Iranian Police Tracking Dissidents Using Tech From Western Companies

chrb writes "A recent article at Bloomberg discusses Western companies supplying monitoring equipment to Iran. There are few regulations restricting the sale of intelligence monitoring systems to the Iranian government, and large corporations like Ericsson and Nokia have supplied the equipment used to identify dissidents and suppress anti-government protests. '[One such system from Creativity Software] can record a person’s location every 15 seconds — eight times more frequently than a similar system the company sold in Yemen, according to company documents. A tool called "geofences" triggers an alarm when two targets come in close proximity to each other. The system also stores the data and can generate reports of a person's movements. A former Creativity Software manager said the Iran system was far more sophisticated than any other systems the company had sold in the Middle East.'"

Comments

Profit!

[wsxyz]

Hey, we're not in business to preserve human rights. In fact, we would be legally liable for failing our fiduciary duty to our shareholders if we failed to pursue the lucrative oppression-assistance market. We were incorporated to pursue profit and, by golly, that's what we're doing!

Re:Profit!

[Reverand Dave]

Really, it's just the corporations getting practice for when they have to track the dissidents for their own purposes. Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Re:Profit!

[Bardwick]

I know your trying to take a shot, but to answer your question, yes. When did a company become responsible for governments using/misusing thier technology/product? Our own govt. (U.S.) uses Sun boxes and Cisco switches to monitor ME. Think the US government isn't using similar software/hardware to monitor dissidents (Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, Neo Nazi, etc..). It's a snow job blaming big companies (which is all the rage today). It reminds me when global warming fired up, even the traffic reports changed: Before global warming debate: "Intoxicated man ran over a pedestrian." After: "Intoxicated driver's SUV ran over a pedestrian".

Re:Profit!

[Bardwick]

I'm an idiot because your arguing a different point (which i agree with oddly). My point is that it's not up to the individual business to decided who is nice enough to buy thier technology. If Nokia sold them equipment/technology that was against U.S. policy, then by all means, prosecute. Use your own examples, They are all illegal. What Nokia did was legal. I take issue with some business practices, but I'm also going to call bullshit when I see it. GE paid no taxes so GE=bad. Why? Did they follow all current tax laws? Yes? Did they get write downs for losing thier ass the year before (shh.. it's a secret), yes. Ask yourself, "Can Krogers decide to not sell food to Muslims?". In short, if you want something illegal, make it illegal. BTW, as the IDIOT of the group, can you point out, in any way the part of your post the refutes mine?

Re:Profit!

[Chris Burke]

My point is that it's not up to the individual business to decided who is nice enough to buy thier technology.

It is up to every individual, whether they're a blue-collar working-class stiff, or CEO of a Fortune 500, to make ethical decisions.

Anyone who sold surveillance equipment to Iran knew they were making an unethical sale, but they simply didn't give a shit. Legality isn't ethics, so the defense that it was legal is just another way of saying that they don't give a shit about ethics or morals, they only care about any consequences they personally may face.

We try to make unethical business practices illegal, because we know the sociopaths running many corporations will not behave ethically willingly. Often this happens as a consequence of them engaging in unethical activity and using the "well it was legal" excuse.

Not everyone behaves ethically only to the extent that the law requires them to. Including CEOs. It is an individual choice to do so.

So sure, maybe selling this equipment to Iran was legal for the companies that did it. It was still unethical, it was still wrong, and I will not refrain from saying so.

The idea that because they can't be prosecuted for doing it, that therefore it wasn't unethical, or that it isn't their responsibility to be ethical, is the argument of amoral cads with no ethics to begin with.

Ethics

[scot4875]

Let me just say: fuck Creativity Software and fuck any programmer willing to work for them. There's this thing called 'ethics' and if they choose to violate the most basic premises to enable people to do shit like this, the outcomes are also on *their* heads. None of this "just doing my job" bullshit.

--Jeremy

Re:Ethics

[Concerned Onlooker]

Probably. This is how oppression works. Not just simply by forcing people to do things--too labor intensive--but by stacking the deck against them so they feel they have no choice but to participate in the BS because they have to put food on the table. BS is institutionalized.

What's the solution, then?

[liquidweaver]

FYI - I couldn't be more against despotic regimes, I don't fly because of the TSA... I'm not an apologist.
I do; however, have the same question anytime this article runs on Slashdot (Bluecoat /Syria was before this one)
If you are Ericcson/Cisco/Bluecoat/Juniper/etc, how do you ensure your tech never ends up being used for "evil"?
Who is evil? Should network filtering equipment be declared munitions and its export controlled? Should they include a killswitch so if it gets in the hands of an evil dictator it can be disabled? Should Nokia do background checks on all potential buyers to try to predict whether or not they are straw purchasers for evil entities?

Both of those ideas some either really far fetched, impractical, or inethical in themselves... so my question is - if you feel a hatin' rising up after reading this about Ericcson/Nokia - what should they do?

Businesses are not the only ones doing this

[MikeRT]

Most of the weapons that have flooded the third world come from Russia (or the Soviet Union in the past), China or a handful of other countries that routinely ignore international law and protocol on arms dealing. Where was the outrage when the Libyan rebels found all of those brand new Chinese weapons from the Chinese state-owned weapons makers in Gaddafi's posession? Ever notice the dearth of American weapons in all of the third world killing zones?

Frankly, I don't think the pursuit of profit is any more crass than the pursuit of political influence. Either way, you are putting your own good above doing the right thing.

Blaming the gun shop?

[poity]

Didn't past articles say they were smuggled into Iran by Dubai-based buyers?
I guess we can have a debate about how many degrees of separation is needed for effective export restrictions, but I don't know how we can ever draw the lines to be reasonable.

IBM did the same thing in WWII

[Kagato]

Back in WWII IBM's Brazilian division kept working with and suppling IBM's German division. The IBM's Hollerith punch card system was updated to be the workflow system for the holocaust. According to the author of the book IBM and the Holocaust when IBM USA found out IBM Brazil was still working with German division their response was a request no longer to be told of the activities. At the same time IBM was one of the few companies that knew when the D-Day invasion would be as it was actively using computer power to predict the best weather for the invasion.

Hog Wash

[Frosty Piss]

In fact, we would be legally liable for failing our fiduciary duty to our shareholders

This is not strictly true, though it is often quoted from someplace, usually someoneâ(TM)s ass.

A company has the responsibility to do what is best for the stockholders. There is NO law requiring publically traded companies to pursue profit above all other considerations.