On January 13, 2010, the news agency AHN reported that the U.S. Congress planned to investigate Google's allegations that the Chinese government used the company's service to spy on human rights activists. In a major speech by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, analogies were drawn between the Berlin Wall and the free and unfree Internet. Chinese articles came back saying that the United States uses the internet as a means to create worldwide hegemony based on Western values. The issue of Google's changed policy toward China was cited as a potentially major development in world affairs, marking a split between authoritarian socialism and the Western model of free capitalism and Internet access.