights activist's e-mail, and demand the company turn over personally identifying information on the account, the company will notify the AG, who can then bring the weight of the U.S. government into the matter.

"GOFA is ready to go to the House floor. It has the distinction of being endorsed by internet giant Google as well as a long list of human rights groups-Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Laogai Research Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalists, International Campaign for Tibet, Wei Jingsheng Foundation, and others. In the last Congress it was passed by three committees and was ready to go to the floor-and I believe it would have easily won a floor vote. But it was kept off the floor by heavy lobbying and politics."

Rep. Smith, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised the human rights advocates for their role and input into the legislation. The group pledged to continue working to encourage leaders to bring the bill to the floor. Smith reminded them that in January Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: "The Chinese government operates one of the most sophisticated operations in the world to control the Internet. It is essential that technology companies not assist in efforts that violate human rights or prohibit free exchange of ideas."

In its key provisions, GOFA would require U.S. IT companies to report to the State Department any requirement by a repressive government for filtering or censoring search terms-and the State Department would make the terms and parameters of filtering public knowledge, thus "naming and shaming" the repressive countries. U.S. IT companies would also have to store personally identifying information outside of Internet-restricting countries, so that the repressive governments wouldn't be able to get their hands on it to track dissidents. U.S. IT companies would have to notify the Attorney General whenever they received a request for personally identifying information from a repressive country-and the Attorney General would have the authority to order the IT companies not to comply, if there was reason to believe the repressive government seeks the information for other than legitimate law-enforcement purposes.

Present at the meeting and endorsing the GOFA are: Daniel Calingaert, Deputy Director of Programs, Freedom House, which endorsed the GOFA; Clothilde Le Coz, Washington Director, Reporters Without Borders; Megan Fluker, Deputy Director, Laogai Research Foundation; Arvind Ganesan, Director, Business and Human Rights Program, Human Rights Watch; Ciping Huang, Executive Director, the Wei Jingsheng Foundation; T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia and the Pacific, Amnesty International; and Todd Stein, Director of Government Relations, International Campaign for Tibet.

The original text of the news release:

http://chrissmith.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=174206

To get to know more about Congressman Chris Smith, please visit:

http://chrissmith.house.gov/

Related photo:

http://www.weijingsheng.org/pic/newsletters/newsletters2010/newsletters2010-2/SmithCmeeting100226HRleaders.JPG

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中文版

Wei Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A529-W306

魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号：A529-W306

Release Date: March 5, 2010

发布日：2010年3月5日

Topic: Congressmen Meet with Human Rights Leaders to Lay out Strategy for Passage of Internet Freedom Bill

标题：国会议员们会见人权领袖，讨论如何促使美国国会通过保障互联网自由的法案

Original Language Version: Chinese (English at beginning, Chinese version at the end)

此号以英文为准（英文在前，中文在后）

如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:

http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2010/report2010-02/SmithCmeeting100305HRleadersA529-W306.htm

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国会议员们会见人权领袖，讨论如何促使美国国会通过保障互联网自由的法案

（魏京生基金会感谢美国国会议员史密斯的邀请。以下为美国众议院议员史密斯的新闻稿。）

华盛顿，3月1日讯

美国国会议员克里斯﹒史密斯（新泽西州4区）和弗兰克·沃尔夫（弗吉尼亚州10区）星期五会见了一批领头的人权倡导者，和他们讨论了互联网自由的重要性。这些领头的人权倡导者们全力支持史密斯提出的《全球网络自由法案》（GOFA，HR2271），并讨论了如何促使美国国会通过这一法案。

史密斯说：“《全球网络自由法案》将促使美国信息技术公司得到所需的美国政府的支持而能与那些镇压性的政府来谈判。如果中国和伊朗政府要求这些公司过滤某些检索项目，他们可以指出由于这个法案，美国法律不允许他们那么做。如果那些政府的网络警察监控堵截了人权活动者的电子邮件，并要求美国公司把能确认这些人的信息交给他们，那么美国公司将向美国政府汇报，使美国政府涉及处理这些事件。

史密斯还说：“GOFA法案已经修改完毕，等待国会投票通过。这个法案得到了网络巨头Google的大力支持，也得到了很多人权组织的支持，比如自由之家、记者无疆界、国际大赦、劳改基金会、人权观察、保护记者委员会、国际声援西藏、魏京生基金会，等等。在上届国会期间，这个法案已被三个众议院委员会通过，等待国会众议院投票表决。我相信它将容易地得到通过。但由于严重的游说和政治，这个法案尚未被投票。”

众议员史密斯是国会外交事务委员会的资深成员，他赞扬人权活动家们在这次网络自由法律化活动中扮演的角色及所起的作用。与会的人们表示会继续努力，促使该法案的投票表决。史密斯提醒大家，议长南希﹒佩洛西今年一月份曾经说过：“中国政府是世界上控制网络最尖端的政府之一。技术公司不应该帮助加深侵犯人权的行为或是阻碍人们之间的自由交流。这是最基本的。”

GOFA法案的最重要部分是要求美国信息技术公司向美国国务院汇报那些镇压性的外国政府所要求的过滤和监控的搜索词语。而美国国务院则将被过滤词语与参数公布于众，以此 “点名并羞辱” 那些镇压性的政府。美国的信息技术公司还必须将可以确认个人的信息存储在那些对互联网限制的国家之外，因而那些压制人权的政府不能插足来跟踪持不同政见者。那些镇压性的政府若要求提供私人信息，有关的信息技术公司则必须通知司法部长。如果有理由相信那些政府通过美国信息技术公司寻求的信息超出合法的法律程序范围，司法部长将命令相关的信息技术公司不予遵守。

出席会议并拥护《全球网络自由法案》会议的有：

丹尼﹒卡林尕特，自由之家的项目副主任；

克拉新德﹒勒寇孜，记者无疆界的华盛顿主任；

梅根﹒夫鲁克，劳改基金会副主任；

阿维德﹒﹒格纳森，人权观察的商业与人权部主任;

黄慈萍，魏京生基金会执行主任;

库马，大赦国际的亚太部倡导主任；

泰德﹒斯坦，国际声援西藏的政府关系部主任。

以上新闻的原始连接：

http://chrissmith.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=174206

欲知更多：

http://chrissmith.house.gov/