U.S.-China Surveillance

According to a report today in the London-based online journal, The Inquirer, net cafe patrons in metropolitan Beijing must register with their real names starting later this year. Beijing, to my knowledge, becomes the second Chinese city (Xiamen was the first, in the wake of the successful PX Chemical plant protest) to attempt to impose a regional real name registration policy since the state’s acquiescence to public rejection of a formal national policy in May of last year.

It is worth noting that these kinds of initiatives are not unique to Chinese politics. Last fall, Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of U.S. national intelligence, stated that no American should expect to speak or act today without casting a data shadow that is visible to the federal government. Last week, Kentucky lawmaker Tim Couch submitted a bill that would “would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.”

Although the current Beijing government initiative focuses only on net cafe users and not people going online from work or home, there is a long history of failed state government attempts to have customers of net cafes register their real names. With the Olympics fast approaching, the stakes may be a bit different. This bears watching.

Update: the original story, in Chinese, is at CE.CN (China Economics Network), dated March 11.