Hypocrisy regarding privacy and security

U.S. lawmakers are threatening China because that country wants to spy on Internet traffic by hotel guests -

"Foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of "severe retaliation" if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games, a U.S. lawmaker said Tuesday.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., produced a translated version of a document from China's Public Security Bureau that requires hotels to use the monitoring equipment. . . . Brownback and other lawmakers have repeatedly denounced China's record of human rights abuses and asked President Bush not to attend the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing."

Compare this, from the Rocky Mountain news this past October -

"The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest. . . . USA Today reported in May 2006 that Qwest, unlike AT&T and Verizon, balked at helping the NSA track phone calling patterns that may have indicated terrorist organizational activities..."

Full credit for all of the above to Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon.