Rep. Lantos Blasts Yahoo Execs: "Morally, You Are Pgymies"

AP:

Two top Yahoo Inc. officials on Tuesday defended their company's role in the jailing of a Chinese journalist but ran into withering criticism from lawmakers who accused them of complicity with an oppressive communist regime.

"While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said angrily after hearing from the two Yahoo executives.

He angrily urged Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan to apologize to journalist Shi Tao's mother, who was sitting directly behind them.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[altara]

09:49 AM on 11/15/2007

Too bad that Yahoo doesn't have President Bush and his Republicans to give it immunity.

homer www.altara.blogspot.com

[alfrede]

06:34 AM on 11/07/2007

Hi,

If Mr Yang does not like the Chinese "laws" and behavior, why does he continue to do business with them??

Is the lure of big money too much??

What do U think??

[Ping]

02:19 AM on 11/07/2007

Lantos is an eastern European Jew from California.

[jeffepops]

01:09 AM on 11/07/2007

This is likely the last set of comments I'll ever read in HuffPo. What a bunch of stupid remarks, by people who know nothing yet feel compelled to write anyway. The point is that Yahoo engaged in hideously unethical collusion with a fascist government. Period.

[Ginzaman]

12:25 AM on 11/07/2007

And the Democrats are gutless hypocrites who only care about money and power.

[godlessclif]

11:42 PM on 11/06/2007

Pigmys? Lantos attacked a minority group.
I hope the Pigmys protest him.

I can hear Randy Newman playing "Short People" now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt3sH5J4cxs

[godlessclif]

11:29 PM on 11/06/2007

Rudy Kazootie explained all this if you listen.

Helen Thompson: Don't you think that waterboarding is torture?
Rudy Kazootie: The depends on a lot of things like, who does it.

See, If the Bush administration arrests journalists without a warrant for criticizing the president, apposing the war, that is being terrorists, that is O.K.

If China does it that bad. If a communications company lets China use their tool to do it, they are morally bankrupt.

If a communications company in the USA helps the CIA wiretap a journalist they get immunity
from prosecution and lawsuits.

The principle of Lantos morality is simple, one set of rules for the USA, a different set of rules for China.

And Yahoo better help the CIA catch those terrorist liberal journalists.

[TXfemmom]

10:33 PM on 11/06/2007

Lantos hammers Yahoo for cooperating with China, while they are doing the same very thing against Americans by complying with Bush's illegal orders.

Exactly how is that different?

[MarkKienan]

10:24 PM on 11/06/2007

I agree with Lantos's assessment of Yahoo executives as being moraly bankrupt. They disgust me.

Lantos is a hypocrat in his support of Israeli occupation. So I guess they are all bastards.

[loki]

09:30 PM on 11/06/2007

wow, thats kind of impressive when a senator does that to a campaign cash cow. I wonder if they pre-planned it for the public? Its not like anyone to do anything to piss off the wealthy. Especially with election just around the corner.

[cognate]

09:03 PM on 11/06/2007

Lantos' grandstanding is an attempt to camouflage his public defense of Guantanamo.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hzN-Cjx7Ky5gjZbhBu-gFo5vR2YwD8SI36002

[cynara]

08:12 PM on 11/06/2007

Excerpt from this article:

"I cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if, in my personal view, the local laws are overbroad," Callahan said.

Lantos interrupted him.

"Why do you insist on repeating the phrase 'lawful orders'? These were demands by a police state," Lantos said.

"It's my understanding that under Chinese law these are lawful," Callahan responded after some hesitation.

-------------------------------
Oh, the irony. The same Congressmen who were rolling over backwards to give ATT immunity after it violated an illegal order by the Bush administration are beating up on Yahoo! for follwoing an actual (albiet repugnant) law in China.. Hypocrits.

[emerywood]

08:02 PM on 11/06/2007

Why don't we make laws to prohibit American companies from responding to subpeona from a communist country ? Isn't that much more effective and Congressmen don't need to be so obnoxious toward offenders after the fact.

[Quaoar]

07:50 PM on 11/06/2007

Lantos owes Pygmies an apology.

[StephenSmoliar]

05:39 PM on 11/06/2007

Since this needs more than a brief comment, I have written a more extensive opinion at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/11/humiliating-consequences.html