China ‘plans to spy’ on Olympics

China ‘plans to spy’ on Olympics May 2, 2008 Web User The Chinese government has been accused of ordering US-owned hotels to install web filters that can spy on international visitors ahead of this summer’s Olympics. Republican Senator Sam Brownback made the charge at a news conference in Washington. Along with several other lawmakers, he denounced China’s human rights record and urged President Bush not to attend the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing. The Senator said he had seen memos received by at least two American-owned hotels in China requesting them to install the contentious filters. He declined to reveal his sources. The filters would allow third-party monitoring of websites being visited by hotel guests and also restrict information coming in and out of China, according to Senator Brownback. “This is wrong, it’s against international conventions, it’s certainly against the Olympic spirit,” Brownback said. “The Chinese government should remove that request and that order.” China has repeatedly blocked access to websites including Yahoo, YouTube, the BBC and Google News in the past. One Republican senator, Chris Smith, compared the Beijing Olympics to the 1936 games in Nazi Germany. “When Berlin happened, a lot of people didn’t know what the Nazis were all about. But we’ve had year after year of credible reporting of [the] Chinese government’s human rights abuses,” Smith said. http://en.beijing2008.cn