A courageous and patriotic Google whistleblower has just given new reason for the U.S. government to introduce export license requirements on U.S. technology firms that wish to do business in authoritarian states.
As the BBC notes, whistleblower Jack Poulson’s letter to Congress alleges that Google is developing a software program, Dragonfly, which would allow the Chinese government to exert massive control over what Chinese citizens are able to see when they run Internet searches. This includes information on Chinese leaders, governance, and even data related to environmental pollution levels. While Google denies any project is close to taking action in China, Poulson’s warning should be a wake-up call for Congress. Specifically, a wake-up call to establish a far more stringent export license system with which to decide whether technology firms can operate boutique authoritarian software on foreign soil.
One caveat here: nothing should be done to create bureaucratic friction or red tape that hampers Google from providing its standard private sector services abroad. Just as Google and Facebook operate their basic services in the U.K. and the U.S., for example, they should be able to do so in China.
Why is this necessary?
Well, for one, because there is an obvious moral and political interest in preventing the evolving crown jewels of the U.S. economy — high-technology firms like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft — from serving authoritarian interests. We wouldn’t export lethal weapons to despotic regimes without regard for influencing the behavior of those regimes (as with Saudi Arabia), and we shouldn’t do the same with means of controlling civilian populations. What’s more concerning here is that Poulson’s letter does not take place in a vacuum. Apple is already betraying human rights and submitting itself to Chinese governance structures in order to sell its products in China.
This isn’t just about ensuring U.S. corporations live up to the values of freedom and information access that they so love to proclaim. It’s about obstructing the relentless intellectual property theft China engages in. That matters both for the long-term protection of the United States’ comparative economic advantage in the technology sector, but also so that China cannot use U.S.-originating software to develop even more draconian restrictions on its citizenry. Or, to develop hostile malware that can then be used to attack American interests.
While Congress has done good work recently to prevent the loss of U.S. intellectual property to foreign actors, Poulson’s letter is proof that more must be done. If American companies want to make money abroad by making people’s lives better, that’s fine. They must not be allowed to support authoritarian governments with their boutique products. The time for congressional action has come.
