China's Cyber Police

Agence France Presse reports that China is taking its online surveillance to a whole new level:

Virtual police officers will soon begin visible patrols on Chinese Internet sites to warn surfers they are being monitored, Beijing authorities said in comments published Wednesday.

The images of the "Beijing Internet Police," one male and one female, dressed in uniform and saluting, will from Saturday start popping up every 30 minutes on computer screens run by 13 major portals based in the Chinese capital.

The cyber cops will be on the look out for Web sites and Internet activities that incite secession, promote superstition, gambling, fraud, and pornography, the China Daily said, citing Beijing's public security bureau.

"It is our duty to wipe out information that does public harm, and disrupts social order," the bureau's deputy chief of Internet surveillance, Zhao Hongzhi, was quoted as saying.

(Emphasis added-DD)


I think that last quote pretty much speaks for itself.