Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says Northern California's technology companies are instrumental to the Obama Administration's goals for promoting peace and prosperity abroad. Clinton was in San Francisco Friday evening speaking to a sold-out audience of about 1,500 at the nonpartisan Commonwealth Club.
Calling Silicon Valley a model for the administration's efforts to promote what she termed the "freedom to connect," she credited companies such as Facebook with keeping the nation's economic hopes alive during the recession.
Clinton gave the example of young students in Syria using cell phones and Facebook to alert the world about beatings inflicted by their teachers.