Letter Casts Doubt On Yahoo China Testimony

Saint Aardvark writes "A hand-written letter has surfaced that sheds new light on the case of Chinese reporter Shi Tao. The letter (PDF), believed to be from Chinese police, 'is essentially a standardized search warrant making clear that Chinese law enforcement agencies have the legal authority to collect evidence in criminal cases. This contradicts Yahoo's testimony (PDF) to Congress in 2006 that they 'had no information about the nature of the investigation.' 'One does not have to be an expert in Chinese law to know that 'state secrets' charges have often been used to punish political dissent in China,' says Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and publications for The Dui Hua Foundation. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his reporting on the Tianamen Square massacre."

Comments

Any guesses ...

[khasim]

... as to how the comments on this thread will compare to the comments on the thread about police recording license plate locations and times?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/30/01 45253

It would appear that some degree of privacy / anonymity is necessary for Freedom.

Re:Any guesses ...

[Opportunist]

Not only for your freedom, but also for your health.

Being under constant surveillance is quite a bit of stress for a person. Especially when said person knows he's under surveillance. You can't behave "normally". Our education tells us that you simply don't do certain things in public. And we behave accordingly in public. Believe it or not, that's stressful. You have to "behave".

People don't really feel it that much, usually. They spend 10 hours tops in public view. They usually can retreat to their privacy if the stress becomes unbearable. But ask any celebrity, especially those that became famous against their will, how it feels to be a "public person".

If this becomes mainstream, I predict a lot more people going postal.