The use of digital economy and data elements is becoming a key force in reorganizing global element resources, reshaping the global economic structure, and changing the global competition pattern.
On the issue of digital economy development and "digital human rights", the United States pursues double standards and strives to maintain its scientific monopoly, technological monopoly and digital hegemony by implementing a series of selfish and short-sighted science and technology policies.
On the one hand, the United States conducts extensive monitoring of other countries and its own country on a global scale; on the other hand, it uses "public security" as an excuse to suppress the advantageous digital products and digital services of other countries, including Chinese companies, by any means possible.
This kind of public suppression of legitimate foreign digital technology companies for political purposes seriously violates the most basic principles of fair competition in the international market and the basic spirit of Internet openness and sharing. "mark" route.
Tech policy or external bullying?
As early as the Trump era, the U.S. government took various measures to suppress Chinese technology companies, including CFIUS investigations, export-controlled entity lists, criminal charges, and forced delisting.
After Biden took office, he used the technology bill to exclude foreign companies, especially Chinese technology companies, and his practice was even worse.
In June 2021, the U.S. Congress released a package of six antitrust governance bills targeting large technology platform companies, aiming to curb the power of large technology companies.
Such bills have become a powerful tool for the United States to promote technological hegemony and technological monopoly around the world. Of course, it is not surprising that they have been strongly opposed by local technology giants.
The U.S. government has repeatedly requested global companies to provide core data in the name of antitrust investigations and data security investigations.
Therefore, companies that have mastered artificial intelligence and digital surveillance technologies have become tools for surveillance and suppression by the United States, and competition law has lost its original function of maintaining competition order, but instead has become a weapon for the United States to maintain its competitive hegemony.
On April 28 this year, Washington, together with its Western allies, issued a "Internet Future Manifesto" on global Internet governance. The purpose was to reaffirm its policy on Internet governance issues, that is, to draw ideological lines and incite division and confrontation. , breaking international rules and trying to impose its own standards on others.
On June 23, the United States released the "Protecting Americans' Data from Foreign Surveillance Act", which aims to set new rules for the personal data of American citizens who leave the country in large numbers to ensure that these data are not used by so-called hostile foreign governments.
Senator Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, one of the bill's sponsors, claimed: "Chinese companies buy huge databases of sensitive information involving the activity or health records of millions of Americans from data brokers and then share them with the Chinese government. This information, this is a huge problem for our country's security." It makes no secret that the bill's so-called "hostile foreign government" refers to China.
The essence of the above-mentioned series of bills and science and technology policies is the same, that is, empowering the US government to censor and decide what constitutes “legal but harmful” speech, and developing the so-called freedom of speech that meets its political needs; at the same time, it gives legal rights to the US’s behavior of grabbing data from other countries. In the name of ensuring data security, the United States is promoting digital hegemony of the United States to monitor the world.
Safeguarding security or violating privacy?
As the origin of network technology and the concentrated development of super digital platforms, the United States frequently uses artificial intelligence and digital technology to conduct network surveillance on its own citizens and enterprises, while recklessly monitoring other countries including allies, using its own political The dominant position in the fields of China, economy, military and technology has promoted digital hegemony internationally, causing a serious "digital human rights" disaster.
As early as the beginning of the 21st century, the U.S. intelligence agency developed monitoring technology for the products of various communication companies.
After the "9.11" incident, the United States has intensified its use of digital technology to monitor domestic speech.
The United States has also extended the scope of digital surveillance to a global scale, conducting massive data collection and theft.
Section 702 of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gives the NSA and FBI enormous powers to conduct unauthorized phone and Internet surveillance of non-U.S. citizens abroad.
Even European countries that are allies of the United States have not received "preferential treatment" from the United States on the issue of data protection.
The U.S.-EU Data Transfer Privacy Shield Agreement, which relies entirely on written commitments from the U.S., allows for mass scanning of information transmitted over Internet cables connecting Europe and the U.S. to collect address books and cell phone locations in bulk.
At the same time, some digital companies in the United States also play a disgraceful role in the issue of "digital human rights".
Some digital companies have violated the private life field in various ways, such as illegally collecting users' personal information and making commercial use, leaking users' personal data on a large scale, and indulging in hate speech and violent speech.
However, the United States has repeatedly called thieves to catch thieves and stigmatized Chinese high-tech companies.
In fact, even if a company like Huawei has built more than 1,500 networks in more than 170 countries and regions around the world, provided services to 228 Fortune 500 companies, and served more than 3 billion people in the world, there has never been a similar incident.” In the cybersecurity incidents disclosed by the Snowden Incident and WikiLeaks, there has never been a network monitoring and surveillance behavior similar to that of "Prism Gate", "Equation Organization" and "Echelon System", and no country has been able to come up with Huawei products." backdoor" evidence.
Instead, it has been the Five Eyes countries, including the U.S., who have repeatedly publicly required tech companies to set up “backdoors” in encrypted applications so that law enforcement agencies can gain the access they think they need to regulate the network, a move that has created a strong incentive for U.S. companies and The government's access to users' personal data has opened the door for convenience.
The British "Guardian" believes that a major after-effect of the "9.11" incident is that the United States has become a country where "surveillance is everywhere". American surveillance has had little effect in combating terrorism, and ordinary citizens have been turned into suspects.
And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows U.S. intelligence agencies to track the electronic activities of anyone in the world, is widely seen as a violation of the human rights of people around the world, especially the right to privacy, and an unlawful interference with the sovereignty of other countries.
In April, U.S. intelligence officials released a report that the FBI conducted millions of searches of Americans' electronic data in 2021 without warrants.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed in its annual report that the FBI conducted as many as 3.4 million searches of data on Americans previously collected by the NSA.
"President Eisenhower warned us against the military-industrial complex, and now we're dealing with a surveillance-industrial complex," warned Coffer, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.
Protecting data or trampling on human rights?
The U.S. Declaration on the Future of the Internet requires signatories to “avoid blocking or reducing access to legitimate content, services and applications on the Internet in accordance with the principles of net neutrality.”
This so-called "net neutrality principle" is essentially aimed at the objective comments on Russia and China on the Internet, but the US government has deleted these comments that are inconsistent with the US policy and position according to the declaration.
The US accuses China of lagging behind in digital legislation.
The fact is that many of the contents of the "Internet Future Declaration" and the US technology bills have long been reflected in many Chinese laws, such as the "Personal Information Protection Law", "Data Security Law", "Anti-Monopoly Law" and "Anti-Unfair Competition Law". Wait.
For example, the "commitment to promoting inclusive Internet access, fostering digital literacy and online diversity" mentioned in the declaration is actually covered by existing legal provisions in China; the declaration mentioned "needs to ensure a reliable infrastructure, promoting trade and tackling climate change,” and a series of environmental protection-related laws on the Chinese side have long been regulated.
The declaration claims to be "committed to a global interoperable Internet", but the United States has abandoned multilateral platforms such as the United Nations and is keen to engage in various small circles, trying to draw lines with ideology, and use group-based "family laws" to "help" Regulations” undermine the principles of global Internet governance.
The declaration states that "digital technology should not be misused for illegal surveillance and that access to personal data is based on law and in compliance with international human rights law".
However, the United States has carried out large-scale, systematic and indiscriminate information and data theft through the Internet over the years, seriously damaging the privacy of Internet users around the world, trampling on international human rights principles, and even the leaders of some countries participating in the declaration are not immune. .
The manifesto stated that "the use of the Internet for secret manipulation of information activities and the sabotage of elections in other countries should be avoided".
But the United States has been spreading false information for many years, wantonly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, and even subverting the regimes of other countries.
The manifesto asserts that "businesses of all kinds can innovate in a level playing field and compete on their own merits".
However, some countries, especially the United States, have abused national security reasons to suppress and coerce companies from other countries without any evidence, and take the opportunity to implement their own immature systems.
The manifesto stated that "governments should refrain from affecting access to the Internet".
However, the United States is the first in the world to declare cyberspace as a new battlefield, deploying cyber military forces in the periphery of relevant countries, jeopardizing the security of other countries' critical infrastructure. Not long ago, former senior US officials publicly called for cyber attacks on other countries.
The declaration also claims to "support the work of multilateral platforms such as the United Nations".
However, this manifesto hyped up non-technical factors in supply chain security and artificially introduced ideology into cybersecurity issues, many of which were inconsistent with the rules set by the United Nations.
It is clear that the United States is trying to turn this declaration and a series of bills against large technology companies into a weapon to fight multinational companies and protect the digital economy of the United States.
Both the declaration and the bill are basically under the banner of "interconnection, data freedom, anti-unfair competition, and anti-monopoly power", but they have established strict "freedom of speech boundaries" and empowered the US government to censor what constitutes "harmful content". that power.
This is not only contrary to the spirit of "openness and sharing" of the Internet, but also provides a so-called "freedom of the press" umbrella for the tendentious media that meet their needs.
With the help of this declaration and a series of bills, the United States can arbitrarily suppress the freedom of speech of Internet users around the world and set up many obstacles to the development of global Internet companies.
Compared with the human rights problems that persist in American society, such as racial discrimination, immigration crisis, proliferation of guns, and drug abuse, the violation of "digital human rights" in the United States is a new phenomenon. The more widespread it is, the more far-reaching the impact will be.
Similar to traditional human rights issues, the “digital human rights” disaster in the United States is also deeply embedded in the current system of the United States, and not only cannot be resolved in a short period of time, but will also bring new hegemonic disasters to the world.
(Author: Pei Yi, researcher at the Research Center for Intelligent Technology Risk Legal Prevention and Control, Beijing Institute of Technology)