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EFF: Cisco Shouldn't Get Off the Hook For Aiding Torture In China (eff.org)
itwbennett writes: In a lawsuit in Northern California that was dismissed in 2014, Falun Gong practitioners alleged that Cisco Systems built a security system, dubbed "Golden Shield," for the Chinese government knowing it would be used to track and persecute members of the religious minority. That case is being appealed, and on Monday the EFF, Privacy International and free-speech group Article 19 filed a brief that supports the appeal. Many U.S. and European companies sell technology to regimes that violate human rights, and if this case goes to trial and Cisco loses, they may think twice, said EFF Staff Attorney Sophia Cope. "In a lot of instances, these companies are selling directly to the government, and they know exactly what is going to be happening," Cope said.
this is just ridiculous.
What's next?
Someone intentionally runs down another person with their car and Ford gets sued?
Ginsu gets sued because some nutso housewife decided to stab her spouse and their spawns?
The local water company gets sued when someone drowns someone in a bath tub, because after all, the water company provided the water....
From TFA:
The Golden Shield system included a library of Falun Gong Internet activity enabling the Chinese government to identify Falun Gong members online, according to the lawsuit. The case also contains strong evidence that Cisco created systems for storing and sharing information about “forced conversion”—i.e. torture—sessions for use as training tools.
The cooperation was also documented in internal marketing literature, where a Cisco engineer described the company’s commitment to China’s security objectives, including the “douzhung” of Falun Gong practitioners. Douzhung is a term describing abuse campaigns against disfavored groups comprising of persecution and torture.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
What's next?
Next up, they should sue Booz Allen (Snowden's employer) for violating the rights of millions of Americans, along with any other corporation that sold goods or services to the NSA/CIA/FBI/TSA.
If someone comes to you and says "I need you to sell me a system which we can use to track and arrest dissidents", you can't claim you had no idea of what it was being used for.
Companies routinely sell to nations with the fill knowledge the purpose of the technology isn't entirely benign.
In fact, according to TFA, there is a law on the books called the Alien Tort Law which specifically says you can't do this without consequences.
This is nothing at all like suing Ford because of the actions of a driver. Because in this case Cisco was likely an active participant.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
this is just ridiculous.
What's next?
Someone intentionally runs down another person with their car and Ford gets sued?
Ginsu gets sued because some nutso housewife decided to stab her spouse and their spawns?
The local water company gets sued when someone drowns someone in a bath tub, because after all, the water company provided the water....
From TFA:
The Golden Shield system included a library of Falun Gong Internet activity enabling the Chinese government to identify Falun Gong members online, according to the lawsuit. The case also contains strong evidence that Cisco created systems for storing and sharing information about “forced conversion”—i.e. torture—sessions for use as training tools.
The cooperation was also documented in internal marketing literature, where a Cisco engineer described the company’s commitment to China’s security objectives, including the “douzhung” of Falun Gong practitioners. Douzhung is a term describing abuse campaigns against disfavored groups comprising of persecution and torture.
Denying countries the tools they need to commit human rights violations is not a new tactic. Even if the lawsuits fail, companies have been named and shamed. This is quite effective a lot of the time. The US has performed far fewer lethal injection executions after the EU named and shamed the companies that make the drugs. It wasn't worth the bad publicity for a tiny part of their business.
It will be interesting to see how Cisco responds. Supplying large and presumably very expensive IT systems to the Chinese government is probably a much larger business than 100 or so doses of specialized drugs that have no other good uses. It may be worth it to Cisco to try to weather the PR storm.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I think its a pretty strait forward mens rea question, did you know or should your reasonably have know you were materially contributing to the violation of human rights.
Others have asked should Ford be responsible if you buy a car and run someone over. No clearly not because Ford has no reason to think you want that car for anything besides driving it to work the grocery store and taking a family road trip once in a while. In most cases.
On the other hand if [walk] into the dealer the first thing you ask is "Show me something I can run over my ex-girlfriend with tonight" maybe someone ought to make a phone call, and not sell you a car just then.
Same thing with guns. The manufacture has no reason to think you want the weapon for anything other than shooting sports, or self defense. So that fines.
I would not expect the any liability to go to the fold providing materials for the construction of GitMo either. The US military has plenty of legitimate applications for wire fence, concrete, dry wall, coffee makers, etc. There was no reason to think as a contract building a prison it was going to be used as a torture facility.
Cisco on the other hand knows exactly China was going to use the gear for. They practically told them as much, from what I have read. There have been plenty of past cases where equipment was used that way.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
On the other hand if [walk] into the dealer the first thing you ask is "Show me something I can run over my ex-girlfriend with tonight" maybe someone ought to make a phone call, and not sell you a car just then.
And what Cisco did is the equivalent of the car salesman instead responding with "I can get you just the thing for that! We can customize this SUV with bludgeoning metal bars on the front, lacerating blades underneath, and a targeting system to keep track of her if she tries to escape!" And sadly that was legal in the prospective buyers' jurisdiction...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
O for crying out loud! This is NOT about 'doing business in or with China'. The suit is that Cisco ACTIVELY KNEW what their technology would be used for. My company does business in/with China, our product is used to save lives, it can be used to take them (in a very weird & wholly unsatisfactory way but it can be dangerous). Now I don't know for a fact this has or hasn't happened, but if someone in China came to us & asked us to sell our product to them specifically for the purposes of killing someone I'd damn well hope we'd say 'no' but if we didn't I'd damn well hope that whomever said 'yes' was tried, convicted & thrown in jail for murder.
If someone comes & asks you for your car/gun/knife 'for the purpose of killing ' AND you give them that car/gun/knife then you are 'abetting in a criminal offence' & you should be tried as an accomplice. You can NOT argue that you were just loaning them an inanimate object & 'what they do with it is none of my business'. Knowledge of the motive & expected usage is the point here. Heck, I can make this even less obvious but no less implicating you. If you happen to overhear a friend of yours yelling at her husband (I mean like really screaming with threats etc.) & she says something like "I'm going to Kohath, ask him for his gun & come back here & shoot your sorry ass!"...than if 10 minutes later she tracks you down & asks for your gun AND you give it to her AND she does in fact go shoot her husband you are an accomplice to the shooting because 'you had reasonable knowledge to suspect she'd use if for an unlawful purpose'...of course PROVING you had that knowledge would be the hard part but no matter how hard it might be to prove it doesn't remove the fact that you knew the purpose for which she asked to borrow your gun.
But why is it the EFF's concern? Shouldn't the EFF be arguing against court actions that encumber data equipment sales?
Are they for electronic freedom, or are they just another leftist grievance profiteer?
Filing Amicus briefs are what organizations like EFF, ACLU and NRA do in cases they want to support or oppose. In this case, I think it depends on the facts of the case which should come out in discovery. It could be that CISCO did in fact have people actually customizing code and hardware to specifically target these groups, in which case they crossed a line that should make them liable.
EFF exists to promote freedom. If companies are actively engaged in suppressing free speech and harming people that are expressing themselves in ways that don't promote violence online then they damn well should be making those companies pay a high price for their unethical behavior. On the other hand if CISCO just provided some technology and it happened to be used for unethical purposes without their active participation then I agree that companies should be free to sell their technology without being liable for how others choose to use it. And EFF would be on the wrong side if they were claiming a broader form of liability. Like saying Ford should be liable if someone it sells a car to decides to mow down a bunch of pedestrians.
The key is whether CISCO crossed a line and whether there is enough evidence that they did in order to trigger discovery which would force CISCO to provide relevant documents and witnesses. Without reading the case I think that is hard to say. But often these types of products come with support packages that could have involved specific customization.