Out of story ideas about China? One default topic for Western hacks is to warn against the repressive nature of China\u2019s pervasive \u201chi-tech\u201d public surveillance. But a recent one in The New York Times takes the cake.<\/p>\n
Forgive the long quote, but it helps to fill up column space. It\u2019s also necessary to show the person\u2019s pathos or value system. I don\u2019t know. But here goes:<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard some surprising refrains on my recent travels through China. \u2018Leave your bags here,\u2019 a Chinese acquaintance or tour guide would suggest when I ducked off the streets into a public bathroom. \u2018Don\u2019t worry,\u2019 they\u2019d say and shrug when I temporarily lost sight of my young son in the crowds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe explanation always followed: \u2018Nobody will do anything,\u2019 they\u2019d say knowingly. Or: \u2018There\u2019s no crime.\u2019 And then, always: \u2018There are so many cameras!\u2019 I couldn\u2019t imagine such blas\u00e9 faith in public safety back when I last lived in China, in 2013, but on this visit it was true: Cameras gawked from poles, flashed as we drove through intersections, lingered on faces as we passed through stations or shops.\u201d<\/p>\n
The writer, an American, is troubled. \u201cI felt that I\u2019d gotten a taste of our own American future,\u201d she wrote. \u201cWasn\u2019t this, after all, the logical endpoint of an evolution already under way in America?\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh dear! In fact, high-resolution public security cameras with facial recognition features are so yesterday\u2019s tech.<\/p>\n
The Times article is titled, \u201cCan we see our future in China\u2019s cameras?\u201d Well, no, lady, you want to see your future, go back to your own country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Out of story ideas about China? One default topic for Western hacks is to warn against the repressive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[182,23,13011,21284,144,8192,12,21287,21288,803,3,727,4752,21285,21286,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-23811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-americans","11":"tag-cctvs","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-chinese","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-facial-recognition","16":"tag-immigrants","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-palantir","20":"tag-public-safety","21":"tag-the-intercept","22":"tag-the-new-york-times","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}