Cisco sued for helping China build Great Firewall

WASHINGTON – Members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have filed a lawsuit against Cisco Systems and its top executives, including Chief Executive John Chambers, accusing the company of supplying the Chinese government with computer networking equipment used to spy on dissidents and censor the Internet.

In a lawsuit filed last week in federal district court for the Northern District of California, a group of Falun Gong practitioners alleges that Cisco aided and abetted human rights violations by the Chinese government in providing networking gear and technical assistance to build the "Great Firewall of China."

In a statement, Cisco says there is no basis to the allegations. "We sell the same equipment in China that we sell in other nations worldwide in strict compliance with U.S. government regulations," Cisco said.