
China Sees the World and How We Should See China - Farbodkhz
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/mcmaster-china-strategy/609088/
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refurb
Great article! Really summarized the “why” behind China’s actions.

This part certainly got my attention:

 _In 2014 and then again in 2017, the party declared that all Chinese
companies must collaborate in gathering intelligence. “Any organization or
citizen,” reads Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law, “shall
support, assist with, and collaborate with the state intelligence work in
accordance with the law, and keep the secrets of the national intelligence
work known to the public.”_

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pinkfoot
Now go read the USA Cloud Act.

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refurb
What about it?

 _Primarily the CLOUD Act amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986
to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via
warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of
whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil._

The key distinction here is “via warrant or subpoena”.

Being able to challenge the legality of a warrant or subpoena means the
government does not have a free hand.

Big distinction.

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pinkfoot
You need to include in your evaluation of the state of the rule of law that in
2013, a top-secret order issued by the FISA court, which was later leaked to
the media from documents culled by Edward Snowden, required a subsidiary of
Verizon to provide a daily, on-going feed of all call detail records—including
those for domestic calls—to the NSA.

Now they can just do it worldwide.

Small distinction

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refurb
The US requires all warrants and subpoenas to go in front of an independent
judge.

China just says "give me the data".

Big distinction.

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pinkfoot
What is an independent judge? The government selects the judge and all
proceedings are in camera and you cannot event tell anyone that you ever got
the NSL.

There is a lot of theatre to look like judicial independence, but at the end
the US government also just says "give me the data".

You, presumable a citizen or resident, have absolutely no idea what data has
been asked for and given by the FISA court.

