China Tries Its Hand at Pre-Crime

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-03/china-tries-its-hand-at-pre-crime

by tokenadult • 10 years ago

126 81 10 years ago

bloomberg.com

mtgx• 10 years ago

“We don’t call it a big data platform but a united information environment.” —Wu Manqing, China Electronics Technology

Sounds familiar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness

trhway• 10 years ago

i wonder whether the "united information environment" can be a result of to_English(to_Chinese("intelligence fusion"))

https://www.dhs.gov/state-and-major-urban-area-fusion-center...

1stop• 10 years ago

Why is it framed as totalitarian and unfair when China do what the US has been doing since 2001?

LesZedCB• 10 years ago

Ah, it's because we have Freedom™ instead of ideology[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk8ibrfXvpQ

vgoh1• 10 years ago

What the US has been doing since 2001 has been totalitarian and unfair, of course. Let's not play "but that guy is doing it too, so it's not that bad". It's all bad, and all needs to be stopped.

Cheezmeister• 10 years ago

It's all bad, and all needs to be stopped.

Look, I'm not a fan of Big Brother either (I don't think any of us are). But unqualified black-white statements like this (combined with Good Intentions™) are largely what got us into this mess in the first place.

daveguy• 10 years ago

Yup. From the article -- "The bottom line: A top Chinese military contractor is building a data analytics platform to help authorities identify terrorists before they strike." So.... excactly what NSA does (alone and with private commercial ventures). I thought there was going to be an aspect of identifying potential for crimes and rounding people up who haven't done anything yet (which would be a step beyond what NSA and company have done. But nope, It's exactly what we've done for over a decade.

A few other things from the article: "The government revealed last year that it was also building a nationwide database that would score citizens on their trustworthiness." ... I doubt we do this. It seems like NSA data collection is broad and encompassing, but not detailed analysis on every single US citizen. Sounds inefficient if the goal is to stop terrorism.

Also FTA -- "New antiterror laws that went into effect on Jan. 1 allow authorities to gain access to bank accounts, telecommunications, and a national network of surveillance cameras called Skynet."

Skynet?! Really?! Come on China. It was a movie not a playbook!

sergers• 10 years ago

NSA already has a program labeled Skynet. details were leaked May 2015

imglorp4• 10 years ago

No one would confuse NSA data collection as effective at stopping potential criminal attacks. If the government was truly worried about US deaths, it would be looking at drunk driving, lung cancer, and heart disease in earnest, some half million deaths a year.

No, both the NSA and Chinese efforts are aimed at identifying and suppressing dissent. We're not that different.

fredliu2• 10 years ago

FWIW, "Sky Net" in Chinese actually has a meaning, it's from a Chinese idiom, 天网恢恢，疏而不漏, roughly translated, literally, as "Heaven(Sky)'s Net(of justice) is wide, it may have large meshes, but lets nothing through/misses nothing", referring to situations where "heavenly justice - as referred to by "Sky Net" - will eventually come, and captures/punishes the "bad guys".

marincounty• 10 years ago

"The government revealed last year that it was also building a nationwide database that would score citizens on their trustworthiness." ... I doubt we do this."

Credit card companies provide this dubious information; I imagine gleefully? I say gleefully because those willy nilly interest rates should be considered Loan Sharking? That Credit card protection act didn't go far enough.

Still smarting over a mandatory arbitration clause. With CC paid lawyers acting as mediators. Mediators that found for the defendant 3 times over thousands of arbitrations. I still see these mandatory arbitration clauses. I had to sign one when getting a phone recently.

tptacek• 10 years ago

Is there a way to answer this question without the respondent being put on the hook for every unfair or unjust thing the US does in response to terrorism? Because there's a straightforward answer to the question you asked.

mikeash4• 10 years ago

Because when the US does it, it's also framed as totalitarian and unfair?

sbuttgereit• 10 years ago

Because in China there can be serious consequences to holding and advocating for ideas that are out of favor with government. In the USA, even with all the monitoring you can still hold and advocate for ideas that are very much out of favor of those in government without serious reprisal. Note that "Terrorism" is a very convenient word in politics as it allows just about anyone to be labeled as such. I suspect my definition is very different than the Chinese definition.

To be fair about the data collection efforts in the USA, something that I very much oppose as an affront to the individual rights of its citizens, I suspect that those efforts are nonetheless almost always conducted very much for proper purposes of protecting national security and the lives/property of its citizens... rather than to ensure government entrenchment in spite of its citizens.

Where the NSA and like agencies go wrong is in assuming ends justify means. They don't. And of course the possibility of misuse of these methods to be used against citizen rights rather than to protect them.

Zigurd3• 10 years ago

If you go to protests in the US, you will become a surveillance target. That by itself has a chilling effect. Protest organizers get visits from the FBI, and the NSA feeds information to the FBI to be laundered through "parallel construction." misuse of information to stifle dissent isn't theoretical, it's practiced all the time.

ap22213• 10 years ago

China and the US may be somewhat alike in this regard, but at least in the US people are allowed to talk about it and rally against it.

Barrin92• 10 years ago

well as long as it doesn't change anything, that is. Which makes the whole thing even worse

matt_wulfeck• 10 years ago

My guess is that the likelihood of you getting a fair and speedy trial is significantly better in the US than it is in China.

trynumber9• 10 years ago

It was framed as totalitarian when the US did it too.

shmerl• 10 years ago

Watchbird[1] incoming?

[1]. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579

curt15• 10 years ago

"In China, once a suspect is targeted, police can freeze bank accounts and compel companies to hand over records of his communications."

Can we expect them to strongarm companies like Apple that offer secure communications channels, such as imessage? It will be interesting to watch how Apple navigates those waters.

lostlogin2• 10 years ago

One can watch this playing out in the US for a precursor. The weird NY Times comment and its retraction that Snowden commented on is relevant here. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/700073024373047297

Edit: Thinking more, where in the world is does police targeting not cause problems. Here in New Zealand there have been several recent cases of massive overreach that resulted in no charges or just a huge clustersf*&k. Dotcom, the Nicky Sagar searches etc. There are recent cases in the US and UK that come to mind fast too, often with reporters being targeted.

jacobolus• 10 years ago

They expanded it into a full article a couple days later: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/technology/apple-sees-valu...

dragonbonheur2• 10 years ago

Another day, another China-bashing propaganda piece from Bloomberg... Seriously, it's become too obvious.

wallacoloo• 10 years ago

While we're bashing that site, the webpage spontaneously reloaded itself three times while I was reading that article, each time sending me back to the top of the page. A bit annoying, to say the least.

badmadrad• 10 years ago

Alot of people here are somehow turning this into a USA/NSA bashing but thats a straw man. The fact of the matter is you can't be imprisoned in the US for a crime you haven't committed or at least that judge and jury haven't deliberated on. Can you say the Chinese have the same safeguards ...probably not? Yes, governments have and always will have the vested interest to retain their power but that's why we must have our rights and legal system. I feel like the Chinese don't share this luxury as much as we do.

danharaj• 10 years ago

That's a misuse of the word strawman.

Also "our shadow government with totalitarian tendencies is better than theirs" is kind of flimsy#.

The FBI frequently radicalizes and encourages vulnerable, alienated people to execute terrorist plots. Sure, they don't arrest people for 'pre-crimes', but they do manufacture terrorists so that they can 'catch' them.

The CIA, FBI, NSA, and a few other alphabet soup agencies have a regular history of mass violation of rights and egregious human rights abuses. Who has forgotten the Senate report about CIA torture already? The CIA was forcibly anally raping unjustly detained individuals as part of its interrogation program. People who paper over the atrocities regularly committed in the name of liberal democracy undermine democracy by refusing to distinguish it from a far inferior and quite obviously broken system. It seems like there's a short memory and long list of excuses for the abuses perpetrated by nations like the US.

# This is a strawman of your position.

seivan• 10 years ago

These wars and "plots" happened before the US even existed. Did the Americans time travel in order to create them or what am I missing here? How do you think religion spread in the past, peaceful missionaries?

nxzero2• 10 years ago

Just to be clear, you don't believe the US is using the data to violate the rights of Americans without due process, right? If so, you're wrong.

tanv_nadkarni• 10 years ago

True Americans should defend their liberty from Government and yet not fall int trap of overlooking the fact that they are better off than most people in the world and certainly better than China or India.

Having said that if China's actions can be used to hold mirror to American government I am all for it.

Civil forfeiture laws in my opinion are a good example of pre-crime.

dragonbonheur2• 10 years ago

Straw man! hacker News' favorite expression!

The fact of the matter is you can't be imprisoned in the US for a crime you haven't committed or at least that judge and jury haven't deliberated on.

The fact of the matter is that people have been sent to prisons in the oh-so-righteous America without a single court hearing. Also, haven't you ever heard of Guantanamo? You know, that magical place where the US government sends people for decades and submits them to "rectal feeding" while they're there?

Straw man!!!

[0] http://theweek.com/speedreads/560204/half-million-americans-...

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-he...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e6m7z/e...

[3] https://www.aclu.org/news/president-obama-signs-indefinite-d...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_of_Daniel_Chong

jotux2• 10 years ago

The fact of the matter is you can't be imprisoned in the US for a crime you haven't committed or at least that judge and jury haven't deliberated on.

Kevin Mitnick spent 4.5 years in jail waiting for trial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest.2C_convic...

hanniabu• 10 years ago

I find it funny(sad?) that this happens, yet we're told that we are innocent until proven guilty. At the same time, there can be a man that stabs a person to death of front of a dozen witnesses, is caught by the police immediately after covered in blood and a knife in hand, with it all caught on tape, and they'll still refer to this guy as an 'alleged' murdered.

Go figure

argonaut3• 10 years ago

Are you suggesting that all criminals should be released immediately after being arrested? Clearly that is false: not all criminals should be released after being arrested (as an extreme example, if a man goes on a rampage and shoots 20 people, clearly he should not be out on bail pending trial). Obviously the judge made a mistake in believing Kevin was a security threat, but there is nothing wrong with the principle of detaining people pending trial.

Meanwhile, in China, you have bookstore owners, bankers, and government officials "disappearing" left and right.

contingencies2• 10 years ago

Look at Julian Assange's situation. He has prominent academics, human rights lawyers and the UNHCHR on his side, and Sweden/UK/US have still basically imprisoned him with no trial in exchange for never breaking a law. China is definitely no worse. I feel safer here in China than in the US with its overbearing corrupt police gangs and litigious gun culture, by far.

ryanlol• 10 years ago

Kevin Mitnick spent 4.5 years in jail waiting for trial.

Kevin Mitnick waived his right to a speedy trial. Coincidence, I think not.

gnaritas4• 10 years ago

The fact of the matter is you can't be imprisoned in the US for a crime you haven't committed or at least that judge and jury haven't deliberated on.

Because the constitution says something, doesn't make it true. We're a war mongering empire and a police state who imprisons more of its population than any other country. Holding people in jail without trial absolutely happens under our rule both in and out of the country.

beeboop• 10 years ago

You can be be found in contempt of court for not providing information that you have not been proven to possess. One guy spent 14 years in prison without being charged or convicted of a crime, and never had any input from a jury: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=8101209

Additionally, you really have zero constitutional protections in the US if you're a member of the armed forces.

tw04• 10 years ago

The Patriot Act actually says otherwise. All you need to do is get yourself classified as a terrorist and you lose every last right you ever thought you had.

nefitty• 10 years ago

I was expecting preemptive street policing, like the software this company provides (and is used by several police forces around the US): http://www.predpol.com/about/

NovaS1X• 10 years ago

One step closer to our Psycho-Pass future.

awqrre• 10 years ago

US drones already do lots of pre-crime targeting [1]

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/civilian-deaths-drone-st...

bhewes• 10 years ago

What amazes me is that dang’an system is even functional.

As for pre-crime crime forecasting has been part of policing for at least as long as I have been alive. The Rand report from 2013 title Predictive Policing being the latest report I know of - http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/R...

China Tries Its Hand at Pre-Crime

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