Wall Street Funds Chinese Spy Upgrade

Hedge funds offer $150M helping hand to Beijing Big Brother
By Peter Fearon,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 11, 2007 7:46 AM CDT
Wall Street Funds Chinese Spy Upgrade
A paramilitary police officer patrols near the portrait of late communist leader Mao Zedong on Beijing's Tiananmen Gate Wednesday Aug. 29, 2007. China's ruling Communist Party will hold a major meeting in October that will set the national agenda for the next five years amid the challenge of staging...   (Associated Press)

Wall Street money is fueling the high-tech upgrade of China's police state, the New York Times reports. US hedge funds have poured $150 million into Chinese surveillance companies that are developing the latest in government spookware, from face-recognition technology to behavior-recognition software that can spot a disturbance before it begins.

Top Chinese surveillance firms have incorporated in the US to make it easier to raise cash; some are even listed on the NYSE. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, calls the alliance between China's surveillance industry and Wall Street “an absolutely incredible phenomenon of extreme corporate irresponsibility.” (More Wall Street stories.)

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