I recall working at a university in an office where Cisco phones were evident.  I noticed the camera recorded me every 30 minutes. I turned the screen away from me.  I realised later that the reason film was taken was to prove the person at the computer was identified. This was probably done in tandom with the person using the internet.  I noted the history was not visible.  I sat and reflected on internal security and how people are watched.  Not only do we have to put up with CCTV/video monitoring as an invasion of privacy, but at work on the computer and now on iPhones, websites and laptops. The IT industry has indeed penetrated the day to day lives of people.  It seems the notion of privacy has gone out the window, brushed aside as all want access to the public. Certain people believe there is an advantage in monitoring to reduce risk and expand sales.

What if they understood that the law of attraction brings to you what you focus on?  What you think about you bring about. If you want security focus on trust, if you want peace focus on love, if you want abundance share.  If you base your decisions on fear you bring to you what you fear, that is the power of thought.  Repression has been going on since time immemorial, it has been a formula of control to ensure no-one rocks the boat.  It is a tool of totalitarianism. It is to ensure things run smoothly without disruption.  Yet what if the real power was letting go of control? What if it was building community? What if it was enshrining values that respect rights and privacy?  Can those who live in great fear of disclosure sit with this proposition and find peace?  Perhaps they will embrace this when their own privacy is invaded. What you put out comes back. This is a universal law that naturally will bring to you what you do to others, it is called the mirror.  The US government experienced this through Snowden and Assange, who were really just mirroring what massive surveillance agencies were doing, this energy returned.  It is not so much the people but an energy response.  Life is responsive to homeostasis, it naturally returns to sender.  I’ve seen and experienced this.  So something to contemplate for Cisco and those interested in repression.

This article reveals a sinister tone about Cisco as highlighted by this quote:

“…Internal company memos revealed in 2008 that Cisco is well aware that the Chinese government wants to use its equipment as a tool of repression. That memo even specifically named, as a motivation for buying Cisco’s equipment, the Chinese government’s desire to repress the Falun Gong religious organization whose members were later tortured and murdered by the state…” One of Golden Shield’s stated goals in the Cisco presentation was to “combat ‘Falun Gong’ evil religion and other hostiles,” a statement that was attributed to Runsen Li, the Chinese government information technology chief in charge of developing the project. Mark Chandler, Cisco’s senior vice president of legal services, said during the Tuesday Senate hearing that he was “appalled” and “disappointed” when he saw that quote in the presentation.” I question the truth of this last statement. I am deeply questioning how genuine people are with public statements, actions speak louder than words in my worldview. Walk the talk or bow out.  The real golden shield is the alchemy transmuting negativity to the gold shield of positivity through real values.  Values are the real protection.

I interviewed Falun Gong on radio and was told by a woman about her husband being murdered by the regime and her escape.  She informed me that Alexander Downer, the then Foreign Minister, had suppressed protests by Falun Gong outside the Chinese Embassy.  I was really concerned to learn this, again in a democratic society.  Refer http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1389732.htm   I note after the interview I received a Chinese email in characters.  I found that interesting as a form of intimidation to let me know I was noticed, this in a supposed democratic country.  I have seen the protestors in Melbourne handing out literature.  Refer http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-21/what-is-the-falun-gong-movement-and-does-china-harvest-organs/9679690  On the streets they showed how they were housed in cages, beaten, tortured, labour camps, organs harvested and jailed.  I never forget a woman being thrown into a males prison naked.  She was left to be raped brutally. I shuddered when I heard this.  Her crime?  Meditation.  Seeking inner peace.  How can peace be a threat when it is not a cult?  Refer https://www.dailynews.com/2014/07/14/why-china-fears-the-falun-gong/   Suppression caused Falun Dafa to become active politically. So the politicisation of people is a result of the very repression imposed on them.  Human Rights Watch are a excellent source: https://www.hrw.org/tag/falun-gong

Falun Gong had a following of ten’s of millions, the Communist party ( 82.6 million). What awakened the dragon to this threat was when a few members were arrested in Beijing.  Apparently 10,000 members came to Beijing and the authorities became scared as this was a threat to their power.  So the repression started. They are still repressed today. China has choices it can either liberalise in the spirit of real freedom guided by ancient sages or it can remain a quasi communist state and continue to crack down on any dissent in order to hold on to control.  https://www.humanrights.gov.au/employers/business-and-human-rights

There is more discussion these days of business adopting human rights as part of their charters.  This is because as business expands its influence it is impacting the lives of millions. It has a social responsibility not as a marketing statement but as a duty to ensure its operations to not affect the health and safety of citizens, not only of this country, but other countries. I know of cases where business as turned a blind eye to brutality in the name of profit. The Australian Wool Board paid kickbacks to the regime in Iraq to gain lucrative wheat contracts, setting aside values and principles of anti-corruption that would be criminalised in Australia. Given they were in Iraq dealing with an oppressive regime this behaviour was justified as business-as-usual in the name of trade. This is trade without ethics. Their corporate reputation and standing was seriously affected by scandals of corruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWB_oil-for-wheat_scandal  Human rights is not a notion or rights or responsibility it is both.  Human rights means people have the right to be safe, to be informed, access to Justice, access the basics of life and freedoms etc. There are voices rising in the world that believe that human rights is a left wing pursuit, it is not.  This is propaganda. I’ve met many human rights activists on the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies program in Bangkok and in India.  All of them were ordinary people who have decided to help those they felt were vulnerable. They are actually incredibly kind and brave. I always remember the back packing doctors who saved lives in the forests of Myanmar.  Or the teachers who ensured the Karen language and culture was destroyed through genocide.  I met people who protectively accompanied people who were targeted by authorities for speaking up in Indonesia and in Cambodia. Some were observers of regimes given abuses.  I was just astounded at the courage. Many not paid much or volunteering to risk their lives. Then you hear the rhetoric of well paid people who have never put their lives in danger denegrating those who believe in humanity as they see it as a left wing threat, as the Chinese did with Falun Dafa. When in truth, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is closer to the truth. People become blind when they get away with abuses and excesses or practices that harm others. People become blind when they terrorise to the point of suppressing millions of people. This can be done directly, through authorities or via the media. This is not respect or love, it is fear in service of self interest, principally profit.

The Australian Human Rights Commission have information on business and human rights https://www.humanrights.gov.au/employers/business-and-human-rights

The argument here with Cicso is similar to the condemination of IBM and other US corporates during WWII who were accused of supplying the Nazi’s.  Refer http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/technology/traitors-book-extract-ibms-secret-nazi-past/news-story/3bde86cdeeefa44c55b90c5d568cc545 IBM identifying and tracking down Jews for its methodical program of genocide.  It is quoted from the link above “…Watson was obsequious in pandering to the Nazi hierarchy, writing a grovelling letter in 1937 to Nazi Economics Minister Hjalmer Schacht declaring that the world must extend ‘a sympathetic understanding to the German people and their aims under the leadership of Adolf Hitler’. “Business was accused of aiding and abetting regimes that are brutal in the name of profit.  However, they side step their social conscience by stating they are not responsible, that is not true.  I recall when I was asked as a business person to do research into gambling. I had $20 in my account. I was to find out how to market to people to encourage them to gamble more. I was to investigate high rollers behaviours.  I refused the job as I was not going to lend my energy to anything that was a social harm. I also refused a job by the CSIRO to commercialise scientific technology. I was concerned about genetic engineering and the impact on life on earth, intuitively I knew I would be lending my energy to something that could impact humanity’s survival. What was amazing the week of my decision, was that my partner received a mental sculpture of plants with DNA spirals at the top. It was clear to me to say ‘no’. Again, I had no money.  My partner encouraged me to say yes but I wouldn’t.  I chose ethics over profit.  We need leaders who are willing to do this. This is real service, not platitudes of serving society but actually really serving society. I am looking for these people.

I know from a spiritual pespective what you do comes back. When you pass over (death) you will be shown the actions you have taken.  It is irrelevant if you were in a company or not, you made decisions that impacted others and you will be shown this.  Check the work of Dr. Raymond Moody, near death research. Spiritually natural justice always happens.  Whatever decision is made has ramifications.  Intent is critical. Did you sell it to make money in the awareness it would be used to repress the public?  Or did you believe it was to keep people safe?  Are you serving the greater good or yourself?  Lying won’t matter on the other side as your life is a glass house.  Thus, we are all responsible one way or another.  Choose wisely.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424584/new-evidence-that-cisco-enables-surveillance-and-control-of-chinas-citizens/

A View from Christopher Mims

New Evidence that Cisco Enables Surveillance and Control of China’s Citizens

Cisco says it can’t be held responsible for what governments do with its equipment, and countless other firms seem to agree.

• July 6, 2011

Cisco’s record of helping China create systems that could, and perhaps are, used to oppress its own people is checkered, at best. In 2005, some of its own shareholders tried, and failed, to force the company to consider the potential for its equipment to abet human rights abuses in China and elsewhere.

Cisco’s defense against charges of aiding repressive regimes has always been the same: it sells the same networking equipment – mostly routers and switches – to everyone, and doesn’t customize it specifically to aid in human rights abuses. It’s what the company told Congress in 2006, and it appears to be the company’s defense against an ongoing civil suit on behalf of Chinese citizens who were tortured and in some cases murdered by their own government, allegedly after being identified with equipment sold by Cisco.

The problem with Cisco’s defense – that it can’t be held responsible for what governments do with its wares – is that the U.S. government regularly holds companies responsible for what governments do with a company’s products, whatever the stated goal upon date of purchase.

For example, most “dual-use” technologies – items that have both a military and a civilian use – are banned for export under Federal law. This is even true of information technologies. So how does Cisco get away with selling IT to China when that technology could so easily be put to nefarious purposes in the world’s largest non-democratic nation?

Here’s how the Wall Street Journal sums up the “loophole” that Cisco exploits in shipping its wares to China:

The U.S. has prohibited export of crime-control products to China (for instance, fingerprinting equipment) ever since Beijing’s deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. But the U.S. restrictions don’t prohibit sale of technologies such as cameras that can be used in many ways—to tame, say, either traffic jams or democracy marches. This loophole troubles some critics.

Internal company memos revealed in 2008 that Cisco is well aware that the Chinese government wants to use its equipment as a tool of repression. That memo even specifically named, as a motivation for buying Cisco’s equipment, the Chinese government’s desire to repress the Falun Gong religious organization whose members were later tortured and murdered by the state.

Suppliers of technology to the Chinese government face a straightforward dilemma: do they miss out on business opportunities in what will soon be the world’s largest economy, knowing that some other supplier will likely be secured, or do they sell their wares anyway, falling back on the defense that almost all information technology is ultimately dual-use?

Google faced a similar dilemma in China, as it first obeyed and then defied official dictates that it censor its search results within the country. Cisco appears to have chosen a different path, as have countless other companies – highlighting, if anything, the extremely unusual nature of Google’s defiance.