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Businesses China Microsoft Apple Technology

US Accuses Supplier for Amazon, Apple, Dell, GM, Microsoft of Human Rights Abuses (cnet.com) 76

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
The US Department of Commerce added 11 Chinese companies to its list of firms implicated in human rights violations, including China's reported campaign against Muslim minority groups from an area of the country known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. At least one of those companies, Nanchang O-Film Tech, is listed as a supplier or undefined "partner" with nearly two dozen tech and car companies, including Amazon, Apple, Dell, GM and Microsoft. From a report: The Commerce Department said the group of 11 companies that supported "mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, involuntary collection of biometric data and genetic analysis" targeted at Uighurs and other minority groups will face restrictions on US products, including technology. "Beijing actively promotes the reprehensible practice of forced labor and abusive DNA collection and analysis schemes to repress its citizens," Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement Monday. "This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party's despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations."
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US Accuses Supplier for Amazon, Apple, Dell, GM, Microsoft of Human Rights Abuses More

US Accuses Supplier for Amazon, Apple, Dell, GM, Microsoft of Human Rights Abuses

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  • The US Police State (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Monday July 20, 2020 @04:39PM (#60312279)

    The US does the same thing except that instead of targeting small groups it has the entire population of black people who suffer dis-proportionally high incarceration rates. Our prison labor is contracted out to "reputable" companies in the same way China does.
    The US has a much higher rate of incarceration than China so lots of free labor for the corporate sweatshops.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sycodon ( 149926 )

      You want to know how to stay out of prison?

      DON'T COMMIT CRIMES!

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        In the US, being black is a crime. They will arrest you and make up a reason later.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Or conversely just be rich and ideally white and most laws no longer apply to you.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mi ( 197448 )

          In the US, being black is a crime.

          Bullshit. Unsubstantiated bullshit. You're not at a BLM riot — around here you have to back up your claims with citations.

          • around here you have to back up your claims with citations.

            LOL!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            How frequently it happens may be open to question. That it does happen has been publicly confirmed. IIRC, one case involved a Congressional Representative who happened to be black, and had no other offense claimed. There have also been cases involving major sports stars. If the person that it happens to isn't a celebrity, why would you expect it to make the news?

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by mi ( 197448 )

              How frequently it happens may be open to question.

              "It" has to happen all the time for the mspohr's accusation, that simply being Black is a crime in the US, to stand.

              The accusation is bullshit.

              one case involved a Congressional Representative who happened to be black

              What case?

              There have also been cases involving major sports stars

              You would've provided links, if there were any.

        • And that would be why, while there were nine unarmed blacks killed by cops in the U.S. in 2019, there were sixteen whites.

          Don't be a brainwashed chump, Chump.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Do you really think you have never committed any crime, or just not been prosecuted for one yet?

        Everyone has broken some law. Society only functions because most of it gets ignored.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sycodon ( 149926 )

          I have never committed any crime worthy of being put in prison.

          How about you?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            How do you know? I guarantee that you don't know even a reasonable fraction of the laws. And some of them have portions that are secret, but which you are officially bound by anyway.

            It has been claimed that the average person in the US commits 10 felonies / day. I haven't checked into what's back of that claim, and it seems a bit high to me. But that's as reasonable a claim as the blanket assertion from someone that they haven't committed a felony.

          • Re:The US Police State (Score:4, Insightful)

            by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday July 20, 2020 @10:36PM (#60313389) Homepage Journal

            I have never committed any crime worthy of being put in prison.

            Neither have many people who were sent to prison.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            "Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough in them to hang him."

            I'm sure given enough time and motivation we can find something, or if the cops feel like they can make something up. A good one is to claim to smell marijuana, beat you up and charge you with resisting arrest.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If only it was that simple. Instead, there is a very large population (nearly every US citizen) who has committed one or more crimes but evaded prison time, and also a sizable group of people (exact number hard to pin down) who are in prison but did not commit the crime they are accused of.

        And that's not even counting the STAGGERING number of people who are in prison for violating unjust laws. Being caught with a couple grams of weed should not open you up to months or years of legal slavery. The fact tha

      • Yeah, Roger Stone was telling me that just the other day!!!

      • DON'T COMMIT CRIMES!

        Yeah. Or never plea bargain and risk 75 year behind bars for a bunch of invented crimes you may or may not get unlucky on.

        So basically, be lucky. And rich. That helps.

      • because Nixon's people decided smoking weed would be a crime because they figured out blacks and hippies were never gonna vote for them and it was a great way to harass and disenfranchise them. There's documented evidence of this, yet weed's still illegal. Over a million people in Florida lost the right to vote thanks to a Supreme Court decision right before this year's election.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )
          Nah, Nixon's people doubled down on it, but it was the anti-Mexican crowd that pushed pot prohibition in the 30s.
          • when before it was, as you said, used against Mexicans. Nixon also made a local policy a national one. Nixon is why it's illegal today. If not for Nixon the State laws would stand alone and weed would be legal in most states.
            • this thread isn't about Nixon, the point is that things get criminalized and laws are changed to target specific groups for political reasons. That means you can't just blurt out "If you can't do the time don't do the crime" because it's meaningless in a world as unjust and fucked up as ours.
      • Your comment is a distraction, the notion that you can avoid committing crimes is stupid [wsj.com], and what you seem to be suggesting here is that it's okay to do anything to anyone who commits any crime. Merely "being a criminal" is justification for enslavement.

        Your comment is not just horribly callous, but foolish. It is not in your own self interest to promote the abuse of prisoners, unless you somehow think that you are immune to being imprisoned. You must be rich.

      • I think shouting is a crime.

    • We dont contract prisoners like that anymore. The chain gangs are a thing of the past. It was an end-run around slavery. Making license plates is not the same thing. If you want to draw a parallel how about rounding up another religious class, sew yellow stars on their clothing, and put them to work to support the war effort.

      There is a disproportionate number of black people incarcerated because there are a disproportionate number of black people living in very high crime areas. They are not being rounded u

    • The US does the same thing except that instead of targeting small groups

      No such "targeting" takes place.

    • ...who suffer dis-proportionally high incarceration rates

      Let's rephrase: who commit crimes at disproportionately high rates. It takes an idiot to focus on the symptom rather than the problem; you're focusing on a symptom of a symptom.

      • That's rather simplistic. Consider this...
        https://www.sentencingproject.... [sentencingproject.org]

        The United States criminal justice system is the largest in the world. At yearend 2015, over 6.7 million individuals1) were under some form of correctional control in the United States, including 2.2 million incarcerated in federal, state, or local prisons and jails.2) The U.S. is a world leader in its rate of incarceration, dwarfing the rate of nearly every other nation.3)
        Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades

  • Here is one of numerous videos reporting on the sheer magnitude of the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    This is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time and everyone just looks the other way because everything we buy is made in China and China is so heavily invested in the U.S. economy. Add the Hong Kong situation as well and you'll recognize that China's aggression against its own people is accelerating rapidly. The longer we wait to react, the more emboldened they will become - i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossz ( 67331 )

      We are ending are reliance on China for are cheap junk. We are making public the companies that are using Chinese slave labor. The problem is, there are idiots who will do the exact opposite because they hate Trump so much that they would rather support China than admit Trump actually did the right thing for a change. That includes people here on slashdot posting in this thread.

  • Sen. Hawley Introduces Anti-Slave-Labor Bill (Score:4, Informative)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Monday July 20, 2020 @05:48PM (#60312573)

    Sen. Hawley's Act [senate.gov] will:

    • Compels companies to disclose the steps they are taking to eradicate forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking from their supply chains
    • Directs major companies to undergo independent audits to ensure they are not complicit in forced labor and trafficking in their supply chains
    • Mandates public reports to the Department of Labor on the results of their independent audits
    • Requires CEOs to certify that their supply chains are free from slave labor or that they have reported all instances of forced labor in their companies

    China Is Using Uighur Slave Labor to Produce Face Masks [nytimes.com]

    • I mean, I'm a progressive so I'll take what I can get, but it'd be nice if that little loop hole went away.

    • There's nothing in the bill that prevents it from being used against companies procuring products made by US prison labour. I hope some group(s) go after companies, such as meat packers, that use prison labour and treat the people horribly if this bill becomes law.

      Though it just forces companies to do an audit and report any instances of slave labour. There doesn't appear to be penalties involved.

  • Well the US would know (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BrookSmith ( 2949941 ) on Monday July 20, 2020 @06:41PM (#60312803)

    Well the US would know, the world can see Americans for who they are, pointing the finger at the Chinese pretending that they are doing something which America isn't, its a political tactic to divert attention away from where the real abuses are, human rights abuses that are happening in the US as we speak, Gauntanimo Bay, the peaceful protests in Portland being met by a violent mob of heavily armed counter protesters and what did the police do? well the violent mob was the police.

  • Said the nation that separates children from their parents.

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