A Google executive pushed back against accusations that the company has been infiltrated by China during a hearing in Washington on July 16.
President Donald Trump said his administration would “take a look” into the issue after it was raised by Peter Thiel, a high-profile investor who sits on the board of Facebook.
Thiel said at a recent conference, “Does Google’s senior management consider itself to have been thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?”
“Is it because they consider themselves to be so thoroughly infiltrated that they have engaged in the seemingly treasonous decision to work with the Chinese military and not with the U.S. military?” he added.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked Karan Bhatia, a top executive at the company, about the accusations during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on Tuesday, reported the Washington Examiner.
“Have you found any evidence of infiltration of your management or your private data by Chinese intelligence?” Blumenthal asked.
“Absolutely not,” Bhatia replied.
Blumenthal then asked if the company made any decisions about working or not working with the United States government based on pressure from China and Bhatia said no. He again said no when asked if Google had hidden “a leak of its software or private data to Chinese intelligence.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) then asked, “You’re confident that Google hasn’t been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence?” to which Bhatia said Google saw “no evidence of that.”
Bhatia said that Google left China in 2010 and does little business there in the present day.
That was in response to Hawley quoting Gen. Joseph Dunford of the Joint Chief of Staffs, who had said, “Typically, if a company does business in China, they’re automatically going to be required to have a cell of the Communist Party in that company and that is going to lead to the intellectual property from that company finding its way to the Chinese military.”
A Google spokesperson said earlier this year: “We are not working with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas, including cybersecurity, recruiting and health care.”
Bhatia during the hearing declined to commit to an independent audit of its practices over the company’s bias against conservatives, which has been seen in a number of leaks to Breitbart and other media outlets.
While Facebook and Twitter have both committed to such audits, Bhatia said Google is in a “very different situation,” reported The Washington Times.
“I’m not sure a single audit of the entirety of what our guidelines and policies are would be viable,” he testified.
Both Hawley and Blumenthal responded.
“Trust and patience with your monopoly have run out, and it’s certainly run out with me,” Hawley said.
“You can’t simply unleash the monster and say it’s too big to control,” Blumenthal added. “You have a moral responsibility, even if you have that legal protection. Again, with all due respect, I think there is a moral imperative here, and the hourglass has run out.”
During the hearing, Bhatia revealed that Project Dragonfly has been terminated.
The Google search engine was planned for China and was going to include censorship from the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Leaked documents revealed the existence of the planned engine in August 2018, more than a year after the project was launched. Google employees pushed the company to halt the project, with a senior employee even quitting over it.
