ExclusiveCisco’s Hidden Powerpoint: Surveillance Tech for CCP

The initial case was filed in 2011, that's like 14 years ago. In 14 years, a lot of people have been killed by using this system. Very likely, very likely they've been killed. So, who's going to be liable for that? You know, if they realize that, indeed, this was done by Cisco, and if the case was looked at 14 years ago, maybe Cisco would have canceled the project, and maybe a lot of people wouldn't have died. Welcome back to another episode of Silicon Valley Front Row. I'm David Lam, and this is my co-host, Steve Espas. So, we recently came across an interesting case about a Silicon Valley company, Cisco, being tied in with a human rights and surveillance case, and they were being sued for it. So, Steve, didn't you used to work at Cisco? Yeah, you know, back in my tech days, I really didn't really work at Cisco, but Cisco, I worked at LSI Logic, but Cisco was our customer. Customer meaning they would design, no, we would design the chips for them. So, I would be on site sometimes in the Cisco building for days, you know, just working with their engineers or kind of monitoring what's happening. I was very closely involved with Cisco. Big company, you know, networking company, very, very famous in so many ways. So, were you there around the time when this lawsuit came about? No, no, I was there way before, way before that, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, I think our audience do want to stick around to hear about this case. So, Steve, what do you know about this case? Because it recently came into light again. Yeah, so it's a pretty complicated case, and let's see if we can break it down. But basically, there's the practice, the meditation practice of Falun Gong or Falun Dafa. Coming from China, it's now all over the world, and the Chinese government has been very brutally persecuting it since 99. And there's something like Tai Chi or yoga, it's very beneficial for health, but the communist regime couldn't handle it. And our media, Epoch Times, reported a lot on this, right? So, hopefully our audience at least knows a little bit about it. But what happens is the Falun Gong practitioners sued Cisco in 2011. Because what happens is they realized that Cisco was helping the Chinese government develop a system to monitor the movements and the communications of Falun Gong practitioners in China, which was leading to their arrest and torture. So, it's a very serious allegation and very sad that an American company would work together with the CCP, with the Chinese government, to persecute an innocent group, which it's, you know, practiced freely and it's very welcome in the US. So, that's kind of what's disturbing about it. Right. So, for Silicon Valley Front Row, we try to bring up innovation and technology. But in this case, it seems like this Silicon Valley tech is being, has been being used or allegedly being used to, for harm. Exactly. Being abused. Exactly, exactly. And the case came back to light two years ago when the appeals court is allowing the case to move forward. But immediately Cisco filed an appeal to the Supreme Court to stop it, to toss it out. So, that's why this comes in the news right now. And according to this article from the Epoch Times, there's lawmakers that are urging the Supreme Court to allow the case to move forward, basically to expose what's happening. So, the way I understand this works is, Cisco's claim is that they are using what they call off-the-shelf product that they are providing to China. What they mean by off-the-shelf, this is a term often used in tech companies. The company I worked before, Rambus, used the same term. It means that they make product, that they don't modify it. It's almost like, let's say you make bullets. You know, you build bullets and then you sell the bullets, right? So, whoever buys them, they can use them for different purposes, for shooting people or for hunting, right? It could be either way. So, you can't really sue the bullet company for making bullets because they say we're just providing the service. So, it's out of their hands what people do. Exactly. But this is Cisco's excuse. But in reality, the product itself seems to be very targeted towards Falun Gong. And catching and identifying Falun Gong practitioners. Is there evidence of this? The biggest evidence that we know of is that slide right behind you, which is a Cisco presentation that was done to the Chinese government, to the director of security or a security system or something. And it's 90 slides and we actually do have the slides. It's part of this article. If our audience wants to look at this article, they can click and see all the slides. But one of the slides specifically says that the goal of the product itself is to combat Falun Gong. So, based on that evidence, it's pretty clear that they knew what they're doing and how they're using it. So, if it says right there, then what was Cisco's response? Well, obviously, I don't even know if they know that that material is available to the court. They probably do know. But obviously, they haven't addressed one by one. They just make a blanket statement saying that, oh, we just use off-the-shelf products and therefore dismiss the case. That's crazy. So, it seems like this... So, Cisco has many products, right? Yeah. So, this is like maybe just one project and whoever was in charge of this project, maybe it would be good to find out how involved they were with this. So, just to explain a little bit more how, from my experience working in this company's work. So, some of these companies, they have two kinds of products. One would be custom products, which they make for specific clients. And the other one would be general products, general modules or chips that can be used just the way they are to implement in different products, this specific chip. And this clearly is a custom product, meaning they get specifications from the customer. In this case, the customer, again, being the security bureau of the CCP and saying, we want these elements or these functions in the router or in the networking device that you're building for us. So, they take those specifications and they implement them themselves. So, those specifications clearly mention Falun Gong and how to search or how to target or how to identify Falun Gong. So, I don't think they have a case other than trying to dismiss it at the very top. So, they don't allow the courts to dig into it and to discover more information. Astonishing. Yeah, we'll have to see what happens there. It's, again, the Supreme Court would have to decide whether the case would move forward or not. And that's a big thing if you got to the Supreme Court. Needless to say, the initial case was filed in 2011. It's like 14 years ago. In 14 years, a lot of people have been killed using this system. Very likely, very likely to be killed. So, who's going to be liable for that? If they realize that, indeed, this was done by Cisco and if the case was looked at 14 years ago, maybe Cisco would have canceled the project and maybe a lot of people wouldn't have died. We'll have to see who ends up being responsible for the lives of those people. Yeah, when a product like this gets in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, let's just use it to just abuse and further their persecution campaign, which, like you mentioned, happened since 1999. So, it's 25 years now. And this, who knows how this has accelerated their torture and blackmailing. And I think what's even also more disturbing is that almost, I say this on every show almost, that every other day we hear about some Chinese spy stealing technology and taking it to China to develop various projects or various things, anything from biology to rocket science, spaceship, to whatever. They constantly steal technology. But in this case, they don't even have to steal it. They simply work directly with an American company to develop this for them. So, that part is even more disturbing. Now, it's possible that the collaboration slowed down after 2011 because of the lawsuit, but we don't know. And that's why it's important for this lawsuit to move forward because once it moves forward, then all this evidence have to be presented from both sides. Both sides have to say, okay, this is why we think that this is a violation of human rights and what happened with Cisco. And Cisco has to bring all their documentation to explain what they have in front of the court. So, if it moves forward, we'll know all of that. But until then, well, our question for you is that, what do you think about an American company working with the Chinese government to aid in the persecution of innocent people? And how should this be looked at or treated by our courts in the US? And do you think Cisco should be revealing their information or slides that are related to this case so that the public can take a look? Being that it's confidential for them. And once again, this is Silicon Valley Front Row. I'm David Lam. This is Steve Vispas. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment.