US Senators Push Jimmy Lai Internet Freedom Act for Hong Kong
Circumvention tools · 03.10.2026

Senators Tim Kaine and James Lankford have introduced a bill in Congress with a telling name — the Jimmy Lai Internet Freedom Act. It's named after Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong publisher and pro-democracy activist sentenced by a local court to 20 years in prison under the National Security Law. As a reminder, that's the very law that gave Hong Kong authorities expanded powers to censor the internet and collect user data — alongside suppressing freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.

The logic of the bill is simple: since Beijing turned national security into a tool for cleaning up the internet, the US is responding institutionally. Within the State Department, in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the bill proposes creating a Hong Kong Internet Freedom Program. In parallel, a similar program would be established at the Open Technology Fund. Both are meant to work with an interagency working group tasked with developing a strategy for internet resilience and access in Hong Kong.

Kaine puts it bluntly: internet restrictions in Hong Kong are a blatant attempt to crush dissent and cut off the free flow of information. The law is meant to strengthen the ability of the State Department and other agencies to counter Beijing's censorship.

This isn't the duo's first attempt. The two lawmakers previously introduced the Safeguarding Internet Freedom in Hong Kong Act — right after the National Security Law was enacted. That initiative focused on developing and deploying firewall circumvention technologies so that Hong Kong residents could access information and communicate freely.

A telling detail of our era: for a person in Hong Kong to simply go online without consequences, a separate federal law from another country is required. They call this progress.

Source: https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-lankford-introduce-jimmy-lai-internet-freedom-act-to-counter-chinas-internet-censorship-in-hong-kong