Olympics a Fascist Feeding Frenzy
Corporations around the world have been gleefully rubbing their hands as they display their police state wares at a Chinese trade show that precedes the Olympics. Such wares include technology for secretly copying hard drives, crowd control, and surveillance on public streets, all in the name of “security.” And China, recently criticized around the world for its brutal crackdown on protests in Tibet, is rabidly in the market for “security” and “crime control” equipment. It’s a perfect match between Western multinationals and Chinese police agencies.
From the New York Times, April 26:
At the recent China International Exhibition on Police Equipment here, sponsored by the Ministry of Public Security, DuPont had a large exhibit promoting Kevlar bulletproof fabric for riot police use. Motorola was selling police radio systems as well as wireless systems for transmitting vast quantities of video surveillance data.
And with the slogan “dress to kill” on their black T-shirts, top executives from Magnum of Britain showed off their latest police boots. “Chinese police deserve the best — Magnum protects the protectors,” said Paul Brooks, the company’s president, in a speech to police officials.
The most intriguing device offered at the show to senior Chinese security agency officials was the Image Masster RoadMasster, a powerful computer system that swiftly copies computer hard drives without leaving any trace and comes concealed in its own color-coordinated briefcase.
Gonen Ravid, the chief executive of the device’s manufacturer, Intelligent Computer Solutions in Chatsworth, Calif., said that the company sells exactly the same equipment in the same briefcases to the Pentagon for use in Iraq, and to the Central Intelligence Agency and other Western intelligence agencies for use around the world.
No company in China makes similar equipment, he said. “The U.S.,” he said, “is still leading with this.”
The trade show coincided with increasing controversy in the United States over American exports of crime-control equipment to China. After the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, Congress passed a law that remains in effect today: it bans “the export to the People’s Republic of China of any crime control or detection instruments or equipment.”
The Commerce Department drafted regulations in the early 1990s to put that ban into effect. But those initial regulations — which officials have said clearly apply to products aimed exclusively at law enforcement agencies, like fingerprint kits — paid little attention to the rising computer industry and have not been updated.
The department did an internal review last winter of the rules. It is now seeking public comment on how and whether it should update its regulations on exports of crime control and detection equipment to any country subject to restrictions.
Asked about the abundant American gear shown at the police equipment trade show, Mario Mancuso, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, replied with a one-sentence written statement: “Enforcing U.S. regulations on crime control equipment, including the Tiananmen Square Sanctions, is a top priority, and we continually review our regulations to ensure that they effectively support our national security and foreign policy.”
Another Commerce Department official said that questions from The New York Times about American equipment exhibited at the trade show had prompted the department to begin a review of whether American laws might have been broken. The official insisted on anonymity, in keeping with a department policy of not commenting on work that might lead to law enforcement actions.
The department has officials in Beijing and Hong Kong who look for violations of export control laws, but did not try to send anyone into the police equipment trade show. A reporter for The New York Times was able to enter the show by filling out a routine questionnaire at the entrance about his interest in the security industry, identifying himself in English on the form as a correspondent for the newspaper and providing a copy of his business card.
The trade show was held from April 16 to 19 at a small compound near the center of Beijing; the compound is reserved for commercial events with top-level government backing.
At least two Hong Kong companies at the show set up booths to market fingerprint identification kits that were prominently marked as having been made in the United States by American companies.
Many other products at the trade show were also from the United States, but their manufacturers said that they were complying with American laws. Read the rest>>
