American Security Firms Collaborate on Chinese Olympics

A New York Times story at News.com notes the efforts of American security organizations to help the Chinese government prepare for the coming Olympic games. Critics argue this assistance violates the spirit of Congressional sanctions, and that the technology left behind after the games are over could be used to track dissident elements. "'I don't know of an intelligence-gathering operation in the world that, when given a new toy, doesn't use it,' said Steve Vickers, a former head of criminal intelligence for the Hong Kong police who now leads a consulting firm. Indeed, the autumn issue of the magazine of China's public security ministry prominently listed places of religious worship and Internet cafes as locations to install new cameras. "

IPv6

[H3g3m0n]

According to Wikipedia china is going to be using the olympics to show off their new internet systems such as IPv6 based security cameras etc...

"China plans to showcase their new CNGI and their new IPv6 networking at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Everything from the security cameras to the taxis to the cameras filming the Olympic events will be networked via IPv6; the events will be streamed live over the Internet while the networked cars will be able to grasp the traffic situation more readily."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Next_Generation_Internet [wikipedia.org]

Re:Am I paranoid?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

My point is: with a current trend of power hungry politions, leveraging whatever they have now to ensure their political ideals are on-top in future; are you sure you're happy with that?

Yup, I'm pretty much fine with that. Whatever repulsive-sounding thing they have to do to make the people happy, I'm fine with. So long as they don't actively hide harmful activities from the public, they can do as much bending over backwards, ass-licking, baby-kissing, mud-slinging, etc, as they like, so long as democracy works. That's all I require.

I think the whole paranoia about politicians is a bit of a strawman. The best, most reliable way to stay in power as long as possible is to just give people what they want. It's not rocket-science. A few polls here, a few focus groups there, what they ask for (especially in swinging seats), do it. All you need is the perspective to draft up policies that please the most number of people. That's what most successful politicians do. Their alleged thirst for power can be satisfied rather easily. There's no reason to go to the trouble and risk of instituting a totalitarian state. There'd be so much opposition, so few in favour of it. It would take far too much time to boil the frog slowly, because terms are short, and political layering is complex and completely against such actions. I often find that the premises for films/books like V for Vendetta are often a little too difficult to swallow.