Posted on 02/28/2015 11:26:26 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Silicon Valley is in a panic following an announcement that China is considering sweeping counterterrorism legislation. The law would require tech companies to provide the Chinese government with NSA-like access to private data, terms the industry may be forced to accept if they want to do business in the worlds most populated country.
The Edward Snowden revelations about the American spying apparatus have numerous impacts. One of the latest is a decision by the Chinese government to terminate contracts with a number of major US-based technology brands. This could stem from news that the NSA installed spyware into the products of major US technology companies, thus using these brands as tools of US intelligence agencies.
But another recent side-effect of the Snowden documents could be a proposed Chinese counterterrorism law. While China seeks to shield itself from digital spying, the new law could give its own government even stronger capabilities in cyber surveillance.
The laws current draft would require foreign tech firms to give the Chinese government backdoor security access, and to provide encryption keys. The law would also require companies to house servers within Chinese borders, giving law enforcement access to user data.
Its the equivalent of the Patriot Act on really, really strong steroids, an anonymous US industry source told Reuters.
No matter the extent of the legislation, given the prevalence of the emerging Asian market. If tech companies want to be able to compete on global scale, they cant ignore Chinese consumers.
Its a disaster for anyone doing business in China, an industry source told Reuters. You are no longer allowed a VPN thats secure, you are no longer able to transmit financials securely, or to have any corporate secrets. By law, nothing is secure.
US officials say that the Obama administration has already expressed its concerns with the law. They say that it places unfair burdens on foreign companies, but Beijing is expected to approve the legislation in the coming months.
The Administration is aggressively working to have China walk back from these troubling regulations, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement released on Thursday.
As part of their appeal, the US argues that such stringent cybersecurity policies could also have negative consequences on the Chinese economy.
One unfortunate consequence of over-broad anti-terrorism policies is to potentially isolate China technologically from the rest of the world, James Zimmerman, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters. And the end result of that may be to limit the countrys access to cutting-edge technology and innovation.
Western nations, of course, have done their own share of meddling in the privacy policies of tech companies. Both the United States and Britain have encouraged Silicon Valley to provide encryption keys. Just last month, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama encouraged tech companies to provide intel in real-time in the name of national security.
We need to work with these big companies, Cameron told the BBC, to make sure that we can keep people safe.
This call was made soon after the terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. China faces similar threats from religious extremists. Over the past two years, hundreds have died in the Xinjiang region, which the government blames on Islamist separatists.
And again, it may very well be the example set by the NSA which has encouraged China to adopt its own form of Big Brother.
Sending your companies to China = giving your companies to China
i foresee a huge bump in the road for our tech companies
Ever since the Snowden revelations, our tech companies have found it very hard to sell their equipment outside this country. IBM and others have cryptically admitted as such in their quarterly reports. Obama will destroy the US tech industry.
America needs to stop selling out everything and everyone to China.
Bring back businesses to America. Hire Americans. And stop selling everyone out.
This is absolutely disgusting.
The stuff the Chinese Assemble.....virtually everything that can compute....designed by Americans....may be at risk.
Whats Apple gonna do..bring a million jobs Back To The USA??
Cut the corporate tax rates to a level that competes with foreign countries, and yes, they would.
Actually, Apple has the capital to do just that. The Corp has billions of dollars overseas that it can’t repatriate here because fedzilla wants to tax the crap out of it. If fedzilla would lighten up those billions could come home and countless jobs could be created generating (most likely) more than what the thieves in D.C. could realize.
The problem is still Government.
the problem has always been government!
where there’s life...theres always hope, however dim.
0bama says that “we must not allow an access and control gap!”
They are already locked in.
Since the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's reforms, China's GDP has risen dramatically, Deng, et al. studied Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) including talks with someone who was there... American Armand Hammer.
The NEP succeeded in creating an economic recovery after the devastating effects of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War. By 1925, in the wake of Lenin's NEP, a "... major transformation was occurring politically, economically, culturally and spiritually." Small-scale and light industries were largely in the hands of private entrepreneurs or cooperatives. By 1928, agricultural and industrial production had been restored to the 1913 (pre-World War I) level . . . the NEP was intended as an interim measure . . . [that] created a class of traders ("NEPmen") whom the [Russian] Communists [came to consider] "class enemies" of the working class. [The Chi-coms did it right, they are the billionaire NEPmen and agree with Lenin that NEP] would provide the economic conditions necessary for socialism eventually to evolve. [Socialism with Chinese characteristics.] [my comments wiki source for the rest]Lenin considered foreign investors "useful idiots" whose assets could be seized once the "useful idiots" were no longer needed.
With Obama as president what better time for the Chi-coms to seize the American useful idiots' assets and put the American corporate fools on a slow boat to America? And do not ask for a TARP to cover your "misfortune", American corporations.
They say that the most dangerous weapons China has pointed at us don’t shoot and I think this is a truly frightening example of this.
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