Plaintiffs in Cisco lawsuit ask Court to revive US case over alleged surveillance of Falun Gong members in China
"Lawsuit Accuses Cisco of Complicity in Oppression Abroad", 24 May 2017
...[P]laintiffs in a class-action claim [are] accusing Cisco of designing software, hardware and training to help China’s ruling party persecute Falun Gong adherents...The lawsuit hopes to addres an evolving legal question: Can American corporations be held liable if foreign authorities use their product for repression? The federal district court in San Jose dismissed the case in 2014, saying Falun Gong victims...failed to prove that Cisco knew its product would enable oppression. But [in April 2017], the plaintiffs asked the...Court of Appeals to revive the allegations....Cisco has assiduously denied the allegations...Since a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, however, lower courts have differed over how to apply the majority’s ambiguous holding that the Alien Tort Statute may only apply to actions abroad if the allegations “touch and concern” American territories. [The Falun Gong members' counsel] argued that the claims against Cisco meet that “touch and concern” standard...