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The Courts China Communications Government Security United States

Huawei Sues the US In Pushback Against Security Risk Claims (latimes.com) 118

Posted by BeauHD from the fighting-back dept.
hackingbear writes: A suit filed by Huawei in Texas, where an American subsidy is located, this week is the latest maneuver in the Chinese telecommunications giant's global offensive against American pressure and persistent criticisms that it poses a national security risk. The company's lawsuit contends that the law which bans Huawei equipment without evidence and trial is a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. also argues that Huawei poses an unacceptable security risk due to its tie with the Chinese government, though a 2003 due diligence by Motorola in a merger talk found Huawei was independent (Warning: source paywalled) of Chinese government or military (the merger failed after Motorola board thought the $7.5 billion price tag for Huawei was too high.) In the lawsuit announcement, Huawei Chairman Guo Ping also accused U.S. agencies of hacking Huawei servers and stealing emails and source code. In a similar case, China's Sanyi sued the Obama administration and forced CFIUS to determine that the the company's acquisitions "have not raised national security objections."
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Huawei Sues the US In Pushback Against Security Risk Claims More

Huawei Sues the US In Pushback Against Security Risk Claims

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  • Lol (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Good luck suing the US in Texas, Chinese company.

  • It's so laughable, good luck Chi-Coms (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In US Court, invoking the US Constitution.... after all that bluster and evading US law and the shell corporation they used so transparently obvious... are they asking for a public undressing or what? Discovery requests, inbound.

    The public is about to see Huawei's Chi-Com fupa in a few months.

  • Dead in the water. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Non-citizens have human rights, but not constitutional rights. SCOTUS has already decided that.

    No one has the inalienable right to do business in the US.

    Any one's constitutional rights can be suspended for public safety or national security.

    Huawei should be fined for wasting the court's time and their lawyers sanctioned.

    • If a case never even should have been filed, typically it is only the lawyer that gets penalized, not the client.

    • Wrong. An American company has constitution rights, whether its owned by US or foreign citizen / company.

    • Wow, 0/4 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 )

      You are 0% correct.

      Non-citizens have human rights, but not constitutional rights.

      Constitutional rights protect everyone on US soil. One justice disagrees with that (Thomas), and it's news because it's not normal.

      No one has the inalienable right to do business in the US.

      All US citizens do, for sure. And, under international treaties and organizations (e.g. the WTO), so do the ones from many other countries.

      Any one's constitutional rights can be suspended for public safety or national security.

      Citation desp

      • WTO doesn't grant companies the right to do business here. That's nonsense. If that was true, American businesses could go to China and open local branches. Good luck with that.

        WTO says you have to treat imports the same regardless of which country they're from. That doesn't mean that foreign companies can also come here and be the importers.

        The reason foreign businesses can do business in the US so easily is merely because of US policy, not because of "rights."

        • The WTO is not symmetric, and for some reason China still benefits from many exceptions to the rules allowing "developing nations" to protect their local companies. The WTO isn't just concerned with material goods anymore, poking their noses into flows of capital, services and intellectual property.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I feel a touch of nationalism coming on (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @08:49PM (#58234996) Journal

    It's fair to say the American nation isn't the envy of the World it once used to be, but the fact the Chinese can sue in American courts with a decent chance to win still says a lot about the differences between the two juggernaut nations.

    “Congress acted unconstitutionally as judge, jury and executioner,” Huawei executive Guo Ping said Thursday after announcing the court action.

    Guo Ping's evidently been binge-watching some Mandarin-dubbed spaghetti westerns.

    • It's fair to say the American nation isn't the envy of the World it once used to be, but the fact the Chinese can sue in American courts with a decent chance to win still says a lot about the differences between the two juggernaut nations.

      (...bold mine...)

      Looked at the situation through another lens...

      Whereas one nation has sought to assert its will onto others, it's found one that will not simply sit back and watch. Huawei is fighting back.

      In addition, of the two juggernaut nations, one has had a proven MO of fomenting chaos [wikipedia.org] (read regime change) in distant lands, the other country has mostly followed bilateral cooperation even though some experts have seen this as a form of imperialism.

      Think about that!

    • and that nationalism started Nazi Germany and china is doing stuff that the Nazis did.

    • the fact the Chinese can sue in American courts with a decent chance to win still says a lot about the differences between the two juggernaut nations.

      The differences only exist [finnegan.com] in [nytimes.com] your brain [lexology.com], washed over by American propaganda [quora.com].

      • Sorry, I'm confused ... are you ignoring the fact that the current case is one of a Chinese company suing the US government, while your example cases are ones of foreign companies suing Chinese companies? Or are you just implicitly acknowledging that Chinese companies are in fact an extension of their government, and, as such, assuming that suing a Chinese company is equivalent to suing their government?

        • 1. the GP talked about just "suing in American court" and not specifically "suing US government in American court"

          2. if you haven't heard of those in the biased American media, doesn't mean they don't exist [hexun.com]. (Of course, given you speak on China without knowing much, you obviously don't actually read in Chinese and need some help from online translation.) (And I'm claiming these cases are frequent, but GP claimed there is none. They are rare maybe because foreign companies are actually quite happy in China [iam-media.com].)

    • And like all patriotic Americans, your feelings are rooted in fear, racism, and hatred of immigrants. The Chinese Exclusion Act had a lot in common with how you feel: "keep the dirty slants out of our pure USA". What's next, reestablishing Jim Crow?

      • Some of the most patriotic Americans are those who have most recently become citizens. They left shitty countries and people in them behind to seek out better futures in the US. Try again.

        Five yard penalty for wasting everyone's time. Repeat first down.

    • It's fair to say the American nation isn't the envy of the World it once used to be, but the fact the Chinese can sue in American courts with a decent chance to win still says a lot about the differences between the two juggernaut nations.

      I'm not a lawyer, but I have several friends who are. I'm American by the way. Let's just say I think Huawei's chance of winning is a lot lower than you do.

  • ...though having a viewport into the net is also something that all governments want to keep. We're all expecting naughtiness on the internet and are practicing "safe sex" though eh?

  • Laughed out of court (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @09:54PM (#58235186)

    The company's lawsuit contends that the law which bans Huawei equipment without evidence and trial is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

    Anyone that's even heard of a clue, let alone has half of one, knows that national security is a valid and perfectly constitutional reason to prohibit government agencies from purchasing equipment or services from a foreign actor.

    They are challenging John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA 2019) [wikipedia.org], specifically Section 889 [congress.gov].

    Nothing in the law prevent private businesses from buying Huawei equipment but doing so could effectively lock them out of doing business with the federal government. It's just like the Kaspersky Anti-Virus situation where people a free to use it but it's a big no-no for the federal government.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Doesn't it concern you that the government can just say "national security concerns" and ban pretty much anything? Even if it's not a ban on private business use, businesses are going to heed that message, especially if they want government contracts.

      Ping is right, if there is no oversight or evidence required then the government is out of control and the normal system of checks and balances has failed.

      • Not really no, because they aren't telling me I can't buy Huawei. They are telling government employees they can't purchase for it work. Business restrict vendor options all the time for a multitude of reasons. The US government doesn't have to buy Huawei equipment if they don't want to and they don't even have to give a reason. I only buy HP servers for my business. I like to keep my data center as uniform as possible in terms of hardware, configs and support contracts. That doesn't give Dell or anyone els

      • Doesn't it concern you that the government can just say "national security concerns" and ban pretty much anything?

        Not really because they are only banning it for government use. As long as I'm free to make my own mistakes, it's all good.

        Ping is right, if there is no oversight or evidence required then the government is out of control and the normal system of checks and balances has failed.

        No, not really because A) the government is only setting rules for the government (not the people) and B) two branches of government (Executive and Legislative) have cooperated to create this ban.

        Ping is just trying to have it both ways, knows he can't and is muddying the waters as much as possible so that useful idiots like you won't recognize this is the government acting properly.

      • Doesn't it concern you that the government can just say "national security concerns" and ban pretty much anything? Even if it's not a ban on private business use, businesses are going to heed that message, especially if they want government contracts.

        Nope. As an American, possessing Free Speech, if the Government banned use of my equipment by Government I'd simply use it in a marketing campaign and wallow in increased sales.

        If it hurts sales, it is because they're a foreign company, controlled by a largely-hostile foreign government, who positions themselves as a political and military rival of the US. That's normal. It is the US Government's job to warn us about that sort of threat, so as a side-effect of their spending decision, it is entirely within

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by f16c ( 13581 )

      The constitution is for US citizens and US companies. They would like to expand the reach to China-owned companies doing business here. Sure. Right after they stop targeting US technology, secrets and businesses. This law suit isn't going anywhere, even in the state of Texas. This a a big waste of money and time.

  • Huawei: The story of a controversial company (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Huawei [bbc.co.uk]
    Interesting article. Here's some snippets:

    "The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a shiny spaceship-like structure that glistens in the afternoon sun.

    In 2006, Beijing pledged $200m to build the headquarters. Completed in 2012, everything was custom-built by the Chinese - including a state-of-the-art computer system.

    But in January 2018, French newspaper Le Monde Afrique dropped a bombshell.

    It reported that the AU’s computer system had been co

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