Falun Gong Sues Cisco 312
schwit1 submitted a story from CNet. From the article: "Cisco Systems designed a surveillance system to help the Chinese government track and ultimately suppress members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a lawsuit the group filed against the network equipment maker. The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, alleges Cisco supplied and helped maintain a surveillance system known as the 'Golden Shield' that allowed the Chinese government to track and censor the group's Internet activities. As a result of Cisco's technology, Falun Gong members suffered false imprisonment, torture, and wrongful death, according the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the religious group by the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Law Foundation."
Cisco or China? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real issue here is how China is treating those it thinks are part of the Falun Gong movement. Cisco's equipment is one of the tools used to track the movement, but it doesn't seem that Cisco orchestrated the capture, detainment, torture, and deaths of innocent people. China did.
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Re:Religions (Score:5, Insightful)
Blame the victims, always a good side to take.
Actually, religion had an important role in the ancient world, establishment of moral codes that were conductive to building a community and society. The Ten Commandments for example really aren't about control without valid reason, but a good basis for society.
The first few are about there being only one religion, that keeps sectarian violence to a minimum, then a break/worship day - even for slaves. Honor your elders, no murder - leads to revenge killing, takes valuable members of the community away, no adultery - those lead to honor killings, outcasts and revenge killings, no theft, no lying about your neighbors.
Really how are those guidelines bad things?
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is pretty different. The suit alleges that Cisco was actively complicit in the persecution of the Falun Gong. It wasn't like the Chinese gov't bought a bunch of their product made for general use and Cisco had no idea what it was going to be used for.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Insightful)
Compared to commercial gun manufacturers, Cisco probably had a much clearer idea of who they were dealing with and the consequences involved in being complicit -- unless we change the comparison to companies selling guns to known criminals.
Woosh! There goes to the point you are missing! (Score:3, Insightful)
Falung Gong is sueing cisco not because it's right, but it's because it's sensationalism.They want to bring attention to their presecution in china. You can't sue china in china, you can't sue china in the US. So you sue Cisco for providing the equipment to China.
Of course they will lose, but it gets the point across. People in China are being persecuted because of their religion and Cisco is an accomplice. It's not about holding cisco liable for anything lawfully wrong, it's about pointing the morality spotlight towards cisco and china.
Should Falung Gong do this? Hell yes! At most some lawyers get rich, but it is a shot at getting the discussion of religious freedom started.
Maybe (Score:2, Insightful)
Honor your elders, no murder - leads to revenge killing, takes valuable members of the community away, no adultery - those lead to honor killings, outcasts and revenge killings, no theft, no lying about your neighbors.
....which very few people followed because maybe, just maybe, they saw them as just capricious rules with set to control them? On the other hand, if there was a leader-philosopher that explained in a reasoned way why those things - like revenge killings - were not a good idea, people would follow them more often?
I don't know about you, but when the reasoning behind a rule or law is explained, I have a much greater chance of accepting it and following it.
God says NO! Is a shitty and superstitious reason to me.
Since the parent brought up Buddhism, in that "religion" you are encouraged to prove to yourself that the teachings are correct. "If you see the Buddha on the side of the road - kill him!" is the metaphor used.
Mostly I agree: religion was a way for primitive man to teach moral codes. We should be beyond such backward thinking by now. Unfortunately, in 2,000 years, we haven't progressed very much - except for fancier tools.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary and the article both make it pretty clear that Cisco's complicity goes beyond just setting up a surveillance net.
"Cisco Systems designed a surveillance system to help the Chinese government track and ultimately suppress members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a lawsuit the group filed against the network equipment maker.
"The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, alleges Cisco supplied and helped maintain a surveillance system known as the 'Golden Shield' that allowed the Chinese government to track and censor the group's Internet activities.
"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."
This is not to say that the case has any merit, but just to point out that the lawsuit is not the same thing as "families of murder victims suing gun manufactors (sic)".
Re:Religions (Score:4, Insightful)
Having one guy in a black robe thinking he(she) knows better than everyone else to be just as offensive.
Right. That's why laws are made by legislatures in most civilized places, and have been for many hundreds of years (how long as England had a Parliament?). Legislatures consist of a large group of people who represent the people, not just one guy in a black robe. Thus this group of people can argue and come to a consensus before any new law is enacted.
You just happen to believe that man can rule over other men, even as man has proven he cannot even rule himself.
Who else is going to rule over men? Aliens from another planet? Or a god? Where is this god? I haven't seen any, nor any credible evidence of any. I have read stories about some god or gods (it's hard to tell which because they don't seem to have the same personality in all stories) that appeared about 2000 years ago, but then disappeared and haven't been seen since except by a few crackpots. I certainly haven't seen any stone tablets with any laws that we're supposed to follow, only a crazy-sounding story (involving a parting of a sea, clearly an impossible phenomenon) about some stone tablets which are now conveniently missing. Believing that story makes about as much sense as believing that all humans' mental problems come from "body thetans" which are disembodied souls brought here by Xeno on a space-faring 737 airplane and blown up in a volcano by an atomic bomb.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:2, Insightful)
if guns are not used for crimes, then what ARE they used for ? Don't get me wrong, in Canada we do a lot of recreational hunting, but a gun is a tool designed to shoot living things and make them unliving. The only difference between a hunter and a murderer is their choice of target.
Contrast with a Cisco router, which is designed to move information over data cables. No matter how you try to hack the router, it's not going to magically blow someone's brains out the back of their head.
Another important point here is the router does not care what kind of data it is transferring. A packet is a packet is a packet. Packet comes in, packet goes out. It is a neutral tool that does its job, regardless of content or purpose. China is using these to monitor and suppress dissent, but that's China's fault, not Cisco's. It sucks, but the Falun Gong is living under an oppressive, totalitarian, anti-civil-rights regime. If they want to be respected as human beings, their choices are:
1. fix the government, either by social awareness, coercion or good old-fashioned violent uprising
2. move the fuck out to a nicer place. Canada's still pretty friendly, if they can tolerate the weather.
Anything else is a futile waste of time and effort. Blaming random people will not fix China, nor will it buy them a green card to a free country. It will only create even more enemies, what the Falun Gong needs is allies.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is pretty different. The suit alleges that Cisco was actively complicit in the persecution of the Falun Gong. It wasn't like the Chinese gov't bought a bunch of their product made for general use and Cisco had no idea what it was going to be used for.
Given the fact that Cisco consulted the Chinese government on this, the correct analogy is, suing a gun manufacturer that not only sold a gun to a known mass murderer but also found a crowded shopping centre, stored, maintained and loaded the weapon for him.