Posted on 08/06/2008 10:28:39 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
If you're in Beijing for the Olympics kick starting this weekend, don't be spilling any beans (state secrets or otherwise) in your cab back to the hotel, because you're being listened to. As the WSJ is reporting, on your taxi's dash is a microphone that can be activated remotely, at any time and without the driver's knowledge, for a live listen into any one of Beijing's estimated 70,000 cabs. And then, if the folks on the other end don't like what they hear, they can take things even further.
The GPS-equipped devices also allow for remote disabling by "cutting off the oil or electric supply," effectively shutting down the engine and keeping it from being restarted. Yikes.
Beijing police tow the general "it's for the driver's safety" line:
Whether these microphones are used to spy on riders is unclear. Asked if police could listen in on conversations in taxis, a Beijing police official declined to comment, saying that such matters were "confidential" and that they were "not supposed to release such details to the public."
As the State Department has warned, you can expect to be monitored in just about every other place, public or private. It's doubtful that every cab is being recorded at all times, but the tech is there if necessary. Comforting.
Several Beijing taxi companies declined to comment on the security aspect but said that the GPS helps track taxis and that the microphones will be used for translating services. About a dozen taxi drivers said the microphones were installed about three years ago, when newer cabs were built without protective metal cages around the drivers. Cabbies can turn on the system and alert their dispatch centers by touching a discreet button near the steering wheel.
Activists say they are concerned about the ability to listen to conversations with the devices, which appear unique to China. "This seems to suggest an effort by the police or other security forces to eavesdrop on conversations of passengers, rather than for the immediate safety and security of the taxi driver," said Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch.
You read like a commie commercial
Enjoy the slave labor / re-education camp.
Beijing : Come for the clean air, stay for the totalitarianism.
Not even pickpockets? I've been through the crushing mass of humanity known as the Beijing Central Railway Station. It seems like it would be very easy to have a wallet lifted there.
Doesn't matter how it reads. What matters is: Is it true?
And we do business with these types of people.
Not at all. Just stating facts. But keep in mind...would you want to end up in a chinese jail? I didn't think so. Neither do the chinese. Understand that there are police everywhere, and I'm sure secret police too. Part of it is cultural too. The chinese may rob you blind in a business deal, but they consider it shameful to do a stick-up. Face is a big deal in their culture, and getting caught doing a stick-up job is a major loss of face. But I still can get to FR from my hotel room(s) in china. I talk openly about the shortcomings of the chinese governement with my chinese hosts. They have never tried to shush me down about anything I've said and I don't say things under my breath. The first time I went to Mao's tomb and walked out looking across the street at a KFC, and McDonald's I started laughing openly. Told them that Mao must be spinning so fast that they could solve their energy problems by hooking a generator to his corpse. Everybody laughed. The younger chinese who are in their late 20's and early 30's don't identify with Mao at all. He was dead before they were born and they pay little heed to his philosophies. When my chinese coworkers the come to my home here in the US, they like it. They want to live like I do with cars and boats and snowmobiles and several kids, etc. The commies are toast and they know it. They are trying to hang onto power any way they can. But the commies also know that repression of the public will get them killed.
The same technology is sold as an extra feature in the USA.
Has anyone heard the Leftists in this country complaining about the lack of privacy our Olympic athletes and the US media has in Red China? Where are the Congressional hearings? Who from the US is on the Olympic committee that chooses the country? We need to publicly thrash those high paid PCers.
It was such a good idea to allow the Chicoms to host the Olympics, wasn’t it?
They bought someone off, pure and simple.
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You are so right! Where are the Congressional hearings on this? Like that would do any good.
“The People’s Liberation Army welcomes you.”
How does that jibe with Tienanman (sp? square, the suppression of religion, jailing and murdering of the clergy? What about the block snoops that make certain women aren’t pregnant by counting/checking their personal materials and issuing counted replacements? How about Tibet? A Communist is a Communist. Just because they act friendly, don’t fall for it.
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