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More than 300 different U.S. government organizations—among them city, county, and town governments, as well as schools—have purchased cameras and surveillance systems from two blacklisted Chinese tech companies since August 2019, according to government contract data.
The two companies are Hikvision and Dahua Technology, and their recent business deals with U.S. local governments were reviewed by IPVM, a Pennsylvania-based video surveillance research firm, based on government contracts obtained through GovSpend, a technology company based in Florida. On May 24, IPVM published its findings in partnership with TechCrunch.
Buying equipment and services from Hikvision and Dahua is an issue due to cybersecurity and human rights concerns associated with the two tech companies. In fact, federal agencies are prohibited from buying from the two companies due to significant national security risks outlined under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2019. The prohibition went into effect in August 2019.
Hikvision and Dahua were also among a group of China-based companies added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s blacklist in October 2019 over their roles in supporting the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. U.S. companies are required to apply for a special government license before they can do business with blacklisted companies.
The Chinese regime’s crackdown on ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang—subjecting them to abuses including torture, sterilizations, political indoctrination, and forced labor—has been denounced as “genocide” by Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, and the United States.
Most recently in March, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated Hikvision and Dahua as companies posing a threat to U.S. national security. Three other Chinese companies receiving the same designation were Huawei, ZTE, and Hytera Communications.
Despite the NDAA ban and federal warnings, Hikvision and Dahua have continued to make inroads into the U.S. market at the state and local level. Regional governments are only prohibited to use federal funds to buy from the two companies.
According to IPVM, one of the biggest spenders was Baldwin County school district in Alabama, which spent over $1 million to buy 144 Hikvision thermal cameras from a local supplier in July 2020. These cameras were to be installed at 48 local schools to screen people for fever.
In August last year, the Fayette County Public Schools in Georgia paid $494,000 for 70 thermal cameras. In the following month, the school district confirmed to IPVM that all purchased cameras were operational at all of its schools.
TechCrunch reported that Kern County in California was the only municipality that responded to the outlet’s question about Hikvision and its alleged connections to human rights abuses. Ryan Alsop, chief administrative officer for Kern County, told TechCrunch that he was “not familiar at all with the issues you’re referencing with regard to Hikvision.”
According to IPVM, Kern County spent over $15,400 in June 2020 on surveillance dome cameras and related equipment for its probation department offices.
Modesto City Schools, a school district in California, spent $256,500 on eight Dahua cameras and equipment in October 2020, according to IPVM. Additionally, the city government in Modesto spent an undisclosed amount to outfit 55 buses with thermal scanners from Hikvision.
Modesto City initially used federal funds to make its Hikvision purchase, unaware that doing so violated NDAA prohibitions, according to IPVM. The city later told IPVM that they “processed to move the expenses to an alternate funding source.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chairman of the State Intelligence Committee, told TechCrunch that Chinese companies are never “truly independent” from the CCP, in response to the IPVM findings.
“So, when these American entities buy this equipment, they should know that not only are they supporting companies facilitating repression in China, but that the data gathered via this surveillance gear can be shared with the Chinese Communist Party,” Warner stated.
He added, “Americans should also be concerned about how the CCP is working to collect data of U.S. citizens through a variety of tactics. We need to educate Americans, including local government entities, on the risks of buying this type of equipment and its moral and security implications
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The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee issued a subpoena Thursday requiring documents relating to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic after its initial request had been ignored for more than two months.
The committee issued a subpoena to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) asking for all documents and communications relating to COVID-19 policies and information, including policies involving long-term, congregate care facilities.
Oversight Committee chairman Edward McBroom said during the meeting that the committee sent out the initial request on March 2 and a follow-up request on April 8, but thus far, “we’ve received completely nothing.”
Emily Schwarzkopf, director of MDHHS’s legislative, appropriations, and constituent services, explained that the request would result in the identification of over 55,000 documents with an estimated cost of $70,000. She said the department doesn’t have dedicated staff or funding to fulfill these requests, but added the department “intends to comply with a request from the committee whether a subpoena is issued or not.”
Senate oversight committee vice-chair Lana Theis noted that a subpoena is necessary.
“Every time we send something, and we get something back, it sounds like they’re parsing everything out. So it appears obvious that that department is trying to avoid producing the information,” Theis said.
The committee voted 3-0 to issue a subpoena. The only Democrat in the committee, Jeff Irvin, was absent.
The subpoena (pdf) states that the required documents must be provided no later than 5 p.m. on May 27. Failure to obey maybe be punished as contempt of the legislature, in addition to any other remedy available by law.
In the early days of the pandemic, Michigan, along with New York and four other states, implemented a policy that sought to prevent hospital overcrowding by returning medically stable seniors recovering from COVID-19 to nursing homes. Whitmer issued an executive order in April 2020 to designate 21 nursing homes as “regional hubs.”
Michigan Governor Receives Vaccine As State Sees Large Surge In COVID-19 Cases Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer speaks to members of the press at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, on April 6, 2021. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images) According to state data, 5,712 COVID-19 deaths in Michigan have been either residents or staff of long-term care facilities, equaling about 31 percent of the statewide virus-linked deaths, the Detroit News reported.
Michigan GOP lawmakers called for an investigation into whether Whitmer’s policies exacerbated the outbreak in nursing homes.
Whitmer defended herself in March that her orders followed federal guidance, and there were no mandates to return COVID-19-positive patients to long-term care facilities, only conditions imposed to ensure their safety.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, refused to investigate Whitmer, saying she saw no evidence to “suggest that Gov. Whitmer’s efforts to contain COVID-19 in Michigan’s nursing homes resulted in increased deaths.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks during a news conference in Lansing, Mich., on March 5, 2020. (David Eggert/AP Photo) “Over a third of people who died from COVID-19 in our state were long-term care facility residents and workers,” Theis said in a statement. “We deserve to know what decisions led the Whitmer administration to implement, maintain, and publicly defend its tragic policy.”
“The administration must be fully transparent, and a full investigation must be conducted to determine whether any wrongdoing occurred and, if it did, to ensure justice is delivered,” Theis added.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Whitmer’s office for comment.
Since this vaccine is entirely experimental, you may be able to bring up The Nuremberg Code Specifically:
The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/live-bats-wuhan-lab-video-who