Yahoo Busts A Chinese Dissident

Shi Tao is serving a 10 year sentence in a Chinese prison thanks to Yahoo.

To keep its Chinese business partners happy, Yahoo provided the Commies with Shi's IP address so they could snag him for emailing "state secrets" to a democracy group in New York. Says the other CSM:

Yahoo Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong worked with mainland Chinese police to find Shi, according to court documents. So far, Yahoo has refused to offer details beyond this statement released Thursday: "Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the [local] laws, regulations, and customs."

When queried whether Yahoo gave Shi's address to police after a court request, or whether police simply phoned Yahoo offices on the mainland to get help, Hong Kong Yahoo marketing spokesperson Pauline Wong said she was "unable to give out any information like that."

About those "state secrets:" Shi had emailed notes from his newspapers' staff meeting in which the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre was discussed. Obviously, he revealed the Commies hypersensitivity and its disregard for human rights, neither of which is exactly a secret.

Interestingly, Bill Clinton will be Hangzhou on Sept. 10 for a "China Internet Summit" hosted by Yahoo's business partner, Alibaba.com. I'm betting he'll pocket his hefty fee and not say a thing about Yahoo's role in Shi's address, or the need for freer speech in China.