Shareholders Squeeze Cisco on Human Rights

Comatose51 writes "According to this article at Wired, Boston Common Asset Management, has filed a shareholders resolution asking Cisco to 'adopt a comprehensive human rights policy for its dealings with the Chinese government, and with other states practicing political censorship of the internet.' Cisco so far has asked the SEC to omit this proposal from the agenda for the next annual meeting, claiming that it already has a comprehensive human rights policy in place and that 'Cisco does not participate in any way in any censorship activities in the People's Republic of China ...' However, 'a report from the OpenNet Initiative watchdog group last April singled out Cisco for allegedly enabling the Chinese government's notorious "Great Firewall."' As a shareholder in Cisco, I would like to see this issue discussed and voted on."

Comments

Yawn!

[gearmonger]

Feh, if every company tried to impose its ideas of social justice on the governments it does business with, we'd have one monster of a mess on our hands. Leave the companies to make money and the voters to tell the government how to behave.

Oh, wait.

i concur

[Anonymous Coward]

Me and all 10 of my shares would like to see something done about this!

plausible deniability

[SuperBanana]

claiming that it already has a comprehensive human rights policy in place and that 'Cisco does not participate in any way in any censorship activities in the People's Republic of China

Oh, of course they don't. But I bet they help wash the dishes. Excerpt from the Chinese translation of the Cisco Stonewaller 3000:

Dishwashing function:

The Stonewaller 3000 features extensive "dishwashing" capabilities. For example, if you would like to block all "dishes" from a certain "dish maker", execute:

dishwash add [dishmaker's website URL] [peasant | party member | chairman] (allow||deny) [notify]

Note: notify sends notification upon use of "dirty" "dishes" to assist you in maintaining clean "cupboards".

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On a more serious note- Cisco just has to maintain some plausible deniability. Clothing companies have this down pat. They set up a policy that looks great to consumers, and then promptly hire a subcontractor who runs sweat shops.

When a human rights company figures out what is going on, it's nearly impossible for them to come up with hard evidence management at the company knew about the subcontractor's sweat shops; the company releases a press release saying "gosh, we're so sorry, this is all the fault of our contractor." The contractor is fired, the contractor disappears off the face of the earth, and a new contractor with a different name pops up and suddenly out of the middle of nowhere, scores a big contract with a famous clothing company.

Re:geez,

[TheGavster]

The interesting similarity is this pair of conversations:

China: I need a router.
Cisco: What sort of router?
China: A router that can filter all mention of free thought and democracy.
Cisco: Ah, you want the UberWhip9000.

Parent: I need a router.
Best Buy: What sort of router?
Parent: A router that can block off large portions of the internet.
Best Buy: Ah, you want the SuperRouter9000.

So, really, the Chinese government is one giant safety mom, with a billion kids. That minivan must get really poor gas milage.