On October 1, a revised version of China’s State Secrets Law went into effect.  Although little reported in the West, the revised law has serious implications for information and communications technology companies operating in China.  The update includes an article holding network operators and internet service providers (ISPs) responsible for censoring content and turning violators over to authorities.

China’s definition of “state secrets” continues to encompass citizens’ reporting of government corruption, malfeasance, and labor and environmental abuses. ISPs were already required to hand user data over to authorities if “state secrets” were involved, but now they will be expected to actively search user data for “secret” content. Perhaps in anticipation of the new rules, the Telegraph (UK) reported that state-controlled wireless provider China Mobile had begun monitoring the content of users’ text messages earlier this year.

If publicly-traded firms comply with the new law, will investors be complicit in repression? Human rights observers report that the Chinese government has repeatedly detained ordinary people who pass on “secret” information. Complicating the picture for investors is the fact that some state-controlled Chinese firms, like China Mobile, are also publicly traded.

Forty-eight years ago this week, President Kennedy summoned Americans to put a man on the moon. Today we need a new Apollo project to re-launch our economy and protect our planet.

This 21st century race features the United States against a new rival, China, which recently surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy and the U.S. as the world’s largest carbon emitter. Both countries face a common adversary in global warming, which shows no respect for politics or international borders.

After ten days of escalating public debate in which the Saudi Arabian government threatened to ban BlackBerry services because of security concerns, the Kingdom relented on August 9. Other governments have also expressed concern over BlackBerry’s stringent data encryption, including the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Kuwait, Indonesia, India and Lebanon. The UAE has announced a ban on BlackBerry services as of October 11, and India has threatened to suspend all services unless  Indian authorities get access to encrypted communications by August 31.

Some governments believe that access to private communications is a necessary security measure. Critics maintain that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are at least partly motivated by a desire to limit freedom of expression and strengthen their already strict policing of the internet for political content.

This is the latest in a series of “tense standoffs” between governments and private corporations over questions of individual rights and national security, as described by a July 2010 ESG Insight article. Such conflicts include Google’s faceoff with China over questions of internet censorship and Nokia Siemens Networks’ provision of “lawful intercept” capabilities to Iran, which allegedly allowed authorities to monitor and censor internet traffic during the disputed June 2010 elections.

Saudis, Others Want the Same Access as US, Canada

Along with questions about whether Western companies should provide surveillance capabilities to undemocratic regimes, these disputes also highlight a possible double standard. Nations like the US and Canada, home of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM), are largely understood to have access to personal internet traffic. The US has an advantage in that many encrypted email services such as Gmail and Yahoo have servers on US territory, rendering them subject to court-ordered disclosure.

An August 1 article describes the unintended consequences of what should be a success story: California’s ambitious e-waste disposal program. By offering cash to firms who collect and dismantle old computers and TVs, the state has also “built a magnet for fraud totaling tens of millions of dollars, including illegal material smuggled in from out of state,” writes Tom Knudson of McClatchy Newspapers.

Despite its problems, the California program has helped keep 840 million pounds of monitors and TVs out of landfills, according to McClatchy’s research. Domestic dismantling of e-waste is an important step towards stopping an ugly global trade in discarded electronics. While shiny new gadgets flow from Asia to customers in the US and Europe, old ones are shipped back to developing nations, where poor people perform the toxic task of stripping minerals from the machines.

From WikiLeaks to the “Facebook spy,” government exposure through new media outlets has made headlines this summer. The Internet’s capacity for spreading information threatens secrecy, and thereby weakens the power of those who hold secrets, whether they’re individuals, companies, or governments.

The tense relations between China and Google, among other foreign firms, have shown how a government’s desire for secrecy and control of its citizens can conflict with its need to participate in the global information economy. In January 2010, the US-based search giant balked at Chinese government demands for Google to censor its google.cn search results. Google had in fact previously complied with such demands, but starting in March, the firm automatically redirected visitors to google.com.hk, its uncensored Hong Kong-based site.

In July, however, the two sides compromised. As reported by CNN, Google will retain its license to operate in China, and Chinese users will retain access to google.com.hk. So what grand bargain resolved what the New York Times called a “tense standoff”? Nothing more than an extra click: Chinese google.cn users must now opt to see uncensored google.com.hk results.