Cisco custom-built the so-called “Great Firewall of China,” also known as the “Golden Shield.” This system enables the Chinese government to conduct Internet surveillance and censorship against its citizens. As if that weren’t bad enough, company documents also revealed that, as part of its marketing pitch to China and in an effort to meet its customers needs, Cisco built a special Falun Gong module into the Golden Shield that helped the Chinese authorities identify, locate, and ultimately persecute practitioners of that religion by, for example, creating profiles of them that could be used during interrogations and forced conversions (i.e., torture).