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Chinese Telecoms Giant ZTE is Helping Venezuela Build a System That Monitors Citizen Behavior Through a New Identification Card (reuters.com)
The "fatherland card," already used by the government to track voting, worries many in Venezuela and beyond. From a report: In April 2008, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dispatched Justice Ministry officials to visit counterparts in the Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen. Their mission, according to a member of the Venezuela delegation, was to learn the workings of China's national identity card program. Chavez, a decade into his self-styled socialist revolution, wanted help to provide ID credentials to the millions of Venezuelans who still lacked basic documentation needed for tasks like voting or opening a bank account. Once in Shenzhen, though, the Venezuelans realized a card could do far more than just identify the recipient.
There, at the headquarters of Chinese telecom giant ZTE Corp, they learned how China, using smart cards, was developing a system that would help Beijing track social, political and economic behavior. Using vast databases to store information gathered with the card's use, a government could monitor everything from a citizen's personal finances to medical history and voting activity. "What we saw in China changed everything," said the member of the Venezuelan delegation, technical advisor Anthony Daquin. His initial amazement, he said, gradually turned to fear that such a system could lead to abuses of privacy by Venezuela's government. "They were looking to have citizen control."
The following year, when he raised concerns with Venezuelan officials, Daquin told Reuters, he was detained, beaten and extorted by intelligence agents. They knocked several teeth out with a handgun and accused him of treasonous behavior, Daquin said, prompting him to flee the country. Government spokespeople had no comment on Daquin's account. The project languished. But 10 years after the Shenzhen trip, Venezuela is rolling out a new, smart-card ID known as the "carnet de la patria," or "fatherland card." The ID transmits data about cardholders to computer servers. The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive.
There, at the headquarters of Chinese telecom giant ZTE Corp, they learned how China, using smart cards, was developing a system that would help Beijing track social, political and economic behavior. Using vast databases to store information gathered with the card's use, a government could monitor everything from a citizen's personal finances to medical history and voting activity. "What we saw in China changed everything," said the member of the Venezuelan delegation, technical advisor Anthony Daquin. His initial amazement, he said, gradually turned to fear that such a system could lead to abuses of privacy by Venezuela's government. "They were looking to have citizen control."
The following year, when he raised concerns with Venezuelan officials, Daquin told Reuters, he was detained, beaten and extorted by intelligence agents. They knocked several teeth out with a handgun and accused him of treasonous behavior, Daquin said, prompting him to flee the country. Government spokespeople had no comment on Daquin's account. The project languished. But 10 years after the Shenzhen trip, Venezuela is rolling out a new, smart-card ID known as the "carnet de la patria," or "fatherland card." The ID transmits data about cardholders to computer servers. The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive.
Where are Sean Penn and Danny Glover now? Sigh ...
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
Chavez, a decade into his self-styled socialist revolution,
What, was it not certified by the socialist revolution certification board or something?
It's so funny watching you all try to disassociate yourselves from Venezuela ...
Completely backwards. It’s citizens who should be able to monitor their governments. A private citizen might be able to do a fair bit of evil (see the Oklahoma City bombing) but nowhere near what a government is capable of doing (see the Soviet gulags) even when it thinks it has good intentions (just about anything Mao did) and the support of the people.
"fatherland card... fatherland card...." where have we seen that before? oh yes!
apartheid in south africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
hitler's nazi germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
yeah i'll stop there.
This is what happens when you go too far left.
You wont be able to convince people that going this far left turns you into nazi's.. because the left has been telling everyone that the nazi's were right wing for over 60 years now. It doesnt matter how obviously wrong the left is on the matter of the nazis... even if yet another leftist nation is calling itself the fatherland.
"His name was James Damore."
And, lest we overlook this, the words 'monitoring', 'efficient', 'good', 'positive', 'negative', 'natural', 'undesirable', and 'beneficial' mean different things to different people.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
But democrats want to use ID to prevent black people from buying a gun, opening a bank account, boarding an airplane, getting a library card, or getting a fishing license.
All of those are uses of ID that are not considered racist. But requiring it to vote? Yup, racist. Explain the difference.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Nah. Conservatives are the ones who crave fascism. The police state is their comfort zone. They advocate never questioning authority, support the state crushing any form of protest, violently if necessary.
Citation needed. In general, it is absolutely clear that conservatives favor less powerful central government and support the rights of individuals to protect themselves from overbearing government.
It's like saying you are a Liberal but voting Democrat. Being liberal does not make you a democrat. Being conservative does not make you a Republican.
Sure, many liberals will vote Democrat and many conservatives will vote Republican, but those terms aren't interchangeable.
Many old school blue dog Democrats are nothing like their socialist/communist nuts. Just like the nazi element is nothing like the fiscal conservative, small government type libertarian.
If we didn't have a first past the post voting system and winner take all, I'm sure we would see less broadly defined parties. This is especially true for the middle of the road people that still join a D or R for primary purposes but really only agree with half or less of what the party stands for.
It's why Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul both had to join "mainstream" parties to get a real chance, otherwise they would just split the ticket. Ross Perot did this in the 90s when he ran against Clinton and Dole. Clinton won what a typical democrat candidate would win but all the rest of the votes nearly divided equally between Perot and Dole.
Conservatives are also supposed to believe in not spending more than you take in, but that went the way of the dodo bird decades ago. It would be interesting for you to point out a US national politician that best reflects true conservatism.
No, citation is definitely needed, it's the conservatives who (mostly) approve of the people being well armed, while gun control has now become the absolute dogma of the Democratic party at the national level.