Judge Dismissed Baidu Censorship Case

A federal judge of the District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a case against Chinese search engine Baidu.

Activities alleged Baidu's government sponsored censorship prevented them from reaching to Baidu's users in the US.

Judge Jesse M. Furman reasoned in his ruling that Baidu as a business was entitled to its own right to free speech, in this case in form of censorship, from (US) government interference.

The Seagull disagrees with this analysis.

The court failed to recognize three facts: 1) Baidu is a government sponsored company, which is the only reason for its dominance in China, despite well recognized technical and service advantages of Google. 2) For people living in China, there is no alternative as the case of newspaper or radio stations. 3) Same can be said to Baidu's users in the US, who are stuck with the only search engine that they are familiar with.

The First Amendment was never designed are meant to protect a government speech. Other search engines who are considered of higher quality product and service standard including Google were literally driven out of Chinese market by the government.

In other words, Baidu is more of a propaganda arm of the Chinese government than anything else. Regrettably, Judge Furman built his rationale on a false assumption.

The case is Zhang et al v. Baidu.com Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-03388.

Computers with Bogus Heart

Junior student Huang Jing of the Beijing Capital University of Economics and Business was released after spending 10 months in jail. Her crime then was complaining a buggy computer she bought from ASUS, a prominent computer maker. The computer kept crashing, and couldn't be fixed after repeated service requests. One of her tech savvy friend opened up the case, and noticed the CPU was an 'engineering edition'.

An engineering edition CPU is not meant to be installed in any computer, but used for testing purpose only. Many computer makers in China use these kind of CPU to lower cost. There are two channels an 'engineering edition' CPU can be acquired: Intel often gives some of these chips to computer manufactures before a production model is available so that the vendor can have something to test their motherboard and design. Each vendor usually receives a handful of engineering edition CPUs for each model they are going to build a computer upon. They are most likely used up during the designing and testing process. The second channel is through smuggling from overseas. For whatever motivation, humongous amount of CPU produced in the normal production phase but found to be defect were dumped into a junk market, marked as 'engineering edition' for testing purpose. Intel prohibit usage of such chips in any computer. However, there is no way to regulate where they will end up once they are released to the market. Many Chinese computer makers find these chips a great way to reduce cost, and use them primarily in domestic market where they are 'escorted (as in explicit written legal language)' by a strong pro-business justice system. A few years earlier, a consumer WANG Hong in Shijiazhuang complained a computer he bought from a domestic maker was 'as delicate as a cartoon of toufu'. The (Beijing) Haidian District Court fined him more than $40,000 on defamation (1999-MinChu3538).

In Huang Jing's case, the prosecutor changed their mind and released her after 10 months in jail. Huang also received $5,000 compensation from the government for her jail time. On the annual National Consumers' Day of March 15, 2010, her lawyer filed a complaint to the (Beijing) Xuanwu District Court, asking the court to find the 'national consumers association', a government agency, non-act in her case. Law suits against ASUS will be followed.

In the first ever Online Consumers' Rights survey last year, Huang's case was voted No. 1 in the country as the most severe offense to consumer's rights with 50,255 votes.

Photo Questioned Defandent Substituted

With China's road condition, it's a surprise how a traffic accident attracted not only national and international media attention, but also triggered mass protests in Hanghzou and cross the country. Some attribute the public reaction as a reflection of the tension between ordinary people and those with ways and means.

The police was booed when they stated the car was traveling at 70km per hour, and later had to apologize to the public for using the driver's words without verification. Officials at the city and provincial level were scrutinized on their response. Car modification industry were all together banned. Qishima (70 km per hour in Chinese) because a new word in online as well as in serious writings. The case went to trail, and the driver was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Amazingly, the case just seen yet another new development.

The online community along with the traditional media, are questioning the authenticity of the defendant. They charge that the man appeared in court is not the man appeared in amateur videos shot at the scene of the accident. They remarked that the defendant in the court looks younger. The court issued a statement saying the defendant had been in custody of the court and he indeed is the driver who caused the accident. Skipping through the radar of everyone and media, this is the first and only one official statement regarding the authenticity of a detainee in communism China history ever since 1949. It is history being made.

Today, photos circulated on the Internet showed differences of biological traits of the two person. The photo on the left is from the court photo taken by reporters, and the photo on the right is captured from a video of the accident.

Left Ear:

Scar on right arm:










It's nothing new when a poor are paid to cover crime committed by a rich person. However, it is history being made when a communism court are forced to make the clarification, regardless whether they are telling lies or not.

Beijing Cops received probation sentence for murdering ill people

Beijing Tongzhou court sentenced two policemen 1 year probations for death of an ill person as result of being abandoned by the two cops.

The two policemen, one of which is the Party boss of the Yongledian Police Station, responded to a police call while an ill woman was found on the side of a road near the Yongledian government building. Party boss Tian and another police Liu, accompanied by three security forces carried the woman on a vehicle, and then dumped her out side of their jurisdiction area. The woman was found died the next day.

Courts Adopted New Sentencing Guideline

Courts of Dongguan in Guangdong province adopted a new sentencing guideline which takes monetary compensation to victims into criminal case. Chen Si of the Dongguan Medium Court explained the new guideline in a recent interview. Chen used a case to illustrate the benefit of the new guideline. In a fatal robber case, the murder Wang paid $6,000 to the victim Cai's family. The money helped the victim's family out of financial desperation. The victim's family was quite satisfied, so the sentence was subsequently reduced to life in jail.

$6,000 means a lot for a poor family.

Dongguan was a little know county of Guangzhou not long ago. However, it grows into one of the most prosperous area as a mega industrial park. It's GDP would ranked top 5 among major cities in China.

Dalian Court Postponed Jap Battery Case

An otherwise simple battery lawsuit has been sitting on the desk of the People's Court of the Zhongshan District of Dalian, Liaoning Province forever.

Two Chinese women were severely beaten by two Japanese businessmen on May 7, 2004 in the hotel they stayed. The women filed lawsuit on May 19, and the two Japanese were let go by the Dalian Police. Although the trail started on Dec 7th, 2005, the Dalian court put the sentencing on hold indefinitely. Although Dalian government is well know to be pro-Japanese business, but the stunning abuse of legal system on a simple assault case still amazed the Seagull.

Mr. Zhao Guosheng, the deputy chief judge of the court told reporters that there was no time limit on cases involving a foreign citizen according to the Chinese civil code, therefore, it is perfectly legal for the court to put the sentencing date on-hold forever.

In a separate incident, a veteran Wen Dianxin was mocked and humiliated in the People's Court of Jinzhou District in Dalin by the judges when he sued his employer, a Japanese company.