Smith Urges Support For GOFA

A week before Senate lawmakers turn their attention to issues of Internet freedom, Rep Chris Smith (R-NJ) is making another push to round up support in the House for his Internet freedom bill.

Rep Smith circulated a letter to his colleagues this week in an effort to increase the bill's co-sponsors. The bill currently has nine bipartisan cosponsors. Rep Smith said his latest version of the Global Online Freedom Act builds upon an earlier version introduced in the last Congress. It would still require U.S. information technology companies to disclose the data they block and search engine results they filter when complying with the censorship policies of foreign countries. But the latest version of the bill also would require firms to keep records on and notify the attorney general of demands for information identifying users and would give the attorney general authority to order the firms not to comply. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee is set to hold a hearing Tuesday on global Internet freedom.

However, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's hearing set for Monday examining Google and China's spat over Internet freedom has been postponed for a second time due to scheduling issues, according to a spokesman for the commission's chairman, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. The commission was established by Congress in 2000 to monitor human rights and the rule of law in China.