Does State Department Have A Clue?

I was very encouraged to see in the latest press release from Congressman Smith’s office that his House International Relations Subcommittee hearing tomorrow will be the first ever live-blogged. (Beltway Blogroll picked it up here.)

I was very encouraged to see that one of Congressman Smith’s goals, that the administration pay more attention to this issue, is accomplished in advance of the hearing by, as Rebecca MacKinnon posts: “The State Department has announced the formation of a new task force that will examine the foreign policy aspects of internet freedom.”

Then, I read the rest of Rebecca’s post for the Q&A at the State Department. Josette Shiner, Undersecretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, said:

We feel that this is a top priority to look at the new policy challenges here. So we're not ready today to make any declarations on particular kinds of solutions or particular kinds of challenges. We know that we've had some affect and been able successfully see the Internet now virtually, globally rooted around the world, but we have current challenges that are pretty challenging, and those are the kinds of things that we'll be discussing in the task force.

State Department word-salad. "New policy challenge"? Where have they been at foggy-bottom? The first day of state-incited Muslim riots about the Danish cartoons, State is licking MidEast boots. Years of Chinese exploitation of repressive dual-use technology eagerly sold to them by U.S. hi-tech firms is only now to be studied!

Congressman Smith, press on.

UPDATE: Judith Klinghoffer informs us that, after President Bush expressed true American values, the State Dept. just woke up. State's man for European Affairs, Daniel Fried, today called on "other international leaders to speak up for values such as 'tolerance, respect, sensitivity, freedom, including freedom of expression and justice."