Following the Washington Post report on government censorship efforts in the face of new technologies, the International Herald Tribune covers ties between Wall Street firms and companies that provide surveillance technologies in China, which Rep. Tom Lantos has called, “an absolutely incredible phenomenon of extreme corporate irresponsibility”:
Wall Street analysts now follow the growth of companies that install surveillance systems providing Chinese police stations with 24-hour video feeds from nearby Internet cafes. Hedge fund money from the United States has paid for the development of not just better video cameras, but face-recognition software and even newer behavior-recognition software designed to spot the beginnings of a street protest and notify police.
Now, the ties between China’s surveillance sector and American capital markets are starting to draw Washington’s attention. [Full text]
[Image: A security camera above a sidewalk in the Lo Wu district of Shenzhen, China, from The IHT]
