According to the man, one device captures your license plate number; another records how many people are in your car and has facial recognition tech; another can track your cell phone number, including whether one person is carrying multiple phones.
U.S. law enforcement has surveillance capabilities too, of course. But the far-reaching nature of state surveillance in China opens the door to a host of potential abuses. Even the thought of an officer using, or misusing, the available data can spur one to alter one’s behavior.
A brief personal example: A few years ago, I took a solo trip through western Sichuan province, mostly riding buses until I reached a town where the only way to keep going west (into eastern Qinghai) was to hire a driver.
At a checkpoint along the way, the driver and I got out of the car and a police officer inspected our documents. He asked me for my cell phone number, which I gave him, because the power dynamic makes that the kind of situation where you can’t easily say “no.”
A few minutes later, as the driver and I are back in the car heading toward our destination, my phone rings. It’s the officer, asking about my plans and proposing to show me around town as my “friend.” He asks whether a local passenger in the front seat is my boyfriend.
(He isn’t, and the officer says several more things that cross the line.) Finally, I yell at him to stop asking me such inappropriate questions and to leave me alone. I hang up the phone and, despite my best efforts, I’m shaking.
I was at the end of a year spent studying Chinese, so I was a student, not a journalist, at the time. I was purely traveling for my own enjoyment, not covering a sensitive story. And I did see some stunningly beautiful places and meet some amazing people over those two weeks.
But after I hung up on the shady officer, my first thought was about the data available to him. Anyone who’s worked as a reporter in China quickly becomes familiar with the ways the state can track your phone. Even if you’ve never (knowingly) experienced it, you’re always aware.
So, I begin to weigh the benefits of exploring that long-dreamed-of, scenic destination versus the risks of having a cop with bad intentions track me down at the hotel where I planned to stay. It broke my heart, but soon after I arrived, I found a cab and headed to the airport.
This is a story that plays out in every part of the planet, every day: a woman encounters a man and must quickly calculate whether he is a risk to her, and if so, how to react. It’s nothing unique to China. But the data available to those with power in China compounds the fear.
(The fear and, I should add, the danger.)

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More from @feliciasonmez

22 Nov
Michael Steel (@michael_steel) former top aide to John Boehner, Paul Ryan and others, now a spokesman for Dominion Voting Systems, rebuts Sidney Powell's wild claims of voter fraud in this Fox interview. Very much worth watching. (1/x)

mediaite.com/tv/dominion-re…
@michael_steel This exchange at the very end gets to the heart of the matter.

Q: They’re going to call you a RINO. What do these allegations do to the belief in our election system?

Steel: “I’ve worked for conservative causes, candidates and elected officials for nearly 20 years..." (2/x)
More Steel: "I think that these allegations are not allegations against Dominion Voting Systems. They are against our elected officials at the state and local level -- bipartisan poll watchers, the very system that inspires the confidence that we have ..." (3/x)
Read 4 tweets
21 Jul
On his show tonight, Tucker Carlson repeatedly mentioned a reporter named Murray Carpenter, suggesting Carpenter was writing a story for NYT that would mention Carlson's home address. Carlson then asked what might happen if he revealed the home addresses of Carpenter & NYT eds.
Twitter is already full of threatening messages aimed at Carpenter.
In 2018, an anti-fascist organization called Smash Racism D.C. posted Carlson's address on Twitter. A group of demonstrators later surrounded Carlson's home and chanted, "We know where you sleep at night." washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11…
Read 7 tweets
19 Jul
“We have embers, and we do have flames," Trump tells Chris Wallace when asked about his "embers" comment on the coronavirus pandemic. "Florida became – more flamelike.”
Trump continues to dismiss the increase in coronavirus cases. "Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test. ... Many of those cases shouldn't even be cases."
"I can tell you cases are 6,000 in the whole European Union. ... Is it possible that they don't have the virus as badly as we do?" Wallace asks.

"It's possible that they don't test, that's what's possible," Trump says. "We find cases and many of those cases heal automatically."
Read 13 tweets
8 Jul
A few more thoughts after rereading this list of supposedly outrageous incidents mentioned in the Harper’s “cancel culture” letter. 1) As @samthielman points out, many of the descriptions of these episodes are extremely misleading or oversimplified to the point of absurdity. 1/x
“Editors are fires for running controversial pieces?” We don’t know who this one is about specifically, but one of the signatories is Ian Buruma, who left the NY Review of Books in 2018 after running a piece aiming to rehabilitate Jian Ghomeshi. theguardian.com/us-news/2018/s… 2/x
As the Guardian piece notes, Buruma’s defense of the piece in an interview with @IChotiner only made things worse: Buruma said he didn’t know whether the allegations that Ghomeshi had violently assaulted women were accurate, “nor is it really my concern.” 3/x
Read 11 tweets
22 Jun
This story is just jaw-dropping: Eight minority Ramsey County corrections officers have filed discrimination charges with the state’s Department of Human Rights after they were barred from guarding or having any other contact with Derek Chauvin last month startribune.com/minority-corre…
"As Chauvin arrived, all officers of color were ordered to a separate floor, and a supervisor told one of them that, because of their race, they would be a potential 'liability' around Chauvin, according a copy of racial discrimination charges obtained by the Star Tribune."
"In explaining his actions, jail Superintendent Steve Lydon later told superiors that he was informed Chauvin would be arriving in 10 minutes, and made a call 'to protect and support' minority employees by shielding them from Chauvin. ... He has since been demoted."
Read 5 tweets
4 Jun
White journalists: Please listen to what your Black colleagues are saying today. Don’t lecture them about how that NYT op-ed was simply about the free exchange of ideas. Just stop. LISTEN TO THEM. Sit with this, do the work and try to understand what they’re feeling.
Your life is not in danger every day because of anti-Black racism. Your skin color means you are automatically afforded a level of respect and protection from law enforcement that is not extended equally to them. These things are truths.
You did not do anything to earn that respect and protection. You receive it and benefit from it every day — even if that “benefit” means simply being allowed to live — because of the accumulation of years and years and years of systemic racism.
Read 16 tweets

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