Cristy Li

Cisco Systems, Inc Technology Campus in San Jose, CA

Cisco Systems, the worlds largest maker of network equipment, may be helping the Chinese regime, keep an eye on its citizens–including monitoring political dissidents.

Over the next 2 to 3 years, the City of Chongqing will install a complex network of surveillance equipment, including a half a million security cameras. The project is dubbed “Peaceful Chongqing.” According to the Wall Street Journal Cisco is likely to provide key pieces of equipment.

Following Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article which, Cisco’s General Counsel Mark Chandler has denied the allegations emphasizing the company’s support for freedom of expression and human rights.

Despite the denials of Cisco General Counsel, the company has been singled out in the past by U.S. lawmakers for sales of network equipment to China and defended their activities at Congressional Hearings in 2006 and 2008 that focused on the role its network gear may have played in Golden Shield commonly referred to as ‘The Great Firewall of China’ a system that has enabled Chinese authorities to filter Internet content and track dissenters.

Human Rights Groups are concerned the camera network will be used to further stifle human rights and political expression. Amnesty Intl Researcher Corinna-Barbara Francis said, that there is evidence, Chinese authorities use video surveillance to “crack-down and then criminalize activity which should not be criminalized.”

Rest here from New Tang Dynasty

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Censorship, China, Human Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.