By Cliff Montgomery – May 19th, 2014
John Chambers, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cisco Systems Inc., has had enough of the National Security Agency’s blatant spying activities, according to a strongly-worded letter he recently sent to President Obama.
New evidence from Edward Snowden – the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who first revealed the Agency’s constitutionally questionable actions – appears to show “that the NSA intercepted equipment from Cisco and other manufacturers and loaded them with surveillance software,” recently stated re/code, a technology news source.
Photos presumably provided by Snowden “appear to show NSA technicians working with Cisco equipment,” even though “Cisco is not said to have cooperated in the NSA’s efforts,” re/code pointed out.
True, Mr. Chambers seems most worried about the fact that the NSA’s numerous unreasonable searches and seizures may well cause a decrease of international sales for U.S.-based organizations.
“We ship our products from locations inside, as well as outside the United States, and if these [NSA spying] allegations are true, these actions will undermine confidence in our industry and in the ability of technology companies to deliver products globally,” wrote Chambers.
All the same, CISCO’s CEO boldly tells Obama what he thinks of such spying actions:
“Confidence in the open, global Internet…is eroded by revelations of governments’ surveillance, government demands that make it difficult for companies to meet the privacy expectations of citizens and [the] laws of other countries, and allegations that governments exploit rather than report security vulnerabilities,” stated Chambers in his letter.
“As a matter of policy and practice since out inception, Cisco does not work with any government, including the United States Government, to weaken our products,” Chambers continued.
“By adhering to these – and many other standards – we have built and maintained our customers’ trust. Trust with our customers is paramount, and we do everything we can to earn that trust every day,” he added.
