American Security Firms Collaborate on Chinese Olympics 68
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. "
Simple reasons ... (Score:1)
– providing a testbed for said organizations
– ensuring that the US will not come under (economic) pressure from a democratic China
Business as usual.
CC.
This Should Not Be Allowed (Score:2)
Have people forgotten about the long string of Chinese engineers busted transferring information to the homeland? How about when their pilot Wang Wei crashed into and crippled a US recon airp
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"Wang Wei crashed into and crippled a US recon airplane forcing it to land in China"
And what do you think the U.S would have done to a chinese recon plane ???
Reminder: you do not own the world, that is a valid response of any government that has the capability, the only reason it is not done more often, is that other governments don't have the power to do it.
So I guess now it is... (Score:4, Funny)
And the new one for the Chinese:
Me Chinese. Me play joke. Me put lead paint in your Coke.
Doesn't make a difference. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not to say that it's ethical for Western security firms to help their government, but business isn't always ethical.
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Sorry, but the cat's out of the bag already. It's been that way for years.
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Am I paranoid? (Score:4, Insightful)
no you're not paranoid .. (Score:2)
It's already deployed here, in the interests of defending us from the 'terrorist threat'. Of course none of this is going to affect terrorism, what it is directed at is stifling dissent at home, from their own citizens, a watched people is a wary one
was: Re:Am I paranoid?
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Indeed, I am having trouble understanding your comment.
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The government is not out to get you. They may implement more cameras in the interest of security, but they are not trying to silence your dissidence, or intimidate you, or even track you. Ushering cameras in may make it slightly more possible for a government who will do all those things to come into power, but right now, you really are paranoid.
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Just like the congestion charging cameras in London, UK don't track you or where you go. Or how some cameras on the motorways don't track you either to judge your average speed and fine you if you go over...
You know one of the main reasons their introducing more cameras in the UK - to get rid of street crime.. by intimidating you (the randomly violent thug) into being really cautious about what you do because you're almost always on CCTV. See what I'm getting at...
Ofcourse there are
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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 w
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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.
I'm just worried that democracy isn't working that well, for example in the 2003 stop the war protest in London, ~5% of the voting population turned up - in person, outside parlaimant to object to the governments actions regarding Iraq.
In this example, their actions were actively harmful and as we all later found out there was much deception going on.
If the greed of those in power (industry lobbyists via the Bush administration etc.) brings them to commit crime on an international level with no rebuttal, w
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Then I act. I vote, I donate to the appropriate organisations, I soap-box locally, I write a letter to my local newspaper, etc, etc. I think you'll see this from kind of response from the apathetic masses when the government does something to seriously threaten their lifestyle.
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So what about my dissidence?
Congressional sanctions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, the whole thing about congressional sanctions seems to be a low point on the moral landscape to me when I consider that case. Ok, perhaps relevant three or four decades ago, but still?
The idea that you can pass rules in Washington, and somehow bring about magical barriers to the kind of nastiness that can be done with technology at any levelis absurd. After all, the US (and many other countries), spent untold billions preparing high tech weapons for an expected large conventional/nuclear war, and restricted the sale of, or passing of information about, much of this technology. Then what do we find? It's actually nutbars with explosive belts and cheap guns that are the problem.
I recommend we sanction sanctions, that'll fox em..
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If you think that is meaningless, then you should think again.
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The US never funded or trained Osama Bin Laden. He and his band of followers had their own funding and operated separately from the CIA supported works in the area. High tech weapons might have funneled over from joint operations but they were primarily supplied by Egyptian and Pakistani supported works.
I won't comment out how your spelling of the name is a
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I think that you're confusing friends and thralls. Thralls obey your every command. Friends don't, altought they might obey a request if they judge it reasonable.
The inability to understand this difference seems to be a recurring theme in US foreign policy, and is ex
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I'm glad you brought up freedom fries because this illustrates this problem perfectly. You see, France has secrete oil deals with Iraq that went against UN sanctions and were a part of a prime reasons that sanctions didn't have the effect it was supposed to have and war was an eventual outcome. And this isn't just a US sanction, it was a world wide sanction that
Look out for your own home first (Score:2)
Congress has spirit? (Score:2)
AFAICS, the concern is military and dual-use technology, and that can adequately be covered by ITAR and EAR regs.
Re:perhaps the radical nut cases would stop attack (Score:1)
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he loses for it being just a little too long, i couldn't be fucked reading it all. a good troll needs only a paragraph or so to fuel the flames, this one was amature hour
New Olympic event (Score:4, Funny)
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- RG>
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The terrorist threat is very real in the context of oylmpic games, it's highly likely various organisations would love to attack it.
IPv6 (Score:2, Interesting)
"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.w [wikipedia.org]
What this means... (Score:2)
Is that just like IBM, etc... who sold Hollerith machines to the Nazis to assist them with their "final solution"...
The purveyors of this system are going to have to hire some smart PR folks to manage the public impression. Nothing more.
And the people who speak out against this sort of thing will be vilified as crackpots and crazies.
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Okay, so I was wrong. They won't have to hire PR departments when posters like you are willing to excuse a corporation's culpability because, "Everyone else was doing it..."
You know, the interesting thing about global warming is that everybody is doing it. So why not just burn more coal, pollute the environment, etc..? Why bother holding companies responsible for their actions at all?
At some point, you have to realize that the torch has been passed to us. Our world is the way it is because we don
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because that's what you are dangerously close to proposing. under your logic if you handed me a stick and i poked someones eye out with it, YOU would be responsible as well.
If you want to know what's wrong with the world it's people like you that see a problem then proceed to try ram through solutions that are more dangerous then the problem to begin with.
lastly i suggest you burn your collection of Al Gore and Micheal Moore
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Are we talking legally or morally? Legally speaking, it depends on where you live. Here in Canada, for instance, a bartender (or just a host at a party) who allows someone else to get hammered and then drive home is considered responsible if that person causes an accident. Similarly, if you sell a gun to someone who has made it clear that
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if it's clear the item you are selling someone is going to hurt them or others, you should be held liable.
however, this has to be decided case by case, which the GP isn't doing. Did IBM know the nazi's would try exterminate the jews? I doubt it very much.
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Einstein [wikipedia.org] was smart enough to work out what was going on in 1932, cheap labour capitalists from the US were a tad slow to catch on, almost 10yrs too slow in some cases.
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You know, to the rest of the fucking planet AG is simply presenting the IPCC reports [www.ipcc.ch] to a laymen audience. His nobel prize was for communicating the "real facts" as understood by science at the time. I would have thought that such geek like behaviour in a politician would be considered a GoodThingTM, but I'm probably wasting my breath since you have already shot the messenger for party
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While that is probably true, what a lot of people don't know is that Prescott Bush (George W's grandfather) continued to deal with the Nazi's even after it was declared illegal by the US government. Charges were even brought against him but through power and influence, he got everything to conveniently go away.
Don't believe
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George Santayana
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BTW, a bit off topic here, but I think slashdot could be greatly improved with the addition of an eye-rolling emoticon....
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I'm so confused
religious worship and Internet cafes as locations (Score:2)
blackwater (Score:1)
No, my pants don't fall off on a regular basis. (Score:1)
> 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."
With all due respect, we will earn lots of money, and we won't have to look at tho
IBM already is... (Score:1)
Not just china (Score:3, Informative)
I just wonder if it has happened anywhere else, china was repressive enough, who knows what else they will enact.