Bill aims to fight Net censorship

One day after lambasting US firms for aiding Internet censorship in China, members of Congress introduced legislation yesterday that would set tough new limits on American technology companies that do business with repressive regimes.

''We are serious about this," said Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and chairman of the human rights subcommittee of the House Committee on International Relations. ''You can't work with and cooperate and enable dictatorship and not have a penalty."

The Global Online Freedom Act is sponsored by Smith and five of his colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans. It would make the free exchange of ideas on the Internet a central concern of US foreign policy. The State Department would establish an office to support Internet freedom worldwide and issue annual reports tracking the extent of Internet censorship in other countries. Nations with a record of strict controls on political or religious Internet communications would be added to a list of ''Internet-restricting countries."

American firms would be placed under significant restrictions in dealing with such countries. For example, no US firm could locate its Internet server computers inside one of these countries. This provision is a response to cases in which Yahoo Inc. handed over records of Chinese Internet users to the government, resulting in the users receiving stiff prison sentences for ''subversive" Internet activities. Smith said that China or other repressive countries would still be able to subpoena an American Internet provider. But the subpoena would pass through the US legal system, where American judges could decide whether the Chinese were conducting a legitimate criminal or civil investigation.

The bill would let citizens of foreign nations sue American Internet companies for giving information to a foreign government that led to the citizens' unjust imprisonment. This could mean that the Chinese sent to prison due to information from Yahoo could sue the US company once they are released.

In addition, the bill would make it illegal for any US company to censor Internet information hosted on a US government website. Thus, Google Inc., which offers censored Internet searches inside China, would be barred from blocking access to the website of the Voice of America or Radio Free Asia.

The bill could mean trouble for US firms like Cisco Systems Inc., which sell Internet switching hardware. It calls on the Commerce Department to set up export controls on such equipment, similar to the controls on exports of US goods that can be used for military purposes. Cisco could find it much harder to sell equipment to a country with a track record of Internet censorship, like China.

Cisco and Google did not return calls seeking comment. Mary Osako, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, said her company was still studying the proposed legislation.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, said that if Smith's bill becomes law, China could lock US companies out of their country's Internet market.

''If the restrictions work in the sense we want them to, they block what the Chinese want to do," said Harper, ''and the Chinese will block the companies out."

Harper said that China's censorship policies are repugnant, but that it would probably be better for the Chinese people if US firms made an ''ugly compromise" and accepted the government's policies.

Meanwhile, a Chinese government spokesman defended his country's Internet policies yesterday. ''It is normal for countries to manage the Internet in accordance with law and to guide its development in a healthy and orderly fashion," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.