Cisco Sued For Helping China Repress Falun Gong

from the under-what-basis? dept

News.com has a report of a class action lawsuit, filed by 11 plaintiffs who claimed they were tortured by the Chinese government, against Cisco for apparently supplying the government with the tools to track and (in some cases, falsely) arrest supposed members of Falun Gong:

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Golden Shield--described in Cisco marketing materials as Policenet--resulted in the arrest of as many as 5,000 Falun Gong members. Cisco "competed aggressively" for the contracts to design the Golden Shield system "with full knowledge that it was to be used for the suppression of the Falun Gong religion," according to the lawsuit.

While I find the Chinese government's actions in suppressing dissident reprehensible, I'm not at all sure how there's a legitimate case against Cisco here. It may have made a bad decision to do business with the Chinese government, but is that illegal? While News.com doesn't supply a copy of the lawsuit (and why not?), I can't see what legitimate charges there can be here. This seems like yet another case of misapplied liability. Obviously, these people feel they can't go after the Chinese government, but using Cisco as a legal proxy doesn't make much sense. I could see protesting Cisco's actions, but suing the company seems like a stretch.

Filed Under: censorship, china, class action, falun gong, lawsuit, repression
Companies: cisco

Four Factors Needed To Make Technology A 'Liberation' Technology

from the understanding-activism dept

There's been something of a silly debate going on for a while now, about whether or not various technologies and social media tools "help" or "hurt" democratic or populist uprisings. Of course, technology is just a tool, and it can be used for good reasons, bad reasons and perfectly neutral reasons. Technology itself is not the impetus behind any of this stuff... but as a tool, it can be used to accelerate, enhance or emphasize certain aspects of what's going on. So while the general debate is silly, it is important to understand the factors that make technology useful in these scenarios. Mathew Ingram points us to an interesting attempt by Mary Joyce to break down what factors really need to be present to make a technology useful for "liberation" as opposed to "repression." You can read all of the details at the link above, but the headline version is:

1. It must transmit political information
2. It must be accessible to a large segment of the population
3. It must allow for effective utilization
4. It must allow for protection of privacy

The article also argues that "repression technologies" requires the reverse. I'm not sure I completely believe that. For example, something that is available to a large segment of the population can certainly be used for repression as well. Still, it is an interesting framework for thinking about how these technology tools are used (or not) in various political conflicts.

Filed Under: liberation, repression, technology

Howard Berman Concerned About Internet-Repressive Regimes, Except If They Help His Friends In Hollywood

from the mickey-mouse dept

We were just discussing the vast similarities between China's internet censorship and what is being proposed in ACTA -- but, of course, not everyone seems to realize those similarities. Nick Dynice points us to the news that Rep. Howard Berman (who represents Hollywood and is sometimes referred to as "the Representative from Disney" given his longstanding support for any law that increases the scope of copyright law) is apparently speaking out against "repressive internet regimes" such as those in China, while at the very same time being a strong supporter of ACTA which could push for very similar "secondary liability" rules for ISPs in the US that are the foundation of Chinese internet censorship.

Nick also points out how amusing it is that, at the same time, Berman, in his role as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has also been knocking China for not doing enough to stop copyright infringement online, complaining about their "weak and ineffectual" measures.

So, apparently, using secondary liability to stop stuff Berman wants stopped is good, but using it to stop stuff Berman doesn't want stopped is bad. But why is it that Howard Berman gets to decide when it's appropriate to force ISPs to block content and when it's not?

Filed Under: acta, censorship, china, copyright, howard berman, internet, repression, three strikes