http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1010/p01s01-ussc.html
China has been doing similar things for years, mainly using facilities that the US CALEA (communications assistance to law enforcement act) forced companies to build into phone switches for the FBI, NSA et al.
I'd say we'd be better off on a worldwide basis if US law were changed to make it illegal to build wiretap facilities into equipment, rather than requiring them.
Even the US would be far better off without GW Bozo and other clowns ding wiretapping, there being strong evidence that they consider themselves above the law and have been doing illegal monitoring galore. One example: http://www.eff.org/cases/att
What do you folk think here? I'd say illegal monitoring of the citizenry should be obvious grounds for impeachment.
Would your answers be any different if someone with the "correct line" were doing it to "stop counter-revolutionaries"? Mine wouldn't.
I once had a wonderful quote from a German socialist, Rosa Luxemburg or one of her crowd, spring 1918 pointing out to Lenin that he was on the wrong track. You cannot create socialism without first having an open society, free press, freedom of speech, ... It is possible to have those without socialism, but not the reverse.
Anyone know that quote? Being in China, I find myself wanting to re-read it.
-- Sandy Harris, Nanjing, China