Many of those businesses — including Google, Yahoo and Bing — have willingly censored their content in countries like China, which maintain limits on free expression as conditions of doing businesses, Durbin explained. Others, including McAfee, have developed Web censor technology similar to that deployed in states that prohibit unfettered Internet access, Durbin continued.
However, few of those companies opted to testify during Tuesday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, which Durbin chairs, he said.
Facebook and Twitter declined invites last week, and computer makers Hewlett-Packard and Apple opted not to comment on censor technology pre-installed on Chinese computers, according to the senator. McAfee, meanwhile, first accepted the opportunity to testify at Tuesday's hearing, but ultimately
declined at the last minute, Durbin added.
Consequently, Durbin stressed it was time for Congress to take more forceful action to ensure tech companies did not abandon U.S. values in order to do business abroad.
"The bottom line is this: With a few notable exceptions, the tech ind seems unwilling to regulate itself and unwilling to engage in a dialogue with Congress on ... human rights challenges..." Durbin said.
"Today, I'm announcing I will introduce legislation that will require Internet companies to take reasonable steps to protect human rights, or face civil and criminal liability," he continued.
Durbin provided few specifics of that bill, notably offering little explanation of how companies could "safeguard" human rights, or what the proposed civil or criminal sanctions might be. But he nonetheless pitched the legislation as crucial at a time when an increasing number of companies are trying to control speech on the Internet.
"The tech industry faces difficult challenges when they deal with repressive governments," Durbin said. "But we have a responsibility as the United States ... to ensure American companies are not complicit in violation of free expression."