Group says Cisco Systems helped build a surveillance system that Beijing used to target them. Cisco denies that.
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A group of Chinese nationals who say they were imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese Communist Party cannot proceed with a lawsuit against the technology giant Cisco Systems, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. The Chinese plaintiffs say the tech company helped build a surveillance system that led to their persecution and should be held liable.
At issue was whether the plaintiffs could sue Cisco under a centuries-old law, the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign nationals to bring certain claims in U.S. courts. Passed by the First Congress in 1789, the law was originally designed to avoid diplomatic conflicts by creating an opportunity for noncitizens, such as ambassadors, to sue over treatment in the United States.
Since 1980, human rights lawyers have sought to use the ruling to combat international rights violations. Over the past two decades, however, the Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the law, making it harder to bring human rights cases.
The case before the court involved a dozen members of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that China’s government viewed as a political threat and ultimately crushed through force. The plaintiffs say they were swept up in that crackdown and subjected to torture and other abuses.
Cisco “aided and abetted” the Chinese government by helping it build a vast surveillance system that tracked Falun Gong activity, the plaintiffs allege.
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One of the plaintiffs, William Wang, told The Washington Post that Chinese officials tortured him and imprisoned him for nearly a decade after surveilling his web activity. None of that would have been possible without Cisco’s help, he said.
“I have no objection to normal business dealings,” Wang, who lives in the Detroit area and works as a software developer, said in an interview. What Cisco did was different, he said, because the company “knew what the CCP wanted to do” with its technology. (CCP refers to the Chinese Communist Party.)
The company denies that. Cisco officials have said that while it sold components to the Chinese government, it did not create technology specifically to repress Falun Gong members. As the case proceeded to the Supreme Court, the company referred to past statements by its officials.
“We have never customized our equipment to help the Chinese government — or any government — censor content, track Internet use by individuals or intercept Internet communications,” Mark Chandler, then a senior vice president with the company, wrote in a 2011 statement.
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