EFF Told CISCO Stop Helping Communism Regime Abuse Human Rights

One unique characteristic of high tech companies in the Internet era was their conscience awareness. Google's unofficial 'do no evil' earned them not only reputation and respect, but businesses.

However, there are a few exceptions. One is Yahoo, the other is Cisco. Both earned commissions on helping the communism regime in detecting and putting human rights activists in jail.

Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a campaign to tell Cisco: Stop Helping China Abuse Human Rights.

Tell Cisco: Stop helping China abuse human rights!

Chinese dissident writer Du Daobin may face imprisonment and torture for trying to hold Cisco accountable. Urge Cisco Systems to intervene on Mr. Du's behalf and to stop helping China abuse human rights. Sign our petition now!

Reports indicate that networking giant Cisco Systems, Inc., an American company based in Silicon Valley, has been knowingly selling Internet surveillance and censorship tools to the Chinese government for years. The Chinese government's "Great Firewall" prevents Internet users in China from accessing much of the Internet, including online references to Tiananmen Square and the Jasmine Revolution, as well as social media sites like Facebook. In addition to blocking access to information, these tools have enabled the Chinese government to spy on its citizens and may include special customization to target individuals working to protect human rights and build democracy in China.

Du Daobin, a dissident writer in China, was reportedly detained and interrogated by the Chinese government specifically about a lawsuit he and other Chinese dissidents brought against Cisco. In June 2011, the activists sued Cisco and a number of Cisco executives in the United States District Court in Maryland for their "knowing and willful aiding and abetting of the Chinese government's harassment, arrest, and torture of Chinese political activists."

According to his lawyers,

Mr. Du's persecution began in 2003, when he was arrested while his house was raided by Chinese authorities. On June 11, 2004, he was charged with "inciting to subvert state power" and was sentenced to three years in prison for posting pro-democracy articles online. Instead of immediately serving that sentence, he was placed under probation for four years, after which it was determined that he violated the terms of his probation and was then forced to serve his original three year prison sentence. During his imprisonment, Mr. Du was subjected to extreme physical and psychological torture. By the time of his release in 2010, Du was suffering from extreme malnutrition, cardiac issues, could no longer walk without assistance, and was dependent on a wheelchair.

We believe Mr. Du has since been released, but he still faces the possibility of more imprisonment and torture for challenging an American company's policies and speaking out against censorship. Help us defend this political activist, and call on American companies to defend human rights rather than selling the tools of repression! Sign our petition to tell Cisco to intervene on behalf of Mr. Du and to commit to standing up for human rights.

An in-depth discussion of the background o this case can be found at EFF's site by clicking here.

Facebook's Falling Path

History does repeat itself. Yahoo's struggle started with it's infamous 3721 team, which equated Yahoo a nickname of largest malware warehouse in Chinese online world. Years later, Facebook is appending itself to Yahoo's falling path in China by tying itself with Baidu, the infamous official sponsored search engine which drew Google out of Chinese market.

Any reader with knowledge of Mark Zuckerberg's personal talk with Baidu's founder Li Yanhong should not be surprised when Facebook's secret smear campaign against Google was uncovered. Facebook's mission of beating Google to a moral new low is bound to be a fool's errand.

Ethics in IT Companies

Microsoft rejected EFF's accusation that it had intendedly closed the encrypted connection channel in his HOTMAIL email service in countries with political contentions between the people and the government. The areas where HTTPS, an encrypted communication protocol, were shut shown by Microsoft's Hotmail include Bahrain, Iran, Sudan among a few others.

Microsoft's move was viewed by many as a calculated step made to appease autocratic regimes so that they could use eavesdropping software to monitor politically sensitive messages. When users of Hotmail use HTTPS, they would receive a notice which says, 'your Windows ID can't use HTTPS because .. account type'. EFF pointed out a trick that the user could easily turn on the feature by selecting a county not effected in the account setting, for example, Japan or Canada.

IT companies often face the dilemma between making profit and user protection. Yahoo knowingly volunteered user information to Beijing's communist regime resulted in lengthy jail time for its users. Google set up servers in China for Chinese market so that they could be technically monitored. Cisco helped the secret police to develop China's Internet traffic monitoring system. Their track record is so bad that everyone question their real intention even when it seems someone is trying to do the right thing. Last year, when Google announced they would stopped filtering search result in China, they were not welcomed, but accused of advancing business in disguise of political messages. They accusers were not disappointed when it turned out that Google never stopped filtering 'sensitive words' in China, although they claimed they had acted.

Yahoo Buys Understanding on Jailed Journalists

Families of Jailed Chinese journalists settled with Yahoo on a case filed in California alleging Yahoo unnecessarily assisted the Communism Police in convicting and jailing of journalists not liked by the state.

Yahoo's Jerry Yang was grilled on the Capital Hill on the ordeal earlier this month.

Per undisclosed terms, Yahoo will set up a fund to help the life of the families of jailed journalists. The journalists were using Yahoo EMail accounts, which were turned over to Chinese authorities. The tricky point is they were not using Yahoo China, that might be obliged by law to cooperate with the authority.

An Inconvenient Truth About Yahoo

100 lbs and barely 5 feet tall, 55 years old Yu Ling is determined to put a human face on the pain caused by the collaboration between Yahoo and the Chinese Internet cops. Her husband Wang Xiaoning was arrested in 2002, and is serving a 10 years jail for his crime of using a Yahoo EMail address. According to the court ruling released by the Chinese court, Wang was identified and located based on information transferred to the Chinese Internet cops from Yahoo Hong Kong, a Hong Kong based Yahoo subsidiary that is not obliged by law to comply with requests from the mainland police.

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