Huawei Files Suit In its Fight Against US Ban

[harryk]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

There are SOOOOOOOOOOO many other things they could have done that 1) wouldn't screw with the rest of western society and 2) would be in line with what has been done against either domestic or foreign companies in the past, you're just grasping at straws here.

I'm curious what else the US could have done (that they have not done already) and how banning Huawei is screwing with the rest of western society

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Uh, no. There's a word for that and it's "protectionism". It's not a good thing and it's typically associated with fascism and dictatorships in general. It's playing dirty even within the "rules" of capitalism, which is already a pretty cutthroat system to begin with. If every country did this we'd have literal feudalism; why would it stop at countries after all?

I agree. I generally do not support classic protectionism as a form of promoting your nations companies against foreign competitors. But when those competitors are not playing fair to begin with and are consistently stealing IP maybe they got what's coming to them. Furthermore to address the National Security risk, I don't think its unfair for the US to question the trustworthiness of Huawei when they are posed to dominate the next generation of networking infrastructure. As a US citizen I'd prefer the network I rely on everyday to not be created by a company with strong ties to the Chinese government, or any government for that matter.

 

For the most part the US economy operates as a free and open market. But the US government maintains the right to interfere when they feel its necessary, and I don't mind as long as it happens rarely and doesn't directly affect me. At the end of the story, no one's going to cry for Huawei (except maybe their employees, but hey life's not fair). 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Following this reasoning every city could heavily disadvantage external companies and give huge benefits to local ones.

This happens in every city in the US and is actually a very popular political platform called supporting small businesses

[Thaldor]

I'm kind of splitted with this thing.

 

On one hand quite a few Chinese companies (Huawei included) are as transparent as brickwalls which really doesn't help building trust that they wouldn't be spying on their users (both consumers and "the public sector") for the Chinese government. Neither does that the Chinese law has some parts that actually demand Chinese companies to spy for the government. They very well know what other Chinese companies will do for anything open (copy, steal, knock-off and generally all the normal stuff) and that really doesn't encourage openess in China (like that really would change anything, because Chinese will copy, steal and knock-off everything anyway). But the biggest thing that raises consern is that Huawei used to be a lot more open, like it used to be childs play to root their phones and then they decided to lock their bootloader with key and later they didn't give those keys anymore, and that kind of opens the questions; Why the change? What's behind those decision now? Has something changed?

 

On the other hand. Who cares? The biggest spying organisations in the world by far are still from US. And no, the NSA and other three letter organisations are far behind from the scale of Google and Facebook, I would even dare to say every single spying operation in the history of mankind is far behind them. Should I as a consumer care if China is spying on me when US does it daily already? Should some government care if China is spying on them when the US is already doing it and in far bigger scale? Not to even mention, why someone should care about China stealing stuff, when basicly every single one of US companies steal everything already (you know that part about "giving all of the rights of your content to the service" in every web services ToS? Yeah, they basicly steal everything you upload and they get away with it because 'Murica)?

Like basicly everytime you open your Android phone, Google will know; Every time you load a webpage, Google and Facebook will know. Don't have those accounts, doesn't matter, they will still follow you everywhere. Don't even use their products, doesn't matter they still follow you everywhere through ad-APIs and "like-button"-APIs and in the case of Google, quite often at the level of DNS-server (that 8.8.8.8) and as that probably quite a lot at the infrastructure level because Google just happens to have a lot of server power behind them and quite a lot backbone infrastructure to support that. And then you are worried that Chinese spy on you... "Oh my god, world is so fu'ed up now that Chinese spy on people"

 

Also who is so naive that believes their own government isn't spying on them and trying to spy on others? And they don't even require you to buy their products.

[leadeater]

41 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Also who is so naive that believes their own government isn't spying on them and trying to spy on others? And they don't even require you to buy their products.

They are tax funded so I expect them to do their job and spy, that's what they are there for. I would prefer they spy on external things but domestic problems are an actual thing. Pretty much I expect what I pay for, if not they should close up and stop wasting money.

[harryk]

38 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

I'm kind of splitted with this thing.

 

On one hand quite a few Chinese companies (Huawei included) are as transparent as brickwalls which really doesn't help building trust that they wouldn't be spying on their users (both consumers and "the public sector") for the Chinese government. Neither does that the Chinese law has some parts that actually demand Chinese companies to spy for the government. They very well know what other Chinese companies will do for anything open (copy, steal, knock-off and generally all the normal stuff) and that really doesn't encourage openess in China (like that really would change anything, because Chinese will copy, steal and knock-off everything anyway). But the biggest thing that raises consern is that Huawei used to be a lot more open, like it used to be childs play to root their phones and then they decided to lock their bootloader with key and later they didn't give those keys anymore, and that kind of opens the questions; Why the change? What's behind those decision now? Has something changed?

 

On the other hand. Who cares? The biggest spying organisations in the world by far are still from US. And no, the NSA and other three letter organisations are far behind from the scale of Google and Facebook, I would even dare to say every single spying operation in the history of mankind is far behind them. Should I as a consumer care if China is spying on me when US does it daily already? Should some government care if China is spying on them when the US is already doing it and in far bigger scale? Not to even mention, why someone should care about China stealing stuff, when basicly every single one of US companies steal everything already (you know that part about "giving all of the rights of your content to the service" in every web services ToS? Yeah, they basicly steal everything you upload and they get away with it because 'Murica)?

Like basicly everytime you open your Android phone, Google will know; Every time you load a webpage, Google and Facebook will know. Don't have those accounts, doesn't matter, they will still follow you everywhere. Don't even use their products, doesn't matter they still follow you everywhere through ad-APIs and "like-button"-APIs and in the case of Google, quite often at the level of DNS-server (that 8.8.8.8) and as that probably quite a lot at the infrastructure level because Google just happens to have a lot of server power behind them and quite a lot backbone infrastructure to support that. And then you are worried that Chinese spy on you... "Oh my god, world is so fu'ed up now that Chinese spy on people"

 

Also who is so naive that believes their own government isn't spying on them and trying to spy on others? And they don't even require you to buy their products.

Well put, though I argue that there is a big difference between US web companies taking the rights to your selfies and Huawei physically infiltrating competing tech companies and stealing engineering designs 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, harryk said:

I'm curious what else the US could have done (that they have not done already) and how banning Huawei is screwing with the rest of western society

Because of the Department of Commerce instruction to US companies to no longer have business dealings with Huawei which has pretty big implications and flow on effects depending on how much companies actually follow through with this recommendation/order.

 

For example you could have a Huawei server and run Oracle database engine on it, you have an issue and log a support case, as part of the support case you need to give them information on the system hardware, your support request is denied because you are using unsupported hardware.

 

Other examples would be things like ARM revoking technology licenses.

[harryk]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Because of the Department of Commerce instruction to US companies to no longer have business dealings with Huawei which has pretty big implications and flow on effects depending on how much companies actually follow through with this recommendation/order.

 

For example you could have a Huawei server and run Oracle database engine on it, you have an issue and log a support case, as part of the support case you need to give them information on the system hardware, your support request is denied because you are using unsupported hardware.

 

Other examples would be things like ARM revoking technology licenses.

Hmmm, I'm curious to know how many US companies have Huawei hardware in critical roles as they are the most affected

[Norwegiantweaker]

wouldnt mind seing china ban US. it would be pretty fun to watch 

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, harryk said:

Hmmm, I'm curious to know how many US companies have Huawei hardware in critical roles as they are the most affected

The problem for us, people not in the US, is having Huawei equipment as well as other US company based equipment or software. It's pretty much why we have to care.

[DaRk0]

On 5/31/2019 at 2:11 AM, harryk said:

Well put, though I argue that there is a big difference between US web companies taking the rights to your selfies and Huawei physically infiltrating competing tech companies and stealing engineering designs 

Well, if you put it black and white - better steal designs from some filthy rich companies than using military power to steal resources from other countries and killing civilians while doing it, like US and their NATO allies are doing.

[Guest]

On 5/30/2019 at 5:34 AM, Drak3 said:

That we've been presented with.

 

There are scenarios pertaining to national security where the government is obligated to not publish information.

I was skeptical at first, but I feel we’ve been presented with numerous examples of Huawei’s wrongdoings. Mostly intellectual property.

[Donut417]

On 5/29/2019 at 1:29 PM, DogeOfTech said:

Even ignoring the fact that they may have ties to the Chinese government, there's no support, no evidence, "...no gun, no smoke...".

They have ties to the Chinese government. I mean its a communist country after all, the government owns the company. 

 

On 5/29/2019 at 1:29 PM, DogeOfTech said:

Until the US/ANY government agency provides evidence, they shouldn't be cut off from consumers being able to purchase their devices.

If such evidence exists, we wont be allowed to see it. National Security in all. I have a feeling this will end up in the FISA courts and be classified to all hell. But that being said, I feel this is a ploy to try to get a better trade deal. The hope is if we bring down the Chinese economy a bit maybe they will meet our demands. With China retaliating back its hard to say. This is going to be a battle economies. Will the US economy hold out over the Chinese economy. 

 

Then as @Lurick stated a few Chinese firms have been violating US patents. Hell Ninebot stole Segway's designs then bought Segway to make the problem go away. Though again this all comes down to a trade deal, making China respect companies IP's. Among other things Im sure. In the end this whole mess is a dick measuring contest, all we have to do is wait to see who comes up short (Pun intended). 

[Jito463]

On 5/30/2019 at 7:33 AM, ThePD said:

The United States is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic. Two very different forms of government.

Technically, we're a Representative Republic.

On 5/30/2019 at 12:31 PM, Sauron said:

Yes they are - this is literally trial by legislature.

Even if spying was a part of it, why a trade ban instead of a fine or an ultimatum to comply? After proper investigation and trial of course.

Every country in the world can say that they have zero obligation to "play fair" with a company from another country.  There's zero reason they be required to even allow said company to operate within their borders.  The US government has absolutely no obligation to permit Huawei to operate on our shores.  Whether you agree with the ban or not, it is well within their right to do so.

On 5/30/2019 at 3:33 PM, harryk said:

The government can't really take sides when both companies are domestic. But if one company is foreign then its an entirely different story.

Exactly, foreign companies are not granted the same protections as ones based within the country, nor is there any reason they must be permitted to operate at all.  This is natural and completely normal.

On 5/30/2019 at 3:08 PM, Taf the Ghost said:

Modern forms of governance really just split along cultural lines for where within a pretty tight set of understandings a country falls into for its governance form. Too far one way or the other and you end up with civil wars pretty quickly.

This is why I strongly believe we need to reduce the amount of control from the federal government and give the power back to the states and the people as was originally intended.  Doing so will ease political tensions across the country, because each states population will be able to operate as they deem fit (within the confines of the Constitution, of course).  That's all I'll say on that matter, so it doesn't devolve into a political topic.

[leadeater]

13 hours ago, Donut417 said:

They have ties to the Chinese government. I mean its a communist country after all, the government owns the company. 

That's not how company ownership works... by that measure literally every single, absolutely all businesses in China are owned by the government and that just is not true. There's communism and then there is what people think is communism and it tends to be quite different things. The company is large, it's Chinese so it must be government owned or completely controlled. I don't think I need to go too far in to pointing out the assumptions here or the lack of trying to understand a country that has a different culture and political system, you don't have to agree with it but fear and suspicion only ever brings about negative interactions.

 

13 hours ago, Donut417 said:

If such evidence exists, we wont be allowed to see it. National Security in all. I have a feeling this will end up in the FISA courts and be classified to all hell. But that being said, I feel this is a ploy to try to get a better trade deal. The hope is if we bring down the Chinese economy a bit maybe they will meet our demands. With China retaliating back its hard to say. This is going to be a battle economies. Will the US economy hold out over the Chinese economy. 

National Security falls pretty hard on it's face when the other 5 Eyes members disagree and have access to the same intelligence and other intelligence allies also have brought forward nothing and have stated using the equipment imposes no security risk from the equipment or software.

 

Patent infringement isn't national security unless there is something that makes it so and that does not preclude that this evidence has to stay classified either. This is a rather weak line to go down when there is existing evidence of patent infringement. If we have to go down this national security line I can think of only one reason to not bring forward the evidence, it implicates the US in equally as bad or worse actions. Of course you can't always play clean and fair but you do need to monitor how thin the ice one is standing on is, before it cracks.

 

Also I wouldn't play the who can hold out longer game with China, a country with state controlled media and propaganda with a history of humans rights abuses. 

 

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

Every country in the world can say that they have zero obligation to "play fair" with a company from another country.  There's zero reason they be required to even allow said company to operate within their borders.  The US government has absolutely no obligation to permit Huawei to operate on our shores.  Whether you agree with the ban or not, it is well within their right to do so.

Problem here though is Huawei is already operating within the US so these bans and sactions effect US citizens who work for the company. You can't honestly say it's just to implement political interring in to private business operations that can have unjust impacts on your own people?

 

This would be a whole lot easier position if they weren't already operating in the US and had no US citizens as employees but they do. So does that mean it is their right to do so? Not exactly a simple assessment.

 

Then you have the issue of potentially violating WTO regulations. Countries aren't actually as free to do as they wish, that is why the WTO exists which China and the US are members of. You could say the WTO is failing to address Huawei and their patent infringements, it is part of their directive to do so.

[Donut417]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

If we have to go down this national security line I can think of only one reason to not bring forward the evidence, it implicates the US in equally as bad or worse actions.

The US has already been implicated by Edward Snowden. Not to mention a few years back, the media finding the NSA hook up in AT&T's data center. We all know the US does not have clean hands, and probably is worse than China. 

 

12 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The company is large, it's Chinese so it must be government owned or completely controlled. I don't think I need to go too far in to pointing out the assumptions here or the lack of trying to understand a country that has a different culture and political system, you don't have to agree with it but fear and suspicion only ever brings about negative interactions.

Well according to the person who created communism thats how it works. The Government owns the means of production. While Im sure Huawei has some autonomy, they still have to follow the directions of the government. Not to mention, the Chinese do have a law stating that Chinese companies have to help their intelligence services when asked. Thats why the US is concerned, while there might not be evidence today, no one can say that Huawei in the future might not have to help spy on other nations. Also to be frank, China is actually more of a dictatorship now days, as their president is not president for life. 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

While Im sure Huawei has some autonomy, they still have to follow the directions of the government. Not to mention, the Chinese do have a law stating that Chinese companies have to help their intelligence services when asked.

All things US companies have to contend with as well and there are US laws that have the same effects, Patriot Act just to name one and the most well known. China has a markedly different culture when it comes to things like information disclosure, I don't mean there is malice or ill-play behind it, but if you come in asking for information like what interactions and communications do you have with your government you won't get an answer beyond no comment. It's something they just will not answer no matter the situation, it's a pointless line of questioning and people regularly interpret that as having something to hide or there is something more to it other than just being culturally insensitive to be asking. Need to have really good reasons to be asking those questions. Here it is not an issue to be asking and we have laws that allow and require such questions to be answered, Official Information Act.

 

Expecting the rules and norms of interaction to be similar leads to many problems. An interesting one I found was what signing a contract means for us and them, for us that means the price has been agreed on where for them it can often mean that is now the start of price negotiation or a second round of it.

[Jito463]

37 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Problem here though is Huawei is already operating within the US so these bans and sactions effect US citizens who work for the company. You can't honestly say it's just to implement political interring in to private business operations that can have unjust impacts on your own people?

 

This would be a whole lot easier position if they weren't already operating in the US and had no US citizens as employees but they do. So does that mean it is their right to do so? Not exactly a simple assessment.

A fair point, but it wouldn't be the first time an international company has been asked (or even forced) to leave a particular country.  A quick search turned up this result from just this year.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-18/eba-extends-probe-into-danish-supervisor-s-oversight-of-danske

39 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Then you have the issue of potentially violating WTO regulations. Countries aren't actually as free to do as they wish, that is why the WTO exists which China and the US are members of. You could say the WTO is failing to address Huawei and their patent infringements, it is part of their directive to do so.

The issue with that, is the WTO - like most UN organizations (and I would argue, fortunately so) - is more bark than bite.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

The issue with that, is the WTO - like most UN organizations (and I would argue, fortunately so) - is more bark than bite.

Well if they actually functioned as written we might as well just all join the EU.

[SenKa]

With no concrete evidence to fight it, we are bound by the laws of the land.

 

Like it or not, the US is in the right per the Communist Control Act. Huawei has proven ties to the communist party of china, and thusly can do no business on US soil. The law states in essance that the US has the power to restrict or bar all acts of parties related to the communist party.

 

It has not been ruled unconstitutional at the level of the supreme court (though has in lower courts), and thusly could be leveraged at any point (though it never has).

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, SenpaiKaplan said:

Like it or not, the US is in the right per the Communist Control Act.

I don't think that applies.

 

Quote

The Communist Control Act (68 Stat. 775, 50 U.S.C. 841-844) is a piece of United States federal legislation, signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on 24 August 1954, which outlaws the Communist Party of the United States and criminalizes membership in, or support for the Party or "Communist-action" organizations and defines evidence to be considered by a jury in determining participation in the activities, planning, actions, objectives, or purposes of such organizations.

Sounds like a within US borders internal law to me.

[Trik'Stari]

Simple fix.

 

"temporarily banned until a complete investigation is conducted, including unlimited access to any and all Huawei properties"

 

OR, they could go with white listing. "Only companies on this list may do business with federal agencies, after passing inspection and investigation to be included on the list" then just.... don't allow Huawei on that list.

 

I'm sorry but the "may have ties to the Chinese government" aspect is too dangerous. Considering how very little respect that government has for anyone else's sovereignty or property.

 

No I don't care about things the US government has done in the past. I'd still rather trust them than the Chinese government, mainly because their interests at least partially align with my own.

[SenKa]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

I don't think that applies.

It could, due to the reasoning for the initial ban being a suspected tie to the chinese communist party. Source.

 

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

Sounds like a within US borders internal law to me.

Is Huawei's business within US' borders not within US borders?

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, SenpaiKaplan said:

It could, due to the reasoning for the initial ban being a suspected tie to the chinese communist party. Source.

 

Is Huawei's business within US' borders not within US borders?

The law applies to the US Communist party not the Chinese, and attempts to spread communist ideals in to the US by the creation of US communist organisations. Sure it's aimed at China but that doesn't mean the law can actually apply to anything not actually US. It's worded specifically in regards to that not about foreign entities.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

"temporarily banned until a complete investigation is conducted, including unlimited access to any and all Huawei properties"

There already has been, The former NSA head read the report and refused to believe it and said god did not make enough slides to convince him otherwise. Not just the US has done so either. If you will only believe what you think is to be true and will not accept the counter then any investigations is as pointless as the last one.

 

The non biased has no conflicts of interest former NSA head.

Quote

Hayden is a director of Motorola Solutions

 

[Trik'Stari]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

There already has been, The former NSA head read the report and refused to believe it and said god did not make enough slides to convince him otherwise. Not just the US has done so either. If you will only believe what you think is to be true and will not accept the counter then any investigations is as pointless as the last one.

 

The non biased has no conflicts of interest former NSA head.

 

There is SIGNIFICANT historical precedent for not trusting ANYTHING related to ANY communist government. More so than western governments.

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

There is SIGNIFICANT historical precedent for not trusting ANYTHING related to ANY communist government. More so than western governments.

So? That doesn't actually mean anything. Why is this a political matter and why does your government need to put bans in place and orders on US companies that have effects on countries other than your own based on only fear and in contradiction to your own ideals of free markets, capitalism and rights to a free trial.

 

Yea sure, they are Chinese not US so they don't get any of the above, heard that before etc. I don't care it's still hypocritical and your actions still effect more than you, prove it or stop unfounded meddling.

 

Private company civil matters are just that, everything is there to address IP theft by Huawei without going political.