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Commerce has since 1997 repeatedly refused to incorporate freedom of expression as a principle guiding the ICANN regime, despite numerous calls for it to do so in public comment sessions. The earliest of these calls came in 1997, during the drafting of the Green Paper leading to ICANN's creation, when the principles guiding the regime were first being formulated. EFF, the Domain Name Rights Coalition and many individuals asked that free expression be written into ICANN's constitution. The most recent reiteration of this call came in 2006, from the Internet Governance Project during a review of ICANN’s status. In each case, Commerce has either ignored or in some cases explicitly rebuffed these calls for recognition of free speech as a part of ICANN’s mandate.

The result was a challenge to the prevalent thinking that the Internet in China is all about entertainment, and that Chinese users will stay complacent under Internet control and management, since greater freedom of expression was allowed right after the quake. But now it remains to be seen whether these changes will have a lasting impact on Internet use in China. With the state returning to its tight pre-quake controls over the Internet, users may resist giving up their recent freedoms.

Apparently we missed that page of the international rule book. We do recall Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though. That's the portion of the United Nations' seminal 1948 document that states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

If Chinese leaders are tired of all the international attention being given to Hu, there's a better solution than high dudgeon from the Foreign Ministry: They could set him free.