Tom Lantos– the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the US Congress– has died at the age of 80.
As I noted here in 2006, Lantos was one of five members of Congress arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington while protesting the genocide in Darfur.
Lantos was also among the members of Congress who denounced US internet companies like Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft for cooperating with Chinese government efforts to control cyber dissent.
At a Congressional hearing last November, Lantos angrily took Yahoo executives to task for the company’s role in ratting out dissident journalist Shi Tao to Chinese authorities.
“While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,” Lantos told Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s chief executive, and Michael J. Callahan, the general counsel.
