State Department to Americans: Beijing hotel rooms are bugged

Posted By Mike Boyer Monday, March 24, 2008 - 2:37 PM Share

A U.S. State Department issued "fact sheet" for Americans traveling to this summer's Olympic Games contains this little gem:

All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times."

The warning was issued last week. Chinese officials today said visitors have nothing to worry about, and that their surveillance efforts are "in accordance with international norms." Personally, if I were going to China for the Olympics, I wouldn't worry too much about the hotel rooms. I'd just be sure to leave my BlackBerry at home.

EXPLORE:EAST ASIA, CHINA, FREEDOM, OLYMPICS
 
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CHUCKMISER

10:54 AM ET

March 27, 2008

no worries mate!

Like the US doesn't moniter everything that is going in and out via emails and phone calls. Kinda like the kettle calling the pot black.

Uh oh i used the word pot! blast it!

chuck miser
chuck@cheapcharlieshotels.com
http:www.cheapcharlieshotels.com/

 

ANONYMOUS_ECONOMIST

10:50 AM ET

July 5, 2008

I wouldn't be too sure the

I wouldn't be too sure the "bugs" in the rooms arent aren't "ours".

Between the Protect America Act of 2007, and the FISA Amendments of 2008, we've been told by Ken Wainstein that outside the U.S., persons have "minimal to no rights" (September 20, 2007). Ergo unreasonable search and seizure rights, per Wainstein and McConnell aren't a consideration. Ergo, those bugs might well have been put there by the FBI, this being the principle counterintelligence entity for the US, of all 16 intel agencies, under the new NCIX umbrella.

The FBI has sovereign immunity to enforce law abroad, but the going "notion" is that reciprocal operational strictures, under Constitutional statute should not apply. This "does not compute", re: reciprocity vs. Rights/Obligations. These are basic legal principles that many legal scholars highlight, whereas current practice focuses on judicial rulings that refer to cases addressing *non*-Americans, i.e. Verdugo-Urquidez.

What strikes me is the irony of how this situates economic law, i.e. WTO law. For example, national treatment and MFN are the two founding legal pillars of all WTO treaties, which are called "agreements" (and which constitute "WTO Law"). So to say that Constitutional rights are *not* ubiquitous, but an international treaty (the WTO's four charters) is weakens the Constitution, in relative terms? i.e. This 'flies in the face' of judicial rulings holding the Constitution supreme to all treaties.

If Constitutional rights are *not* extraterritorial, but WTO law *is*, the Constitution has 'just like that' been rendered a lesser rule of law than a UN-based treaty (you know that the GATT ran under UN-hat for 50 years, right? The WTO, in the name of the International Trade Organization, was operationalized as a part of the Havana Charter of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment in 1947. The United States got edgy about the investment provisions, so the ITO didnt become a Bretton Woods institution (like the World Bank and the IMF) but functioned under the UN for fifty years.

The WTO is not new. It operated as a UN agency for 50 years, and just added a few things. Back to the point: If you don't allow extraterritorial Constitutional Rights, but if you do expect the WTO to hold true, you've just weakened our founding document, in relative terms.

Just like that.
 

ANONYMOUS_ECONOMIST

10:58 AM ET

July 5, 2008

Another thing: "All visitors

Another thing: "All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times."

"no reasonable expectation of privacy" is an opt-out for the FBI to be able to spy. It's the legal terminology for *how they justify* breaking normally expected Constitutional-law-constricted operational practices outside the United States; i.e. they attempt to blame the non-US country for how *they* (the FBI et al) will go ahead and exercise warrantless and/or non-criminal, non-terror-related spying on U.S. travellers.

It's a cover-their-butts presage, for planned behaviors they know very well might be called to account. *lather*rinse*repeat*

Besides that fact, the NRO has all these cool satellite thingys, that the FBI aet all were forbidden to use for domestic spying, that they can deploy abroad. And in case they find something actionable, and have to defend it, this is a presage, so they can claim that "there was no reasonable expectation of privacy! The State Department said so!". So typical. _______________________________________________________ Free Trade and FDI Evangelist
 

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