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Yahoo chief executives: We didn't lie

By Sarah Lai Stirland

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and company general counsel stood their ground Tuesday morning in face of pointed grilling from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos of California.

Lantos spent several minutes pressing Yang and general counsel Michael J. Callahan on the information Callahan presented to the committee the last time he testified. In response, the two repeated their talking points from their prepared testimony—that they had no effort to conceal the fact that the Chinese authorities had demanded the information for an investigation into leaking “state secrets,” code for going after democracy activists for expressing their views.

Here’s the relevant excerpt from Callahan’s testimony:

In addition, Yahoo! stated publicly after October 2006 that the case involved a “state secrets” investigation. It is clear from the company’s continuing actions that there was never an intent or plan to conceal this information in any way, and this includes my prior testimony.

Please let me once again express my regret that in October 2006, when I realized that this “state secrets” language was included in the order, it did not occur to me to contact the Committee about this additional information. Given what I now know about the misunderstanding and concern created, I deeply regret that I did not think to contact you, and I have apologized for that oversight to you, Mr. Chairman through the Committee’s staff, and I have reiterated it publicly here today.

But, in my view, this is not, Mr. Chairman, the provision of false information to Congress. I understood the fundamental point of my February 2006 testimony remains the same today: The order did not reveal the name of the individual, that the case targeted a reporter, or that the investigation was related to political activities.

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Published in Wired.com