Surveillance State [Poll]

I agree with MAJ. Britain is about 60 years ahead of the US as a police state. But it has happened that UK juries, no matter how carefully picked, have failed to convict whistle-blowers.It is possible to expose malfeasance by the intelligence services without making your family pay for your execution. I fear this would not the case in HK.

As for legality in surveillance of terrorists, activists, journalists and kindergarten teachers - that's just a non-issue. An intelligence service by definition does not work in the legal arena, and any action it takes, from building a "case" to solving the problem is intended to remain secret.

(Sorry, I acidentally pressed the wrong admin button, so I am repostig this message myself)

MAJ made this comment, ACB - as I have just recently pointed out to Sojourner, in the debate that is currently under way on my site (The MAJ-Sojourner Debate at www.journeysthroughchina.blog.com), Britain is actually the surveillance capital of the world - there is perhaps no other society on earth right now that is more Orwellian.

Having said that, I would agree that the new laws proposed for Hong Kong could indeed be abused, and are hence a threat to civil liberties.

I've done some survailance of my own, and reached an obvious conclusion.

I must confess that my knowledge of Britain is a bit out of date, but you are right on the money here as far as I am concerned.

Britain has an extraordinarily scary level of surveillance. It has more CCTV cameras per head of population than any other country in the world. Worse still, it has non of the privacy laws, that countries like France have, that prevent CCTV cameras from being put up by the state. They also have a network of cameras that automatically detect and store the plates of any car that drives past them in many cities and on many freeways which can cross automatically crosscheck vehicle Ids against a 'special' database.

They are even talking about upgrading local CCTV systems with facial recognition software that can spot a person in a crowd and track their movements across several cameras.

In 2002, it was estimated that there was 1 camera for every 14 people in Britain (including privately owned cameras, as well as those owned by the state). If China had this much surveillance, I'd want to wear a sunglasses and a bonnet just to step out of my front door, and I'd be strongly tempted to carry a parasol everywhere that I went just so that I could raise it, and put it between myself and the cameras.

On top of this, the state also want to take DNA profiles of all children at birth and keep them in a special social 'security' file, that would include all kinds of personal information that a government simply has no right to know.

Check this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/26/ndata26.xml Now, if that isn't Orwellian, I don't know what is.

However, I think that the British people are safe, for the moment at least.

Most of these cameras and other surveillance tools have almost nothing to do with fighting dissidents. Mostly, there because Britain has rampant street crime, rampant car crime and a weak police force.

Britain has the highest assault rate (7.46 per 1000), highest rape rate (0.14), second highest car theft rate (5.60), and second highest robbery rate (1.57) in Europe, but it is the 8th in Europe for numbers of police (2.0 per 1000).

The burden of proof in British courts is also so unbelievably stacked against the state (for non-security related crimes, at least), they need a lot of evidence before they can prosecute.

If you look at Britain's surveillance infrastructure and laws, they actually quite backwards when compared to other first world countries like the US, and completely Stoneage when compared to places like Israel and China, which fight dissidents on a daily basis

For example, Britain has no central internet monitoring network, not even to catch regular criminals like internet sex offenders or music pirate. They basically have to wait until somebody has been caught committing a crime, and then get an order from a judge to seize their internet records after the fact. The same goes for email. You suspect somebody, you arrest them, then you search their web accounts.

They also have no automatic monitoring systems like the US does to flag up people who borrow books on bomb making from libraries, and there are laws in Britain that actually prevent the police form using evidence gained from wiretaps in court.

FYI. Here is a link to Britain's main post 9/11 surveillance laws

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/20000023.htm

And it opposite number in the US, the Patriot Activities

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.3162.ENR:

Mmmm...you make some very good points here ACB, but perhaps you overstate China's surveillence capabilities a little: as I pointed out in the MAJ-Sojourner Debate, throughout most of China, local PSBs often have little accurate information on the citizens under their jurisdiction - Gao Ying, my other half for example, was recently unable to obtain a birth certificate, and when she applied for a police criminal record check, the local authorities was perplexed and confused, and what she ended up with was a piece of paper that looked like scrap, with a red stamp on it - the statement simply said that she had no known convictions. They even managed to spell her father's name wrong, and the family address too was slightly incorrect.

Such poor record-keeping is hardly characterisitic of authorities in Britain, who know everything about you. I have elaborated more on this in the MAJ-Sojourner Debate, if you're interested.

What you say is true, but you're reasoning is off a little.

China is a GIGANTIC country, with poor infrastructure. Each province basically operates it beaurocracy independently from that of other provinces, and each town within that province operates its beaurocracy of every other town in that province. To top this off, many of China's systems still aren't computerized, or are computerized but not linked together.

You're partner might well have been best served going back to their birth town/village/city, and finding the actual filing cabinet that their records were stored in. Presuming that their records actually existed in the first place, or weren't just scribbled down on the back of an envelope and thrown in a draw somewhere.

It's not just the PSB, its everything in China. Records are kept locally. Try changing your Yuan into dollars in a neighboring province. They won't have your tax records on file there. Or try booking a train from Shanghai to Beijing, while you are in Tianjin. You can't do it.

Britain, on the other hand, has a good infrastructure because it is so small, and because each part of its beurocracy is linked to its opposite number in the next province. If you walk into any police station in Britain, they can tell you your exact criminal record no matter where yo were arrested, and they can tell you your tax record from any tax office in the country, no matter where you live.

However, this infrastructure extends to all areas of society. Not just the state. For example, if you go into an Empire record store in London and ask them to check the stock for a CD, they can check every Empire record store in the entire country with a couple of key preses. What's more, they can take payment and reserve it for you on the spot. Where can you do that in China?

This is true for most nationwide stores in England. Drug stores, book stores, you name it.

“Such poor record-keeping is hardly characterisitic of authorities in Britain, who know everything about you.“

The authorities in Britain might know everything about you, but that is because it is an anally retentive sociality state. Not because it is some sinister Orwellian state (OK, Britain is a sinister Orwellian state, but for different reasons). I know what Britain is like, you should see all the forms that I had to fill out when I was studying there, and its gotten much worse since then.

If you buy a car and won't to drive it, you must fill in a form and pay a tax fee to use the roads, but if your car breaks down, and you keep it off of the road and in your garage and don't drive it, also you need a special form to tell the government this. If you don't have one, they find you about $100.

Britain keeps so many records that it can't possibly use all of the data that it has.

Of course, while Britain knows everything about you, it doesn't know it doesn't care where you are, where you were, or what you say. But China does

For example, China has a huge state organ dedicated to tracking people and their activities that simply does not exist in countries like Britain. In China, it is mandatory to show your ID card in hotels, and your cell telephone, blog and internet cafe ID are all linked back to your ID card number by a central database. In Britain, all of these things are done anonymously.

Anybody, even a foreigner, can go into Britain and stay in a hotel without identifying themselves. They can even give a fake name because there is no law against it (There are many jokes about people booking into hotels under the name of Smith if they are there for sex).

In Britain, only the cell phone companies have access to ownership records of phones, and you can buy disposable 'pay as you go' handsets in any high street phone store where you can pay for credit with cash, and don't have to give any personal details whatsoever, and you can have as many blogs and website as you like and the state won't even check up on you. Many people in Britain even have their own webservers in their houses and the state doesn't make them register their names and addresses with the police

Finally, Britain doesn't even have ID cards (they have a social security card, but it has no photograph or biometrics on it, it can't be checked on the spot by police or be used to track your movement). It must be some messed up surveillance state where a government can can't even prove what your name is.

You simply can't compare a country that demands knows where you are at all times, and what you are doing, but has poor record keeping, to a country that knows all of your personal details, but doesn't even care where you are, or what you are saying.

ACB - my partner did apply at the local PSB in her hometown! Their records were poorly kept and inaccruate.

ACB, you raise many interesting and valid points, though your claim that "China has a huge state organ dedicated to tracking people and their activities" I find rather unconvincing. Where is your proof? Even the local PSB very often, as I discovered, have inaccurate records about people living a mere block away from their offices!

In Britain, buying a bra, or booking into a hotel, is not anonymous if you're paying for such purchases or services using a credit card. Or claim that China "cares" where you are and what you're doing is a gross hyperbolic overstatement in my opinion.

“my partner did apply at the local PSB in her hometown! Their records were poorly kept and inaccruate.”

Given the age of your partner, their records almost certainly pre-dated the actual age of PSB office and wouldn't have been stored there in the ifrst place, and the would come from a period when such records were badly made anyway. There are people from provincial areas of that age who can just about pin their birth down to a season, because nobody official recorded anything meaningful.

Chinese record keeping is indeed pretty bad.

“Where is your proof? Even the local PSB very often, as I discovered, have accurate records about people living a mere block away from their offices”

There is a big difference between spying on people and accurately recording keeping. The fact that records are poorly kept has nothing to do with the existance of surveillance. You can have an Orwelian society with poor record keeping, just as you can have a free society with excelent record keeping.

The main mark of Beijing's surveillance state, as I said earlier, is the fact Beijing keeps records about a number of key things that other countries don't. Specifically, records of where you go and what you say. For example

* If you own a cell phone, you must register your ID card number and telephone number with the state. This not only means that they know who called who, but also that they can track which telephone towers your cell phone connects to (cell phones will send out a signal every few minutes announcing themselves to all local towers, so that when you want to make a call, they can automatically connect to the nearest/best tower), this allows them to track your movements as long as your cell phone is switched on and to track your calls/txt messages back to your home address.

* If you want to run a blog or a website, you must register your name and ID card number with the state, so they know at all times who says what on their websites

* If you want to use an internet cafe, you must register your identity and use a log in system that automatically records what you read and which sites you visit.

* You must carry an ID card at all times (Countries like Britain don't even HAVE ID cards).

* ID checks on long distance transport

* Special passes required for Mainlanders to travel to Hong-Kong and Hong-Kong residents to travel to the Mainland. Honestly, its easier (and safer) for me to use a foreign passport to cross the 'border' than for people to use the internal Chinese system which can be refused by the state if you are seen as being overly interested in democracy or the rule of law.

* State registration required for printing presses

* Bugging and surveillance of 'that square' survivors and families involved in it.

* Minders and restricted zones for journalists and foreign workers in China, and Chinese workers overseas.

* All that business about work permits for certain provinces and towns/rural areas (some of which has been eased, and which originally had a slightly different purpose).

You simply can't compare this to computerized tax records etc in countries like Britain, or any other western democracy that you care to mention. Even with the Patriot Act, America only has about half as much power to track you.

“In Britain, buying a bra, or booking into a hotel, is not anonymous if you're paying for such purchases or services using a credit card.”

1) I can buy my underwear using cash, thank you very much 2) Credit card records are not kept by the state, and are kept everywhere that credit cards exist. they are used to make sure that you pay your bills at the end of the month. The system is the same whether you are in Britain, China or Iran.

What is different in China though, is that Beijing can seize your credit card records at any time and based simply on the say-so of the security forces.

In countries like Britain the security forces can't do this. They require a judicial order to check your financial records. Usually such an order can only be obtained if the can show that a crime has been committed AND that there is reasonable cause to think that you are involved. Else, they have to show reasonable grounds that your life is in danger (eg, that you've beet kidnapped, and the kidnapper is using your ATM card).

Plus, countries like Britain have NO sedition laws. You can commit as much sedition as you like. You can call for the overthrow of the state, or a change of government all that you like so long as you don't advocate murder (even then, you can often keep doing it for a while).

In Britain, you can even advocate separatism openly, and the state can't arrest you. Whats more, there are even democratically elected officials in the government who campaign for separatism and provisions in the law through which they could, potentially, legally achieve it.

In China, this would get you 10 years in prison.

“claim that China "cares" where you are and what you're doing is a gross hyperbolic overstatement in my opinion.”

If Beijing doesn't care where I am or what I am doing, why DOES it check people's ID cards every five minute, and monitor what they read on the web when they haven't been suspected of a crime?

Even America doesn't do this routinely after 9/11.

ACB - my Chinese other half is only aged 25.

Secondly, you do NOT need to obtain permission from the CCP in order to set up your own blog. And the authorities here DO NOT check people's ID cards every five minutes, nor do they monitor what everyone reads on the web. They simply do not have those kinds of resources! You are quite clearly paranoid!!!!!!

And according to the results of the only scientifically valid national survey study on the attitude of mainlanders towards democracy and government, conducted by Taiwanese scholar Tianjin Si, and presented at the 32nd Sino-American Conference on Contemporary China, held in Taipei, not only are most Chinese not interested in multi-party elections and are generally satisfied with the present status quo, but the overwhelming majority DO NOT even perceive the CCP or the Party state in general as having much of an impact on their lives!!!!! That's highly significant, and it's what Bingfeng keeps saying on his site - too many foreigners are so wrapped up and influenced by Cold War images of China, that they look for evidence to support their silliness, and their paranoia ensures that they find it everywhere they look.

Showing ID cards when using internet cafes is simply designed to prevent under 18 year olds from accessing such places - and that rule was introduced in response to public demands! Too many vocal parents were concerned about their children's welfare, and worried about them frequenting internet bars where over 18s very often smoke and swear and play violent "shoot-em-up" computer games. media claims that such places are often used by prostitutes on the prowl hightened such fears. People like you though prefer to put a completely different spin on it, claiming that the CCP have such requirements in order to spy on everybody's internet activities! Rubbish! As if they'd have the human resources to waste trying to do that. The vast majority of all censorship in China is voluntary self-censorship!

I agree with you on most of your other points - you can advocate separatism in the UK, whereas you are not likely to get away with that for too long in China. True. China is not an evil totalitarian Stalinist-type society, but rather a market-preserving federalism, administered under a one-party state that is paternalistically authoritarian, in very much the same way that Singapore is. In fact, many Western scholars claim that academic freedom is greater in mainland China's universities than it is in Singapore! Still, it is authoritarian, and although the rule of law is developing in China, far more so than what you and the PD crowd like to think, the fact remains though, I agree, that the CCP remains largely above the law - and for that reason, many injustices do indeed occur. Those seperatists who do manage to attract the attention of the state, if they are too active, are likely to be arrested and imprisoned. But keep in mind here too, that the US has the world's highest incarceration rates - NOT China! I have discussed this in the MAJ-Sojourner Debate too - showing how incarceration rates have been grossly exaggerated by some dissidents in the US, whose claims are reported in the Western press as if they were fact.

I have discussed Tianjian Shi's national survey in detail in the MAJ-Sojourner Debate on my site at www.journeysthroughchina.blog.com if you're interested in learning more about that study. I demonstrate, using empirically verifiable evidence (including Shi's study) that the Chinese are not yet interested or ready for a Western style parliamentary system of democracy. The discussion so far in response to the debate has been intelligent, and has attracted some interest from the journalist Philip J. Cunningham. Sojourner himself hasn't joined the discussion since our debate was made public because he is still on vacation in the UK, but I expect he'll back later this week. You are more than welcome to participate too ACB, just in case Richard carries out his threat to ban you again from posting on his site! I noticed the flak you have recently received for your attacks on Ivan. I don't agree with your attacks, but I will say here that I find Ivan to be the most vile character I have ever come across in cyberspace. Richard ranks second!

As you know, I made a perfectly valid criticism of his site on the pages of the China Daily, and his response was to launch a nasty smear campaign against me. I mentioned him once in my CD article by his full real name and so he exploited this to smear me. He himself had been promoting his site using his own full real name on the pages of the AV World site, so he has no right to object to others if they refer to him by his full name. He made it public, and did so as the administrator of the PD.

nevertheless, he made out that he wanted his name to be kept secret, and so he made out that my use of it had hurt him, and lied publicly, saying that I had contacted a past employer of his informing them of his sexuality. Absolute lie of course, but most of the Duck crowd were more than happy to believe it. He then endorsed a vile malicious hate site aimed at me, set up by Ivan, which was highly slanderous and which called upon me to kill myself. I then had two death threats by email from David "Keir" Heath, who also made me a threatening phone call, and more recently, Richard started warning people on his site not to visit mine, saying that I was using my site to obtain people's IP address so that I could contact their employers! Absolute lies of course. My site, hosted by blog.com doesn't even allow me to register IP addresses! Anyone can try setting up a blog using blog.com for themselves if they don't believe me. He was just being spiteful and vindictive, as usual.

Anyway, that's all from me for now.

All the best, MAJ

I will get to your other points when I have more time, but just to make things absolutely clear that I have in no way threatened anybody in any way shape or form. Not Richard, not Ivan, not anybody.

What's more, I don't even live near them and so would have quite a diifcult time carrying out any threats.

This said, I find Ivan to be aggresive and a territorial, and his brand of patriotism is leads only to hostiliy, but please refraim from critisizing other sites on my site.

If you have a problm with them, take it to them, I do not want to be involved in your wars.

MAJ (Sorry, I'll get to the rest later)

"you do NOT need to obtain permission from the CCP in order to set up your own blog."

No, but once you've set it up you must register your URL and Name/address, so that the Ministry information can tie you to your blog, and ot any 'comments' made on it.

According to Chinese law, all blogs and website should have been registered with Beijing by 30 june 2005.

You don't have to take my word for it, read it in English from the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4617657.stm

"my Chinese other half is only aged 25"

Yes, so they would have been born during a period of expansion and bad record keeping.

In order to be gaurunteed an easy ride they should

1) Be under 15 and come from an urban/suburban area 2) Come from a comunity where they can more or less go to the original office where their birth records were first filled.

"Showing ID cards when using internet cafes is simply designed to prevent under 18 year olds from accessing such places"

While that is a valid reason, it doesn't explain why foreigners must show their passports in web cafes, or why pre-registration is required for Chinese who are obviously over 18 (for example, why would my Chinese colleage who are over 50 be required to register before they can use a web cafe).

It also doesn't explain why the websites that you visist are recorded. Adult sites are mostly blocked anyway, so it can't be to record what porn they read.

"As if they'd have the human resources to waste trying to do that."

They don't need human resources, they paid Cisco systems a small fortune for computers that can do it.

Besides, there are 1.6 billion Chinese. China has all of the human resources that it will ever need.

It is cheaper in China for you to pay a man to hand wash your car twice a week than it is to buy a jetwasher. What's more, he will usually do a much better job of it.

Why do you think you see so many men with shovels mixing concrete on a tarp outside building sites? It's cheaper than buying a mixer, that's why.