People around the world have been searching for ways to hold accountable companies that build tools for government repression. From massive surveillance systems to state-sponsored malware, governments around the world are increasingly using technology to locate, track, and engage in human rights abuses against disfavored communities, journalists, and activists.
In a tremendous victory for the victims of those tools of repression, the Ninth Circuit cleared a path of legal accountability for American technology companies who build tools that facilitate human rights abuses by foreign governments, in a case called Doe I v. Cisco Systems. EFF filed multiple amicus briefs in the case, including in the Ninth Circuit.
Cisco is just one of many American technology companies that have been complicit in facilitating human rights abuses in foreign countries. We applaud the Ninth Circuit in helping ensure that the key statute in the case, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), remains an important mechanism for holding companies accountable when they choose profit over human lives.
The Ninth Circuit allowed victims to sue tech giant Cisco Systems in a long-running case seeking redress for the company’s role in building and deploying the “Golden Shield,” also referred to as “The Great Firewall of China.” It’s a vast surveillance system that Cisco began building in the late 1990s and that the Chinese government used to violate the human rights of disfavored minorities, including members of the Falun Gong religion, who are the plaintiffs in the case.
The thirteen plaintiffs alleged arrest, detention, and torture, including of themselves and family members, at least one of whom died by beating while being detained. The claims are horrific and echo reports by the U.S. State Department and many human rights NGOs. They include claims that the plaintiffs were placed in forced labor camps, beaten with steel rods, shocked with electric batons, and endured sleep deprivation and
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