The New York Times recently reported that Mark Zuckerberg and his team at Facebook have been busily working on software that will help the communist Chinese dictatorship spy on and censor democracy activists.
Why?
{mosads}Because that is the price of access to the 1.4-billion-person Chinese market. Collusion with the communists in Beijing is nothing new for some Silicon Valley giants. Indeed, companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Cisco have a history of cooperating with repressive regimes. As “citizens of the world,” some executives in Silicon Valley are steeped in moral equivalency, believing that there is no difference among China, Cuba, or America. Complying with a dictate from Raul Castro or Xi Jinping, they believe, is just like complying with a law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the president.
The scope of Silicon Valley’s cooperation with dictators was revealed in vivid, dramatic detail in 2006 when the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee held hearings on the matter. Then-Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) revealed the tragic story of Shi Tao, a Mainland Chinese democracy activist and journalist. Mr. Tao sent emails from his Yahoo account to a democracy group in New York, alerting them of Chinese government plans to crack down on human rights activists in advance of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Chinese government enlisted Yahoo’s help in searching for the source of the information, and the Internet giant dutifully handed over Mr. Tao. He was given a 10-year sentence in a forced labor prison camp.
Brave people like Mr. Tao are the only source western groups and journalists, as well as the Chinese people, have about the workings of communist regimes. Yahoo’s betrayal of Mr. Tao led its CEO–and those of other Internet giants who helped the communist regime—to be hauled before Chairman Lantos and his committee to answer for their actions. Their explanation? They were just “following Chinese law.” That Chinese law is immoral seemed not to factor into the equation. They seemed completely oblivious to the fact that they should be helping the democracy activists, not the dictatorial regimes under which they live. To illustrate the point Chairman Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, explained to the Silicon Valley executives that their rationale was the same one Auschwitz prison camp guards gave at Nuremburg: they were “just following the law.”
It should come as no surprise that some of these young Silicon Valley whiz kids work dutifully on software designed to assist repressive regimes. They attended America’s most elite universities where they were taught the lie that America is no better, and is in many ways worse, than the rest of the world. The only American history they have been taught is a litany of wrongs. They are embarrassed by American patriotism and consider themselves “global citizens.” They see no difference between an American law and a Chinese law. When incredulous members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — Chris Smith and Dana Rohrabacher — tried to explain the difference to the Silicon Valley executives, they were met with blank confused stares.
This confusion helps explain why Apple’s top brass believed they were being brave and principled when they refused the FBI’s request to unlock the cell phone of the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist who murdered 14 Americans. The FBI, an investigative agency in a democratic country, accountable to a president up for election every four years by the American people, requesting help in accessing a terrorist’s cell phone is much different than a brutal unelected communist dictatorship asking a company to turn over a democracy activist. When our most successful companies’ executives don’t see the difference, we are in big trouble.
This blindness is the result of the moral relativism that pervades America’s most elite circles. It is dangerous and has real life consequences for people like Shi Tao. The antidote to such sickness is for our schools and universities to start teaching once again the principles that make America exceptional.
Yes, by definition America is exceptional. That we have an open and free Internet is an exception. That we can live as we choose, worship how we wish, and speak against our politicians is an exception. That we can protest our government and assemble with whom we like is an exception. Most of the world does not live like this. The sooner our young entrepreneurs and activists are aware of this the better off we and the rest of the world will be. We hold the lantern of truth and hope for democracy activists around the world. Let’s not let them down. They are counting on America, which is, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the last, best hope of earth.”
Dugan formerly worked on the House Foreign Affairs Committee human rights subcommittee as professional staff member and later as staff director. She also served as an aide for Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)
The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.