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The Courts China United States Technology

Huawei Asks Court To Declare US Government Ban Unconstitutional (engadget.com) 144

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Huawei is stepping up its fight against American bans. From a report: The tech giant has motioned for a summary judgment in its lawsuit to invalidate Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, arguing that it violates the "Bill of Attainder, Due Process and Vesting" clauses of the US Constitution. The law explicitly bans Huawei by name despite "no evidence" of a security risk, Huawei's Song Liuping said, and bans third-party contractors who buy from Huawei even when there's no link to the US government. The company also preemptively tried to dismiss claims that there are facts up for dispute. This is a simple "matter of law," according to lead counsel Glen Nager.
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Huawei Asks Court To Declare US Government Ban Unconstitutional More

Huawei Asks Court To Declare US Government Ban Unconstitutional

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  • Huawei has no idea what legal refers to. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @01:09PM (#58673070)

    https://qz.com/1535995/the-full-list-of-crimes-huawei-is-accused-of-committing-by-the-us/

    13 counts brought in the Eastern District of New York state:

    (1) and (2) Conspiracy to commit bank fraud: Between around November 2007 to May 2015, Huawei, Skycom, and Meng Wanzhou allegedly conspired to defraud “US Subsidiary 1,” a subsidiary of a global financial institution identified only as “Financial Institution 1,” by misrepresenting Huawei’s relationship with Skycom to clear more than $100 million of transactions to it through the United States. According to a New York Times report, the financial institution is HSBC (paywall), which is not accused of any wrongdoing. The alleged misrepresentations include a PowerPoint presentation Meng gave in 2013 that described the relationship between Huawei and Skycom as “business cooperation” and said her presence on its board was to strengthen compliance. The second count, which covers the period between August 2017 to the present, refers to dealings with a financial institution called “US subsidiary 4” and is against Huawei and an unidentified defendant or defendants.
    (3) Conspiracy to commit wire fraud: From about November 2007 to May 2015, Huawei, Skycom, Meng Wanzhou, and others allegedly conspired to transmit communications to defraud four “victim” financial institutions.
    (4) Bank fraud: Between around November 2007 to May 2015, against Huawei, Skycom, Meng Wanzhou, and others allegedly obtained funds in the custody of “US Subsidiary 1” (possibly HSBC) with false representations.
    (5) Bank fraud: Between August 2017 and the present, Huawei and unidentified defendant(s) allegedly obtained funds in the custody of “US Subsidiary 4” with false representations.
    (6) Wire fraud: Between around November 2007 to May 2015, against Huawei, Skycom, Meng Wanzhou, and others allegedly made misrepresentations via email about the relationship between Huawei and Skycom, and about Huawei’s compliance with US and US regulations, which caused wire transfers to be sent by the victim financial institutions through the United States.
    (7) Conspiracy to defraud the United States: Around July 2007 and the present, Huawei and Skycom, and others allegedly obstructed the operations of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency that enforces US sanctions laws, with deceitful acts. The alleged acts included “Individual 1” [identified as Huawei’s founder but not named] telling FBI agents that Huawei activities don’t violate US export laws, and that Huawei had not dealt directly with any Iranian company. They also included testimony by a Huawei senior vice president to the US Congress that Huawei’s business in Iran did not violate any rules or regulations, including related to sanctions. [Charles Ding, a senior VP with the company, testified before Congress on Sept. 13, 2012.]
    (8) Conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA): The act gives the president authority to address extraordinary threats to US national security, foreign policy, or the economy. The US has declared Iran such a threat using this act, most recently in March 2018, leading OFAC to prohibit the export from the US or by a US person of goods, technology and services to Iran without its permission. Between November 2007 and November 2014, Huawei, Skycom and others allegedly conspired to cause the supply of US financial services to Iran without obtaining permission. The penalty is up to a $1 million fine or up to 20 years in prison.
    (9) IEEPA violations: Between around November 2007 and November 2014, Huawei, Skycom and others allegedly caused the export of US financial services to Iran without an OFAC license.
    (10) Conspiracy to violate IEEPA: Between 2008 and 2014, Huawei, Skycom and others allegedly conspired to cause the export of telecommunications services provided by a US citizen to Iran without OFAC permission.
    (11) IEEPA violation: B

    • Re:Huawei has no idea what legal refers to. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @01:49PM (#58673284)

      https://phoneradar.com/top-9-evidence-of-huaweis-backdoor-ip-theft-alleged-hacking-reports/

      Huawei is the largest multinational tech company based out of Shenzhen, China. Apart from selling smartphones and other consumer electronics, it also one of the leading telecommunications equipment provider in the world. The company which was recently banned by the U.S. government cannot do any business with US-based companies. However, the ban is now delayed by 90 days to provide support for existing handsets and network components in the U.S.

      The U.S. lawmakers raised concerns over the Chinese telecommunications equipment provider long back in 2012. Till date, no one even knows who exactly owns the company, though the company claims it is owned by its own employees. With Trump’s executive order, Huawei might not only lose the U.S. market, but its existence in most other markets also became questionable. Now, let’s talk about the several shreds of evidence which might help you in better understanding of the company’s current situation.

      #1
      In 2007, the FBI arrested Motorola engineer Hanjuan Jin who was found with $30,000 in cash, a bag full of classified Motorola documents, and a one-way ticket to Beijing. The investigation revealed that the engineer was not only with Motorola but also with another company called Lemko. Lemko was founded by Shaowei Pan who worked for Motorola for almost 10 years. It was started just after his meeting with the Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and other top executives of the company.

      According to the documents provided to the court, the Lemko’s goal was to build Motorola’s like wireless technology for Huawei. Shaowei Pan even emailed Ren Zhengfei saying, “If our plan can progress smoothly, Lemko will be the company we are planning to establish, and it will be independent of Motorola Inc.” While the case was later settled on confidential terms, Hanjuan Jin was sentenced for four years in prison.

      Source

      #2
      Akhan Semiconductor Inc is a small U.S. company owned by the young entrepreneur Adam Khan. The company developed the Miraj Diamond Glass which is 6 times stronger and 10 times more scratch-resistant than Gorilla Glass. He saw Huawei as a potential customer and in order to license his technology, Khan sent the prototype to Huawei’s laboratory in San Diego. Later, Huawei returned back the glass and it was actually found to be completely damaged.

      When Adam Khan’s company and FBI conducted the sting operation, the Huawei representatives admitted on tape for breaking the contract with Akhan Semiconductor Inc and thus violating the U.S. export-control laws.

      Source

      #3
      According to PanOptis, the company has sent its executives on its own expense to Shenzhen to discuss licensing arrangements with Huawei for its patents. Huawei declined to license the PanOptis’s patents, which are used by smartphones to receive and display video. However, the Chinese company went and incorporated the technology in all its smartphones. When the PanOptis filed the patent infringement case in Texas, the court has ordered Huawei to pay the hefty sum of $10.56 million for willful patent infringement.

      Source

      #4
      Last year, Huawei also entered the solar power market with its own solar inverters. A small Israeli company called SolarEdge filed a lawsuit against Huawei accusing it of patent infringement and intellectual property theft. The Chinese company is said to have followed the same tricks as it did in the networking business. Huawei later came out publicly denying these accusations and the decision is still pending in the court.

      Source

      #5
      In the early 2000s, the US-based Cisco Systems has accused Huawei of I.P. infringement. It even accused the Chinese company of stealing the software code of its routers. While the lawsuit was filed in 2003, it was later settled confidentially without revealing any details.

      Source

      #6
      Huawei is also accused of stealing a robot from th

      • None of it is country "spying" - allegation without evidence. Economic spying is done all the time, sometimes between big firms, sometimes big firm strong arm or crush small one. China is doing it a lot but so are many other countries. e.g. France is assumed to have done it against IBM in the 90ies. Heck there is even the reverse industrial spying where US steal from china :

        Dongxiao Yue and Chordiant Software, Inc. In May 2010, the federal jury convicted Chordiant Software, Inc., a U.S. corporation, of stea

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Interesting. To ACs (or the same AC) with some copy/paste pre-prepared material, in the moment the story is posed and both modded up to +5 in minutes.

        Who are you and who do you work for? Also why are they pissing away money trying to influence a site like Slashdot, do we really matter that much? And do they think we are that easy?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Or, more likely, they have had this argument multiple times with Huawei apologists on every site online and are able to just amend, then copy/paste on demand.

          Huawei has been aggressively in the news due to this specific issue practically every single day.

          And, who cares if they copy/pasted a comment for their post when it is wholly accurate? What does your suspicion add to the discussion? The questionable posts are the ones that try to divert attention away from facts into spirals of deceit or arbitrary susp

  • https://phoneradar.com/top-9-evidence-of-huaweis-backdoor-ip-theft-alleged-hacking-reports/

  • Misstating the risk (Score:3)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @01:14PM (#58673090)
    The risk is that gear controlled by the Chinese government will be used to spy on US companies to gain unfair competitive advantage for Chinese manufacturers. That doesn't require the gear to spy on US government classified communications, which should not be going over a wireless network in the first place!

  • Huawei isn't American (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The Constitution applies to Americans. There's no requirement for the government to give "due process" before punishing a foreign government, of which Huawei is an arm.

    • The Constitution applies to Americans.

      The constitution applies to American authority.

      • Re:Huawei isn't American (Score:4, Informative)

        by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @01:55PM (#58673314) Journal

        The Constitution applies to Americans.

        The constitution applies to American authority.

        To American authority ... over Americans.

        The relationship of a government to its citizens is fundamentally different from its relationship to foreigners. We don't have to read enemy soldiers their rights, for example.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          True, he is correct in that the Constitution defines the authority of, and clarifies a non-exhaustive subset of limitations (aka the bill of rights) for, "American authority" aka the US Government and that everything we haven't granted them is reserved to the highest officials (us citizens). So no, that doesn't necessarily limit what can be done to non-citizens although it could be argued that some of the principles in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence do so since the spirit of the law an

        • You do need to read persons their rights if they are arrested in the US or its territories, even if those persons are not citizens or even legal residents. In foreign wars we don't of course, as that's not the US or its territories, and possibly there are exceptions on US territories if under martial law.

          (and yes, the US has sometimes violated prohibitions of the constition times during wars and has usually been reprimanded after the wars were over)

          Most of the bill of rights apply to non citizens, includin

        • To American authority ... over Americans.

          Over anybody, on American territory. The constitution applies to the government and its agents.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        "It defines the limits of the powers it has."

        Yes... it limits the powers granted to the government with regard to the handling the democracy. It is probably more appropriate to say it defines the bounds, if the Constitution didn't grant the power, the government doesn't have it either. The "limits" like the bill of rights are clarifications of specific issues not the only bounds on government power.

        Specifically, those examples are with regard to the democracy that gives power to the Constitution. If you are

        • if the Constitution didn't grant the power, the government doesn't have it either

          Except that the Constitution did grant broad powers without defining them. So it is one of those "true" statements that is used a lot by Republicans, but it is always out of context when it is used. I mean, the Constitution sweeps in Common Law all the way back to the Magna Carta. And the 10th Amendment reserves narrowly some rights for the States.

          But quite obviously, when the Constitution draws clear lines between the powers the of the branches of Government, what lies between those lines are powers held b

      • Due process means they were allowed to file their stupid suit, and in September they'll get to receive a formal explanation that it is the US Government's duty to respond to perceived threats, and the Courts are not likely to even place that perception on a scale to weigh it unless the rights of another branch of the US Government are involved.

        It does not mean that the Executive Branch needs to conduct some sort of process involving foreign entities. When Congress tells the Executive Branch to make a determ

    • No, the constitution applies to many other areas. Why don't you try reading it sometime? For instance, many of the bill of rights apply to all residents, including residents of foreign territories controlled by the US. The constitution also includes many clauses that are not about citizens but about what sorts of laws may or may not be created. There are no exceptions in there saying "for foreigners you can do whatever the hell you damn well please as long as it gets you votes."

      One of the things the con

      • For instance, many of the bill of rights apply to all residents, including residents of foreign territories controlled by the US.

        The Bill Of Rights is meant to be an acknowledgement of universal human rights, not an list of rights extended to citizens. In practice, 1) you only really have those rights which others will protect on your behalf, and 2) any rights not listed in the bill of rights (and even most of the ones which are) are regularly and frequently denied persons both nationalized and not.

        In general, all of those rights are supposed to apply to all persons. In practice, some of them are applied more than others...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      If you are going to try anyone (including foreigners) in an American court, with an American judge, that judge has to follow the US Constitution.

  • If you can view the source code and recreate the binaries then you can prove there is no spyware.

    • The issues deal with firmware and hardware, which are nearly inextricably linked in modern systems. It's not the program that runs on the hardware, necessarily, but the program that runs the hardware.

      Also, how do you prove the negative? I found an interesting, regular ping with some associated data between a simple internet-controlled power switch and a site in China one time. Was it "spyware"? Hmmm ... the company denies it. I don't know what the data packet contained, so I can't prove it was or wasn't.

  • Huawei: A Company built on stolen American tech (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hauwei stole CISCO technoogy. Cisco took Hauwei to a Chinese court but withdrew the case as the most it could win was $5,000 as the Chinese see patents as Western imperialism. Recently a Huawei engineer stole the robotic arm for a cell phone testing device from T-mobile. Then there is CNEX and more.
    The key to remember is the Chinese government has been waging economic warfare on the US for a while now. The Chinese government has a list of technologies it deems critical in its bid to surpass the US as a su

    • Re:Huawei: A Company built on stolen American tech (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @04:09PM (#58674362)

      For the life of me, I can't figure out why Western countries have turned a blind eye to China robbing them blind of IP. Probably trillions in wealth is propping up this Chinese tech surge and they're not even shy about it. They churn out shameless copies of software and products like you'd expect to see in a backwater flea market.

      • Just because you're developing doesn't mean I want to stop getting rich. Honestly I don't understand how people don't understand this. Profits baby! The Chinese cloning our shit and selling it to customers who couldn't afford it in the first place is a problem for a future CEO to deal with. Look at our share price!

      • There is no such thing as "intellectual property". You cannot own an idea. You can sort of own a secret by never telling anyone, but you cannot own an idea. Once it is out in the world it is something that must be shared with everyone for free. That is just the nature of thought. It is highly unfortunate and bad for our species that the patent system has encouraged this sort of magical thinking. It stifles innovation and progress rather than encouraging it and it hurts the poor unnecessarily.

        So to answer yo

  • from restrictions on doing business with Huawei, I see. Huawei should give them all the new folding smartphones to use prominently while doing business on behalf of Huawei.

  • Unconstitutional... (right... ) thanks... China.

  • Snowden showed us all how the US spies on its citizens. If that is no big deal then neither is this.

  • Totalitarians may stay away of my lawn!

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