Critics Squeeze Cisco Over China

LazerLordz SG

Critics Squeeze Cisco Over China

By Kevin Poulsen | Also by this reporter
Wired.Com
02:00 AM Jul. 29, 2005 PT

Internet equipment maker Cisco Systems is fighting a shareholder action that urges the company to adopt a comprehensive human rights policy for its dealings with the Chinese government, and with other states practicing political censorship of the internet.

A shareholder resolution filed last May by the Massachusetts-based investment group Boston Common Asset Management calls for Cisco to add human rights considerations to the criteria it uses to certify resellers.

"What we want is for them to be a better company, to ensure that their reputation is not in jeopardy and to have the processes in place to prove that they are not complicit in the abuses that are occurring around the world through the use of technology," says Dawn Wolfe, a social research and advocacy analyst at the firm, which prides itself on its socially responsible investments.

A report from the OpenNet Initiative watchdog group last April singled out Cisco for allegedly enabling the Chinese government's notorious "Great Firewall," a filtering system that prevents Chinese netizens from visiting websites that criticize the government.

Cisco's routers, the report noted, form the backbone of China's internet access, and include the power to identify and filter packets based on keyword matches -- a tool typically used for fighting viruses and denial-of-service attacks that also makes internet censorship easier for repressive governments.

But Cisco's Terry Alberstein, director of corporate affairs for the Asia Pacific region, says the company has never helped the Chinese government suppress free speech.

"Cisco does not participate in any way in any censorship activities in the People's Republic of China," Alberstein says. "We have never custom-tailored our products for the China market, and the products that we sell in China are the same products we sell everywhere else."

Cisco is formally asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to omit the Boston Common proposal from the agenda for the company's next annual meeting in November, which would prevent shareholders from voting on it. The company argues the proposal is too vague to act on, and that Cisco already has a suitable human rights policy. "The proposal has been substantially implemented by Cisco, and is therefore moot," says spokeswoman Robin Jenkins.

Even if it came to a vote and passed, the resolution would not be binding on Cisco's executives. But "it sends a strong message to management, and it gets across the sentiment of shareholders in a way that writing a letter can't do," says Wolfe.

The controversy over U.S. businesses' dealings with repressive governments bloomed anew last month when it emerged that Microsoft programmed its MSN Spaces blog-hosting service to prohibit phrases like "human rights," "freedom" and "democracy" from the titles of Chinese blogs and postings, in an apparent bid to curry favor with China's ruling Communist Party.

And in addition to the OpenNet report, Cisco recently came under fire when author Ethan Gutman revealed the company was aggressively marketing mobile police-networking equipment to Chinese law enforcement agencies.

Export constraints passed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre block U.S. companies from selling "any crime control or detection instruments or equipment" to China. Cisco says networking equipment is not covered by the prohibition. "We do sell our products to law enforcement agencies around the world, including China," says Alberstein. "And we do that in full compliance with Department of Commerce export regulations."

"This is an issue we're going to be encountering more and more," says Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "Can companies just claim a total lack of political responsibility in how their technology is used in all instances? It's something that companies should be thinking about when they sell their technologies around the world."

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Now that's what I call socially conscious investment.If you as a corporate giant have the influence to pressure for improvements in SOL against a commonly held universal notion of human rights..it should be your duty to assist in anyway possible.