Kim Yo Jong is the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Her father was Kim Jong Il, the country’s former Supreme Leader, while her grandfather was Kim Il Sung, the “eternal president” and founder of the nation.

Miss Kim’s face appeared on televisions around the world at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Below the 38th parallel, the woman met South Korean President Moon Jae In and was photographed together with American Vice President Mike Pence. On this occasion, Yo Jong took the place of her brother, who is believed to be the architect of the Hermit Kingdom’s communications strategy, both at home and abroad.

Over the years Kim’s sister has climbed up several positions within the North Korean political system, becoming a senior Central Committee official (March 2014), director of the Party’s Agitation and Propaganda Department (July 2015) and an alternate member of the Politburo (2017). According to rumors, Kim Yo Jong also holds an unspecified vice-ministerial position.

L'articolo Who is Kim Yo Jong? proviene da InsideOver.

“Where is the horse and the rider? / Where is the horn that was blowing? / They have passed like rain on the mountains, / like wind in the meadow. / The days have gone down in the West, / behind the hills… into Shadow“. Thus spoke Theoden King of Rohan, one of the characters in the conservative masterpiece The Lord of Rings. It is a world renowned book, considered the best of the last century, written by a conservative giant, Master John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. In my country of Albania this jewel of world literature is little known and yet it should be, because we have much to learn from it. It is a story of the resistance of the free peoples of Middle Earth against a tyrant who wants to destroy all the art, culture, cities and places of worship as he subjugates the world and reshapes it into his image.

Lessons from Literature

So, in this novel, brave people who wanted to preserve their kingdoms, nature, history, traditions, culture, art, objects of thousands of decades of life and even those with but a few hundred years, rose even when the odds of winning seemed distant. As his stronghold was being overrun by the countless of hordes of the enemy in the middle of the night King Theodon only wandered despair for a fleeting moment. Then he thought about the riders of old, those that so valiantly made history atop their horses. They are those that now are lost in the shadows of history, but thanks to whom future generations are currently alive in their own countries.

The Attack and Destruction of Albania’s National Theater

I was thinking about this, amid a few tears I have to admit, last Sunday morning, May 17, 2020, a day that will go down in infamy in the history of my country. At 4.30 am, countless police troops, many unidentified, attacked and destroyed the National Theater of Albania, a building deemed to have great historic and artistic value by many Albanian and European institutions. They knowingly risked killing the group of artists and art-loving people that had been protecting the theater for two years, day and night. What ensued as the sun rose on a bloody Sunday, was a day of violence, protests, tears and arrests.

It was a similar description to the one found in the Avanti Ragazzi di Buda song about the Soviets crushing the anti-communist Hungarian rebellion. They did so just as they had crushed the bones of the protesters, while the world stood still and watched. It is a shame that in our modern societies we allow a communist song like Bella Ciao to brainwash millions of people, and yet a song about the valiant quest for freedom is abandoned and forgotten. Nevertheless, Europe can do what it always does: stay still and watch. Watch the suffering of one of its older nations — a suffering it has enabled.

A Symbol of Resistance to Tyranny

Sunday was a day of mourning, no doubt. I had never imagined I and many others would weep for the destruction of a building, as if it were a human being. Yet, as the initial shock wore off, I realized the tears were not for the bricks and columns of the theater itself. They were for the symbol that had been obliterated. A history of actors, drama, tragedy, comedy, directors, producers and so on was buried that morning. However, together with them a symbol of resistance, a yearning for the rule of law, democracy and proper institutions was demolished. Soon, no one will be able to utter a word of protest in a country that has suffered decades of communism and has yet to taste true democracy and republicanism.

Albanian ‘Democracy’?

I want to be honest with my readers. It is first and foremost our own fault as Albanians. Yet, we are such a small country that it appears even fate has been against us and we must surrender before the fatality of life. We were betrayed in 1990, when the world was defeating and condemning the remnants of communism. We forgave those who left us behind and let them rule us under a peculiar system we like to call democracy. It is not. There has never been a real democracy in Albania during the last 30 years.

We have lied to ourselves and the EU has lied to us. It is very difficult to explain to foreigners that have not experienced it themselves exactly what communism does to people. It does not only impoverish, imprison, and destroy a country. It attacks the soul and spirit of individuals. It strips them of their humanity, dignity, individualism and critical thinking. The individual does not exist anymore. He is a part of the communist society and its inhuman collective. He or she becomes simply one more human unit, ordered to perform as the party requests. This happened in Albania and was a process that lasted decades. Finally, the new man was created, who resembled more a robot than a human being. People were ordered to spy on each other, distrust one another and love only the tyrant. The past was erased or deformed in Albania to suit the needs of the Party. There was no culture, no art, no religion apart from what communism allowed.

The Crimes of the Past Still Linger

These crimes against humanity were never punished. If you teach a whole generation that wrongdoing of the greatest monstrosity can go unpunished, then you incentivize more crime. Those that performed the abuses of power are currently holding some of the highest posts in our nation. The EU and the USA have allowed it and protected them. It is fundamental that we restore the notion of criminal punishment first, so that the country can heal.

Curing a population without identity and humanity was impossible to achieve in just 30 years, because the very soul of humans was transformed under communism, creating a Frankenstein’s monster. Divisions and mistrust between the members of our nation run deep. Patriotism and the notion that we have to love our families and our lands were stripped forcibly from many. Naturally, there were those that resisted. However, these people who managed to keep their identities, their personalities and intellectualism were not allowed to be anywhere near the levers of power — even after communism supposedly fell.

Albania Gets a Raw Deal from Europe

Albania is maybe the oldest civilization in Europe, with certainly the oldest language. It has given Europe four Popes, several Emperors and leaders. It has contributed to the European civilization for millennia and has received nothing in return. It currently gives the world famous and valuable artists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, inventors and so on, proving that when left free, the potential for greatness is huge for every Albanian.

However, it is not an exaggeration to say that Europe does not want Albania. It never has. It divided a once big country that ran from the Danube river in the North, until Ioannina in the south. In 1945, Europe abandoned Albania, leaving it in the hands of the Red terror. Now, Europe has deserted it once again. Albania today exists because of the United States of America. Nevertheless, Barack Obama outsourced us in the hands of a foreign self-proclaimed philanthropist.

Albania — and the Balkans in general — are not the focus of the current American administration, as much as it pains me to say. Due to the abandonment by Obama, Albania which was once the most pro-American country on Earth, is losing faith on the world’s biggest democracy. Diplomats who care nothing about us are corrupted by politicians as soon as they get off the planes. Just as politicians collude with themselves against their sovereign. A small group of people is holding hostage an entire country. The world allows it because it has decided stability in the region is enough, while democracy is overrated. Yet, with their shortsightedness, they do not see that there will never be stability without the rule of law and strong institutions. A strong and democratic Albania, leads to a strong and peaceful Balkans, and as a result, a strong Europe.

Poverty as a Tool of Political Oppression

Inside the country, most Albanians are still traumatized by fifty years of torture and de-humanization. The victims of communism never saw their killers face justice. People have been impoverished on purpose, because the poorer a person is, the less likely he is to rise against his abusers. They have been indoctrinated, divided into political camps and currently stand without civil society, with a corrupt media, an allegedly bought and paid for opposition which does not inspire faith and at the very least is incompetent, and an authoritarian regime. Every night many TV programs serve only the goal of furthering the brainwash of the citizens.

Albanians have been unable to educate themselves properly, because no one has allowed them to. In fact, governments have encouraged Albanians to simply stay in a vegetative state in their cafes and bars and discuss anything but the fate of their lives, leading slowly to the creation of an apathetic society. Meritocracy was never allowed to take roots from 1945 to today. Moreover, there have never been strong and true institutions that would outlive politicians. It truly is the most peculiar and hurt country on Earth. So much potential, so many plunderers and so little luck for its citizens.

There is Still Hope

No help from the outside and no prospective of sustainable inside protest make the future seem bleak and hopeless. Yet, there is hope. It is not the strength of the body, as Tolkien would say, but the strength of the spirit and we must remember that even the smallest person can change the course of history. The signal comes from the United States. Each and everyone of us can make a difference by going through a national reawakening. We must restore our personal identities. We must learn to think in a critical way. Reason and logic are powerful weapons.

We must resuscitate our national identities and the sense of patriotism. Most importantly, we must remember our history, traditions and culture, in the face of those who seek to destroy them, so that we can live, study and work in our own country just like the rest of the world. We need to move forward so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past; so that our youth is not ruined and forever damaged by terror, fear and tears; so that our future generations live with the same standards as their peers of the West; and so that the sacrifices our grandparents and parents, their sufferings and pain are not in vain.

Better Politics — Not Less Politics

Politics is not a dirty word. It has been soiled by those who want to privatize it. We need more fair politics. And that is achieved by everyone becoming more involved. Being indifferent is a trait we should erase. As in every market, competition leads to the top product. That is what has been missing in Albania — competition of ideas and political groups which compete honestly and fairly. In truth, Albania lacks a conservative force to contrast the existing forces and to defend national identity and freedom.

Conservatism is important because it is connected to human nature. It shows us that we have to love and conserve the land we are born into, because we simply have no other. By building a connection with the land, we manage to learn and understand its history and traditions. It is in the human nature to attach oneself to things. It is a longing that everyone has. This attachment is the strongest motivation to defend the land, as one defends his home or neighborhood. It becomes part of ourselves. That is what people in Albania have forgotten. And to succeed in getting their freedom of expression, of thinking, of working, of investing, of building, of preserving, that is what they must remember.

We also do not know how to vote. Because we do not know yet, how to value candidates during a campaign. Often, oppositive stances are chosen instead of proactive values and principles. This has harmed us.

Albania Needs Justice

We must built a society based on the punishment of crime through fair laws and the reward of hard work, meritocracy instead of nepotism. We must know the value of earning. Earning a job, earning a degree and earning democracy. A country whose achievements are not earned but given, will never know the value of keeping those achievements and will not fight to protect them.

The destruction of a nation is not simply done through the invasion of armies. In many cases it happens little by little, with the demolition of art, of theaters, of history and traditions. That is why the destruction of even a small building can cause so much pain. By eliminating the history of a country or an individual, you obliterate their future. Any talks and discussions we make about the economy are futile, if we lose our identities. Someone who knows who he is, where he comes from, what he stands for and what he loves, also discovers where he wants to go and how to save the things he loves. By remembering to love our families, communities, history, and by being proud of who we are, we can finally built a country.

Heeding the American Example

The United States proved that it is possible to reclaim a former glory through individual responsibility, patriotism, history, tradition and meritocracy, which in turn enable the members of a society to be invested highly enough that they have an incentive to revive the economy. Why would someone protect a country so disfigured that he cannot related to it? Why get up and protest for the well-being of a country that you do not recognize because it has been robbed of its past? Why would someone whose hope and dreams have been stripped away and substituted with famine get up to defend the national resources that are being stolen? We must understand that these are the major questions of our time. It is a discussion of global proportion. The US serves as a model proving that the future lies on this path.

For us this is not a mere option. This is the only path forward. Albania stands at a crossroads. Either it will awaken its identity, perform a total restart of its society, give power back to the sovereign and have a chance of success or risk becoming a ghost in Europe. It will be a modern lost city of Atlantis that nobody will remember. Even Atlantis, as the legend says, had its marvelous technology. We will have nothing. What fate is there worse than being sent into oblivion, forgotten for the rest of time?

Albanians Must Preserve Their Identity

The fault will have been our own, by allowing our identity to be stripped away. I understand that someone who is poor is more interested in the food they will be able to get for the day. These thirty years they have learned that as long as they obey, they will get that daily piece of bread. But, oh, what sense of liberation must be to imagine having a free will! Once someone gets that in their head, it is difficult to take it out. Reawakening our identities and sense of individual responsibilities is the first step. Building strong institutions that will be able to protect this identity and the rule of law must follow. Afterwards, economic strength will ensue through small governments, fair and free markets, saving, investing, low taxes and so on. Yet, it is impossible to reach that without learning to conserve and restore what makes us and where we come from.

It is a dangerous business to step out of the door, for sure. You step into the road and if you do not know your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Yet, it is fundamental that we step out of the door and show that our country and our citizens are still alive and will go and meet the European citizens one day as peers and not as vassals.

The EU has lost its way. We need to find ours, and perhaps one day we shall meet as equals with a fair Europe of Nations.

In the end, it may be a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. How soon and in what shape the fair country of Albania will be in days to come depends upon its own citizens.

L'articolo The Lost Nation of Albania – There is a Path Forward proviene da InsideOver.

The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will be unprecedented. Even if the American and global economy manages to achieve some stabilization post-COVID-19 through central bank stimulus packages and countermeasures, many small and medium-sized businesses will not survive. In addition to the millions of lost jobs in the United States alone, thousands of family-owned and medium-sized corporations and businesses are going under.

What Comes Next?

What comes next is exactly what everyone thinks: consolidation and big companies getting bigger. Larger businesses like Amazon, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, airlines, government contractors, massive grocery chains and all manner of other giant corporations will continue to scoop up any smaller fish in the pond as they grow to grotesque proportions. The end result post-COVID-19 will be a world in which large, tax-loophole-exploiting corporate behemoths who thrive under corporate socialism and government bailouts will be the only place to get a job.

Starting a business will be an impossibility for those struggling out from mountains of COVID-19 economic damage, not to mention even getting the financial liquidity to go up against market-dominating players who have actually been boosted as a result of the pandemic.

Profits Over People

The harsh and obvious truth is that governments care much more about their donors and economic partners than they do about their citizens. The US government got warmed up in 2008 and 2009 with its bank bailouts, and this time it’s the same approach on a larger scale and not focused on financial institutions — although large banks have made tens of billions in processing fees paying out emergency government loans to small businesses who are trying to stay afloat. Even when the government offers some help the middlemen manage to turn it to their advantage. It’s a win-win for the giant banks and corporations and a lose-lose for working people.

As Nassim Taleb put it of the last big bailout: “That was a blatant case of corporate socialism and a reward to an industry whose managers are stopped out by the taxpayer. The asymmetry (moral hazard) and what we call optionality for the bankers can be expressed as follows: heads and the bankers win, tails and the taxpayer loses. Furthermore, this does not count the policy of quantitative easing that went to inflate asset values and increased inequality by benefiting the super rich. Remember that bailouts come with printed money, which effectively deflate the wages of the middle class in relation to asset values such as ultra-luxury apartments in New York City.”

COVID-19 Has Been Great for Billionaires

While ordinary people including the upper-middle class and many who might be termed conventionally “rich” are suffering immensely during the pandemic, the ultra-rich and managerial “superclass” (as David Rothkopf coined them) are doing swimmingly. These are the folks who call the shots at a fairly senior level and work to shift entire economies and industries and they number around 6,000 worldwide. The pandemic hasn’t hurt billionaires like this for the most part. In fact, billionaire wealth has boomed significantly during this crisis. The panic and isolation of those in lockdown is only an opportunity for individuals like Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who has made over $25 billion just since March, to increase their profits.

Unsurprisingly, the head of Zoom Eric Yuan also saw a big jump in his earnings and is now worth around $3 billion and Bill Gates spent a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria chuckling as they talked about how unprepared the United States had been for COVID-19 and smirking and admitting Microsoft could do pretty well in the coming digital work gold rush while Zakaria talked about the economic suffering people will experience. Supposed free market global capitalism has slowly morphed into a worrying fusion of big government and big business that is starting to look vaguely similar to authoritarian movements of the past century and modern-day China which fused the military, government and corporate power into fascistic and communistic juggernauts of centralized surveillance and control.

Corporate Socialism

The reality of many “free market” economies is that they function as a sort of feeding trough for large, connected corporations to monopolize, risk capital within and then collect lifesaving funds if they fail. This essentially means bailouts, tax breaks and special rules for the largest corporations and industry leaders and an up-by-the-bootstraps rhetoric of tough luck and homeless shelters for working families employed by many of those large corporations and small or medium companies who go under during tough times or find the bottom-of-the-barrel wages they are offered insufficient. It is not as if workers haven’t noticed that their mega corporations are profiting off their backs while offering them peanuts, with a mass strike of Amazon, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods and Instacart workers planned for May 1.

While the occasional $1,200 stimulus check may indeed help out struggling individuals during these hard times, it is nothing compared to the yearly subsidies and tax breaks of giant corporations or for the scope of their market dominance. Regular businesses work to innovate products, services and reputation as they expand and branch out: mega-corporations seek to become the actual market itself and force merchants to do business on their terms and under their supply chains. Are you a small business that sells household items online? Well you can pump money into advertising and get a trickle of customers or you can join Big Daddy Bezos’ Fun Farm and give him the commissions he demands in return for a steady stream of purchases and product exposure.

Survival of the Biggest

Many wars, revolutions, crises and social shifts in history have been accompanied by, and even partly caused by, enormous economic change and changing economic needs of industry leaders and the ruling class. The Protestant Reformation, the American Revolution, World War One and Two, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the list goes on. Think of a social, military or political upheaval and you will find a significant economic aspect. However, it would be naive to imagine that money or profit is the primary factor driving economic concerns at the upper level, even if it drives them on the lower level. For the very wealthiest and most connected, particularly those linked to the actual creation of money by central banks, money is merely a means to an end. That end is, generally speaking, stability, control and a specific social and political vision. If one thinks back to even several decades ago, there seemed to be numerous different brands of soft drinks, for example, headquartered in different areas if you read the fine print and with different prices and styles. Now almost every can or bottle you pick up despite its surface brand is owned by Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Consolidation and control is the name of the game: in governance and sociopolitical engineering just as in the food industry.

Join or Die

The post-COVID-19 world will be different and it will have even less illusion of choice than the Google-run techtropolis that preceded it. There is no time for “future shock” because the future is already here. Whether it is the government or its affiliated mega-corporations the reality will be simple, especially for those who have fallen on particularly hard times as a result of the pandemic with their health, insurance costs and lost work. The message of the emerging technocracy will be simple: work at our companies, eat our food, take our vaccines, believe our news, live in our plural cities where the jobs are all located, or else face the consequences of being banned. Make sure you don’t fall prey to the siren song of that ultimate evil of populism: you wouldn’t want to lose your government check or be forced to stay out in no man’s land where the new, worse viruses and looters are, right? Like a twisted shadow version of Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War cartoon, the writing of the consolidated corona-nomics economic future will be on the wall for all to see. Join or die. 

L'articolo Corona-nomics proviene da InsideOver.

The Chinese government is upgrading its surveillance efforts against key minorities, a recent report from Citizen Lab has discovered.

In September 2019, Apple Inc confirmed that the phones of mostly-Muslim minority, Uighurs – considered a terrorist and radical threat by the Chinese government – were hacked to monitor their community.

The Chinese hackers also spied on Tibetans in exile through their iPhone. The Citizen Lab report suggested that both attacks were carried out by the same hackers working with the Chinese government.

The report also suggested that the Chinese government may currently be upgrading its surveillance efforts against key minority groups, which it considers to be enemies of the state.

In China, it is not just minority groups who are under surveillance. By next year, every member of the population will be subject to the “social credit system”.

“I can’t buy property. My child can’t go to a private school,” Liu Hu, a journalist writing about censorship and corruption in China said. “You feel you’re being controlled by the list all the time.”

Hu was listed on a List of Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement by the Supreme People’s Court and was prevented from taking flights, because of his low social credit system.

“There was no file, no police warrant, no official advance notification. They just cut me off from the things I was once entitled to. What’s scary is there’s nothing you can do about it. You can report to no one. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

In April 2018, the Communist-ruled party boasted of blocking Chinese nationals from taking 11.14 million flights and 4.25 million high-speed rail trips. Deductions are made for bad behaviour, such as traffic violations or playing too much video games, while points are added for good behaviour, such as being a parent.

China aims to have about 626 million surveillance cameras in the country, to be used as part of the social credit system. Observed behaviour caught on camera, which are not in line with what the Community party deems “good”, decreases citizens’ social credit scores.

Xi Jinping aims for total control of his people’s political, mental and philosophical views. Political commentators have, however, argued that beneath Xi’s desire for totalitarianism is an insecure fear of dissent and political rejection from his supporters. To maintain his timeless rule as president, the social credit system punishes minor social and political dissent as small as jaywalking, and hands out rewards for total conformity to Communist ideals of good citizenship.

For Xi, the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong’s ideologies, will best lead China towards political and economic greatness in the eyes of the world.

“If at the time of reform Comrade Mao had been completely repudiated, would our party still be standing? Would our country’s system of socialism still be standing?” he asked the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee several days after becoming their general secretary.

“These things cannot be cut away from the entire history of our party and our country. To grasp this is to grasp everything. This is not just an intellectual issue—it is a political issue.”

Behind Xi’s ideologies for a great China lies fear of the outside world. Differing ideologies cannot be tolerated in Xi’s China. Although his family was persecuted, murdered and tortured – and he banished – during the Maoist era, Xi’s belief in the Maoist ideals of self-sacrifice for the greater good is demanded of his people. The Western culture of democracy, individualism and self-determination cannot be tolerated, neither can religious beliefs, feminist beliefs, human rights beliefs and many more.

Ironically, Xi’s family do not conform to ideals of self-sacrifice, amassing wealth for themselves in both China and offshore accounts.

“Rein in your spouses, children, relatives, friends, and staff, and vow not to use power for personal gain,’’ he told officials during a 2004 conference call.

In a volume of his internal speeches, published in January 2016, titled: ‘Excerpts of Xi Jinping’s Remarks on the Strict Maintenance of Party Discipline’, Xi is highly critical of corruption in the Chinese political system.

“The higher the positions of power these people are in, they less seriously they take party political discipline, even to the point of recklessness and sheer audacity,” he writes.

“Some are inflated with a political will to power, entirely in the service of personal profits or the vested interests of their clique, running their plots and dealings outside existing party organizations that damage and split the party.”

It seems that, apart from Xi’s own family, conformity is an utmost requirement for everyone in China. Like most totalitarian leaders, China’s president is too hypocritical to follow his authoritarian ideologies.

L'articolo How Surveillance is Used to Punish Nonconforming Citizens in China proviene da InsideOver.

The extrapolation of a recent report compiled by IHS Markit has revealed that American citizens are almost as likely to be spied on as are the Chinese, each by their respective regimes. While China boasts one security camera for every 4.1 people, America ranks at 4.6 people per camera deployed, notes the report’s author, IHS Markit analyst Oliver Philippou. Activists bemoan the fact that China is constantly and unashamedly pushing video surveillance into civil society, but the US state and private monitors are almost as ubiquitous.

Long demonised as a totalitarian state, the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong was, indeed, an unashamedly totalitarian construct. The historical vestiges linger, notwithstanding China’s modernisation of the last two decades, and the Communist Party remains the sole political option, with dire consequences for detractors.

That said, whether it is better or worse to watch third party infiltration as is happening in the US, rather than surveillance by the state itself, is debatable. The report noted that the highest number of surveillance cameras in the US were deployed by private enterprise, such as those in hotels, malls and office complexes. For many, it remains a moot point as to whether a camera is installed by state or private entities, as both the Chinese and US regimes can legally commandeer just about anything in the name of national security, thus making private surveillance footage state property.

A billion cameras for the kids

The youth of 2019 will likely be growing up in a world filled with all-seeing eyes. IHS Markit has estimated there will be around one billion surveillance cameras in operation by 2025. The growth in surveillance is being driven by price competition and technological advances – allowing for greater deployment at a lower cost – but also respective government funding and a pressing need for public safety, as is the official line.

Critics disagree, and note that the wanton abuse of privacy through surveillance “for the public good” is a precedent set long ago. They fear that in spite of the impetus being public safety – something yet to be definitively and unambiguously linked to increased surveillance – the likelihood that the state will use it to spy on its citizens, crush dissent and broadly and quietly impose whatever stranglehold best suits its purposes, is almost a foregone conclusion.

With China leading the pack and North America a close second, third place for monitoring its citizens goes to Taiwan, with one camera for every 5.5 residents, the UK in fourth position at 6.5 citizens per camera deployed, and Singapore in fifth place, sporting one surveillance camera for every 7.1 people.

With the current figures being 349 million cameras deployed in China and 70 million in North America, Big Brother has never looked so ominous. Or seen so much. Philippou notes that reporting from the surveillance arena has largely focused on Beijing’s roll-out of monitoring via cameras and AI in public spaces, whereas the US deployment has been almost as ambitious. He concludes by saying that “future debate over mass surveillance is likely to concern America as much as China.”

Even though a larger percentage of surveillance is currently being funded by private enterprise in North America, government agencies have not been absent from the arena. For many years, the Baltimore Police Department enacted aerial surveillance of its citizens, and Detroit has cameras pointed at public housing residents. Many police departments are also advocating tech giant Amazon’s Ring, essentially creating a network of citizens monitoring one another.

Civil rights advocates are warning of the dangers of such enhanced surveillance, disputing any real link between increased surveillance and a reduction in crime, while noting that the technology is all too often abused by political agendas, where innocent people are spuriously targeted or privacy completely eradicated through such surveillance.

L'articolo US Domestic Video Surveillance Almost On Par With China proviene da InsideOver.