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Quotable: Congressman lambasts Yahoo execs as “pygmies”

ALEX WONG/Getty Images News While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.” —Rep Tom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang (the chagrined-looking fellow pictured above) and General Counsel Michael Callahan, at a congressional hearing Tuesday on the tech company’s business dealings in China. ...

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WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 06: Yahoo! Inc. CEO Jerry Yang pauses during a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee November 6, 2007 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The hearing was to examine Yahoo’s provision to give false information to the congress in a previous hearing about their role in providing information to help to sent a number of Chinese dissidents to jail. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

ALEX WONG/Getty Images News

ALEX WONG/Getty Images News

While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.”

—Rep Tom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang (the chagrined-looking fellow pictured above) and General Counsel Michael Callahan, at a congressional hearing Tuesday on the tech company’s business dealings in China.

The source of Lantos’s ire? Yahoo provided information about reporter Shi Tao’s e-mail account to the Chinese government, leading to the journalist’s imprisonment. 

Christine Y. Chen is a senior editor at Foreign Policy.
Tags: Business, China, Cyber Security & Hacking, Liberalism, U.S. Congress

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