Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
Mitt Romney‘s Bain woes continue.
Bain is reportedly pumping millions in investment with the Chinese government. Doing what? Why spying camera technology of course. The New York Times does the digging on this big story:
In December, a Bain-run fund in which a Romney family blind trust has holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese company that claims to be the largest supplier to the government’s Safe Cities program, a highly advanced monitoring system that allows the authorities to watch over university campuses, hospitals, mosques and movie theaters from centralized command posts.
The Bain-owned company, Uniview Technologies, produces what it calls “infrared antiriot” cameras and software that enable police officials in different jurisdictions to share images in real time through the Internet. Previous projects have included an emergency command center in Tibet that “provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of social stability and the protection of people’s peaceful life,” according to Uniview’s Web site.
And we know some of these cameras are being used to spy on citizens, and worse, arrest them. Some examples:
Yang Weidong, a politically active filmmaker, said a phalanx of 13 cameras were installed in and around his apartment building last year after he submitted an interview request to President Hu Jintao, drawing the ire of domestic security agents. In January, Ai Weiwei, the artist and public critic, was questioned by the police after he threw stones at cameras trained on his front gate.
Li Tiantian, 45, a human rights lawyer in Shanghai, said the police used footage recorded outside a hotel in an effort to manipulate her during the three months she was illegally detained last year. The video, she said, showed her entering the hotel in the company of men other than her boyfriend.
During interrogations, Ms. Li said, the police taunted her about her sex life and threatened to show the video to her boyfriend. The boyfriend, however, refused to watch, she said.
“The scale of intrusion into people’s private lives is unprecedented,” she said in a phone interview. “Now when I walk on the street, I feel so vulnerable, like the police are watching me all the time.”
Bain has issued a statement on all this claiming g they did not think the cameras in a totalitarian state would be used against it’s own citizens:
Bain defended its purchase of Uniview, stressing that the Chinese company’s products were advertised as instruments for crime control, not political repression. “China’s increasingly urban population will face growing needs around personal safety and property protection,” the company said in a statement. “Video surveillance is part of the solution to that, as it is anywhere in the world.” The company also said that only one-third of Uniview’s sales were to public security bureaus.
Romney has been slamming Obama on not being tough enough on China. On his website Mitt states:
“Any serious U.S. policy toward China must confront the fact that China’s regime continues to deny its people basic political freedoms and human rights,” according to the statement on his Web site. “The United States has an important role to play in encouraging the evolution of China toward a more politically open and democratic order.”
Yet Romney’s Bain Capitol is investing in the very technology used to hunt down its citizens who might be critical of the government. Once again Mitt is caught in a flip flop of epic and embracing proportions.
London has installed camera’s all over it’s city with the acquiescence of it’s citizen’s. New York City has done so as well and again has drawn praise from the majority of it’s inhabitants. The camera’s in London did nothing to thwart the terrorist attacks in the subway, although they did aid in the apprehension of the terrorists responsible. Western makers of security software were responsible for the success of security forces in Bahrain and Syria infiltrating the resistance groups. The security state is upon us and we have no one to blame but ourselves. Our paranoia and lack of knowledge have allowed those intent on robbing us of our freedoms to to do so with nary a whimper. High tech corporations eager to make money succumb to the demands of authoritarian governments to quash free speech but it does not stop Americans from buying their products. Nikita Khrushchev one said that the weapon to destroy the United States would be sold to the Soviet Union by an American salesman. We are apparently now making weapons which will result in killing the very soul of this country, we don’t really need to sell it to our enemies; we can do the job quite nicely ourselves. Bain capital may be making money from security but it is American consumers who have given the Chinese government the monetary where with all to purchase the goods they require to control their citizens.
We are, indeed, making weapons which “will result in killing the very soul of this country,” but we aren’t making them in the United States. The other day thousands of mindless drones were standing in line to buy I Pads, each and every one made by an underage slave in China, so that they could spend even less time actually communicating, face to face, with real people.
Killing the very soul of this country? I think that’s been done already. Now we are kicking the corpse, spitting on it, and putting videos of the murder on YouTube.
Hey fangio, you think you might someday learn how to use an apostrophe? Please? Because seriously, your posts are spot on but reading them the constant misuse of ” ‘s ” gives me a headache.
CCTV is very big in England and most all major urban areas have them. Most Britons I’ve meet have no problem with them and they have been a big deterrent on street crime and burglaries. I am in no way advocating for there use, but when I was in London you could go to the pub at night and not have as much worry of being robbed or accosted as you do in this country. Since the use of CCTV,street crime has dropped dramatically in London and all the other major towns and cities.
See Mitt is critcizing Obama for not being harder on china re human rts. Yet Mitt ‘s Bain is investing in spy tech for the chinese state! This is outrageous. We need tougher laws on this
The US seems to be investing in the same thing–and this under Obama! Sorry Art, but Obama does NOT have the high ground on this one.
Its starting here too. In my city, there are many cameras in streetlights and in public parking area, and public parks and of course almost every major store in the country. I think were going the same route as Britain, I am not saying its bad as long as we don’t get carried away with it, which we usually do. The older generation is telling us that technology is a curse and in someways were seeing it. Its a double edge sword. I hate when people drive and talking on their cell phones and their not watching what their doing. The internet is also a double edge sword. I love coming on here and on blogs to chat and find information, but people are starting the pay their bills online and its hurting the United States Post Office, because of shortage of mail. I try to go to the Post Office and mail my bills and ship stuff when I get the chance, because I don’t want to lose something that is a American staple. There will be more to come out on Mitt Romney. It usually does.
The Chinese owns 8% of the U.S. debt, Jeffery Zients was appointed by Obama and is an ex-Bain & Company director http://thebottom99percent.com/obama-taps-former-bain-consultant-for-omb/
This is just more bread and circuses for political junkies.