Hillary Clinton to make internet freedom a policy priority

Washington speech comes days after Google announcement it will no longer censor its Chinese service

Tania Branigan in Beijing and Mark Tran, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 January 2010 13.13 GMT

US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will promise funding to organisations promoting internet freedom. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty

Hillary Clinton will today promise funding to organisations promoting internet freedom and pledge to make unrestricted access a foreign policy priority, days after Google's announcement that it is no longer willing to self-censor its Chinese service.

The US secretary of state sees internet access as key to America's promotion of democracy abroad, her innovation adviser Alec Ross told the Wall Street Journal.

In an online discussion yesterday, he said her speech in Washington would lay out policy "to ensure that our centuries-long traditions are preserved in the 21st century".

He said: "Internet freedom is not just about freedom of expression, but about what kind of world we live in. Is it about one knowledge [in common] or about access to information based on where you live?"

Although Ross stressed the speech was not about China as such, but a broader exploration of internet freedom, it will inevitably be seen in the light of last week's statement by Google and the swift support it received from the US government.

The internet giant said it reached its decision following a Chinese-originated cyber attack that targeted human rights activists' email accounts as well as intellectual property.

The US will issue a formal request for China to respond to Google's claims, but Ross said: "The state department is not the foreign policy arm of Google."

China's vice-foreign minister, He Yafei, told a press conference today: "The Google case should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it's an over-interpretation."

Beijing has said that it "resolutely opposes" hacking and has itself suffered. On censorship, it has warned that Google, like other foreign companies, must comply with Chinese laws.

Some are already questioning whether Clinton's speech will in reality go beyond a repackaging of existing policy.

"The importance of internet freedom ... was often articulated by the George W Bush administration – and $20m is already allocated for programs to help human rights and democracy activists evade censorship and maintain their privacy ... As part of this year's appropriations bill, Congress has pumped another $30m into these programs," pointed out Daniel Calingaert of Freedom House – a US government-funded organisation promoting liberty and democracy internationally – in a piece for the website of Foreign Policy magazine.

Some of those who have discussed the issue with officials hope the speech may also discuss how ethical standards for companies could be established.

Sam duPont of Washington-based thinktank NDN, which has published papers by Ross, said officials were concerned about a growing global trend of internet control.

"I think increasingly we can see internet freedom and access to the internet as a basic right on a par with freedom of speech and assembly," he said.

"I think the state department is coming around to that view, and I think that's what we will hear."

DuPont, a policy analyst for NDN's Global Mobile Technology Programme, added: "In the past year, the state department has broken a lot of new ground in integrating technology with everything they do, from diplomacy to economic development."

Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch in New York, urged Clinton to take a "tough, unambiguous position on censorship in China," saying Google had made it easy for the administration.

"If the administration fails to seize that opportunity, it will be a gaffe on a par with Clinton's comments that human rights should not interfere with other issues [in relations with China]," she added.

But Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow with the Open Society Institute, who is currently writing a book on the internet and censorship said: "The wrong message ... would be something to the effect of: 'Never fear, netizens of China, America is here to free you!'"

In a blog posting, she called for an acknowledgement of the challenge which "all governments and most companies" face in deciding how to handle the net.

"Right now, the world's democracies are arguing fiercely within and sometimes amongst themselves about where the right balance point should be in the internet age," she said.

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