Yahooooo?

I heard yesterday that Yahoo! is being censured (or prosecuted, yelled at, sued or otherwise settled with) over their release to the Chinese government of the identity of a couple of dissenting bloggers in China. While I agree that it's not in the best interest of free speech to give such information to an oppressive regime, I'm having a really hard time seeing how this is different from what is happening in the US government's request for phone records of calls made by suspected "terrorists" outside the US. (I'll grant that there are threats of violence from the latter.)

But seriously, so-called Islamists are making phone calls to organize opposition to a government that is creating perceived injustice in their countries. Chinese bloggers are posting pro-democracy or anti-government thoughts to fuel opposition to their unjust government. These two scenarios resonate too well with one another. Yahoo! is being lambasted! for their response to a sovereign government's request for information related to national security since the handing over of said information resulted in torture. Our own government is asking for very detailed communications information in the interest of our national security and we've not heard any assurances that these won't result in torture. It's quite interesting that the phone companies are asking for immunity if they comply with a US law that may be shown to be unconstitutional, and they're not being given it. The phone companies are in the same boat as Yahoo!. There are proposed laws making it very nasty for companies who turn over information to torturing governments (a la Yahoo! and China), but I don't see any efforts by the US executive branch to defend democracy by being self-evaluative and recognizing the unconscionable similarities here.

Okay, I know there are major differences here. China is a brutal Communist regime that tortures dissenters, and 'merica is a democ . . . I dunno; I give up.

Google, please don't sell me out.