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January 21, 2010

Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is preparing to deliver an important speech escalating the importance of Net Neutrality and Internet freedom.

Clinton is hoping to place the influence of the United States' diplomacy behind her efforts to protect Internet freedom, according to people who have been briefed on the speech's contents.

Clinton's speech will come just nine days after Google's blunt declaration about Chinese censorship and illegal electronic intrusions, including allegations of theft of intellectual property. As many as 30 other companies may have been targeted, including Yahoo, Symantec, Juniper Networks, Dow Chemical, and Northrop Grumman.

The speech at the Newseum in Washington is intended to announce that support for online liberty and press freedom will become a State Department priority and will address the importance of cybersecurity, people who have been briefed said.

For example, the United States could be prepared to require some countries to declare support for basic principles around Internet freedom as part of the conditions for receiving foreign aid.

One question left unanswered during the briefing by Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner is whether the State Department would risk offending the Chinese government by addressing last week's charges lodged by Google.

"We didn't get the impression that there would be any particular reference to the Google China incident," said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, one of the people briefed.

But a State Department official said later in the day that the Google-China incident will be included in the speech nevertheless.

"If some people are looking for a laying out of a 1-through-10 Internet agenda, they're going to be disappointed," said Leslie Harris, the president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, who was also briefed. "But if they're looking for the U.S. to put the power of its diplomacy on the line for Internet freedom, it's going to be a very important speech."

Clinton's speech comes at a precarious time in Washington-Beijing relations, which have been stressed by a dispute over carbon emissions at the Copenhagen summit and controversy over the valuation of China's currency.

Google's blunt admission that it believes the Chinese government is behind intrusions into its internal network, and perhaps theft of source code, has roiled political and technological circles since Jan. 13 when the news broke out.

This has led the State Department to indicate that it would lodge a protest in a formal letter with Beijing.

It will be interesting to see how Google views this once Clinton's speech is done.

Source: The U.S. State Department.

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