The rich get richer:

So the big 700 MHz spectrum auction is over, and the big boys won big. I’ll have much more to say later, but Verizon and AT&T won almost everything. The total auction netted about $19 billion, with roughly $16 billion from Verizon and AT&T.

Still, I suppose no harm can come of it:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

Still, there’s no reason to doubt that this is all on the up-and-up:

Telecom executives from companies seeking escape from privacy lawsuits accusing them of illegally collaborating with secret domestic spying programs wrote thousands in checks to the re-election campaign of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), THREAT LEVEL reported last Thursday.

But in a Tuesday New York Times story, the lawmaker’s spokeswoman denies that the telco cash affected Rockefeller’s decision last week to include retroactive immunity for those companies in a bill passed by a Rockefeller-led committee.

AT&T and Verizon executives who had donated only a pittance to Rockefeller over the past 6 years donated more than $40,000 to Rockefeller in 2007, even as they were having private meetings with him to plead for his help in escaping from federal court.

Still, there’s no reason to think such cooperation would ever derive from anything but a benificent desire on the part of the telecos to protect their customers from terrorists:

Golden Shield is “a database-driven remote surveillance system – offering immediate access to records on every citizen in China, while linking to vast networks of cameras designed to increase police efficiency.”

According to the Canadian group Rights and Democracy, Western companies have collaborated with China to implement technologies like:

  • speech recognition technology for automated surveillance of telephone conversations;
  • the integration of face recognition and voice recognition technology
  • smart cards for all citizens which can be scanned without the owner’s knowledge
  • closed-circuit television to monitor public spaces

What this means for Tibetans is that they are under more surveillance than ever. Now China can systematically arrest and torture any Tibetans even remotely involved in the pro-independence demonstrations; away from cameras, in the middle of the night, behind prison walls. A truly chilling prospect, brought to you by the Western companies named in the R&D report.

Still, that could never happen here.

Tibet link via, who has been following the Tibet situation closely.

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