China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People

uscitizen

uscitizen

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China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People
By KEITH BRADSHER

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 — At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

Security experts describe China’s plans as the world’s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights.

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Incorporated in Florida, China Public Security has raised much of the money to develop its technology from two investment funds in Plano, Tex., Pinnacle Fund and Pinnacle China Fund. Three investment banks — Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach, Calif.; Oppenheimer & Company in New York; and First Asia Finance Group of Hong Kong — helped raise the money.

LInky...
 
uscitizen said:
China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People
By KEITH BRADSHER

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 — At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

Security experts describe China’s plans as the world’s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights.

~

Incorporated in Florida, China Public Security has raised much of the money to develop its technology from two investment funds in Plano, Tex., Pinnacle Fund and Pinnacle China Fund. Three investment banks — Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach, Calif.; Oppenheimer & Company in New York; and First Asia Finance Group of Hong Kong — helped raise the money.

LInky...
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Sure, only the guilty need be scared.

I'm just kind of worried about what "guilty" will become in the future...
 
I read about this today on the plane while the old lady sitting next to me told me about her vacation. I don't know which was more disturbing.
 
blackascoal said:
These plans are no different than what the US has been planning and slowly enacting for years.
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I believe the difference would be what a "crime" is and what they are wanted for. When a student goes to prison for 20 years for speaking out against the government, it is different than seeking out and finding an aggravated sexual assault escapee.

That being said, power corrupts and such power can and will be used inappropriately in almost every case. I would prefer not to give our government such power.
 
Damocles said:
I believe the difference would be what a "crime" is and what they are wanted for. When a student goes to prison for 20 years for speaking out against the government, it is different than seeking out and finding an aggravated sexual assault escapee.

That being said, power corrupts and such power can and will be used inappropriately in almost every case. I would prefer not to give our government such power.
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The differences will dissappear in time.
 
Damocles said:
I believe the difference would be what a "crime" is and what they are wanted for. When a student goes to prison for 20 years for speaking out against the government, it is different than seeking out and finding an aggravated sexual assault escapee.

That being said, power corrupts and such power can and will be used inappropriately in almost every case. I would prefer not to give our government such power.
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America which has 5% of the world's population yet incarcerates 25% of all the world's prisoners .. far more than China which has far FAR more people .. can always find a way to lock Americans up, particularly if they aren't white.

I agree that this government should not have such power.
 
blackascoal said:
America which has 5% of the world's population yet incarcerates 25% of all the world's prisoners .. far more than China which has far FAR more people .. can always find a way to lock Americans up, particularly if they aren't white.

I agree that this government should not have such power.
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The "War on Drugs" gives them all the excuse they need.
 
Watermark said:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri-crime-prisoners

Even per capita we jump way, way out:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita

Think about that; there's no totalitarian nation on Earth that has more prisoners than the US.
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Look where China is on the per capita chart .. SEVENTY-FIRST

China incarcerates 119 of its citizens for every 100,000 .. while America locks up SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTEEN of its citizens per 100,000
 
Darla said:
Is that right...I didn't know.
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When William Jefferson Clinton took office in 1993, he was embraced by some as a moderate change from the previous twelve years of tough on crime Republican administrations. Now, eight years later, the latest criminal justice statistics show that it was actually Democratic President Bill Clinton who implemented arguably the most punitive platform on crime in the last two decades. In fact, "tough on crime" policies passed during the Clinton Administration's tenure resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.
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Too Little Too Late: President Clinton's Prison Legacy
http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton.html
 
President Bill Clinton: The Incarceration President

President Clinton consistently touted education as a priority for his administration but he enacted laws that increased prison funding and had the consequence of reducing higher education funding. For example, in 1996 he stated:

Today, more than ever before in the history of the United States, education is the fault line, the great Continental Divide between those who will prosper and those who will not in the new economy. If all Americans have access to education, it is no longer a fault line, it is a sturdy bridge that will lead us all together from the old economy to the new...Because of costs and other factors, not all Americans have access to higher education. Our goal must be nothing less than to make the 13th and 14th years of education as universal to all Americans as the first 12 are today.
-President Bill Clinton, Princeton University Commencement Address

Yet, by signing the Violent Crime Control Act and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which provided prison construction funds to the states, President Clinton's policies had already helped shift funds from higher education to corrections. By 1995, state expenditures for prison construction grew by $926 million, while expenditures for university construction fell by an equivalent $954 million.9 That year, more was actually spent by states around the country building prisons ($2.6 billion) than building universities ($2.5 billion).10

Unlike state prison systems, the President and Congress have direct control of the federal prison population. Under President Reagan's eight year term, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction rose from 24,363 (1980) to 49,928 (1988), and under President George Bush's four-year term, the federal system grew to 80,259 (1992). However, under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction doubled, and grew more than it did under the previous 12-years of Republican rule, combined (to 147,126 by February, 2001).11

As of December 31, 1999, a year prior to the completion of his term in office,12 the Clinton Administration already well outstripped the Reagan and Bush Administrations with a federal incarceration rate of rate of 42 per 100,000. This was more than double the federal incarceration rate at the end of President Reagan's term (17 per 100,000), and 61% higher than at the end of President George Bush's term (25 per 100,000). (See Chart IV) Fifty-eight percent of these inmates (63,448) are serving time for drug offenses--a 62% increase since 1990.
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Darla said:
Good to know, thanks.
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Even better to act upon my sister.

Unless we hold the democrats feet to the fire this evil will never change.

Make these statistics part of your regular political speak. Challenge democrats to explain it. Make others aware of it .. particularly when while democrats point fingers at republicans. They should be embarrassed by this.
 
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