USA: Supreme Court ends lawsuit against Cisco over alleged role in enabling Chinese government surveillance and persecution of Falun Gong members
“US Supreme Court ends suit alleging Cisco helped China pursue Falun Gong”, 23 June 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court further limited the reach of a federal law used to hold corporations liable for human rights abuses committed abroad, as it issued a ruling on Tuesday ending a lawsuit by members of the Falun Gong movement accusing Cisco Systems of facilitating religious persecution in China.
The justices reversed a lower court's decision that had breathed new life into the 2011 lawsuit, which was brought under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789. The suit had alleged that Cisco knowingly developed technology that allowed China's government to surveil and persecute Falun Gong members…
The lawsuit accused San Jose, California-based Cisco of knowingly designing and implementing the "Golden Shield," an internet surveillance system used by the Chinese Communist Party to target dissidents. The plaintiffs said China used the system to track and then torture Falun Gong members.
Cisco called the allegations unfounded and offensive.
President Donald Trump's administration sided with Cisco in the case.
The Human Rights Law Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Washington, sued Cisco on behalf of a group of Falun Gong members. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2014, saying the alleged conduct was not sufficiently connected to the United States for the case to proceed…
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case in 2023 and allowed it to move toward discovery, the evidence-gathering phase before a trial…