The Security Department's Surveillance of the Telecommunication System in Mainland China

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently I accidentally caught sight of an internal document from the security department in a certain city and discovered that they had been using telecommunications surveillance to monitor Dafa practitioners. I bring this up to ask all practitioners to pay attention to the importance of the issue of security in communication. Additionally, I myself am quite familiar with the situation, including the relevant technical details, and have been pondering about how to overcome the surveillance for a number of years, though I have yet to arrive at an appropriate approach. I hope to explore and brainstorm with the practitioners who are specialized in this area or are working in telecommunication.

Clearwisdom.net has been asking practitioners to pay attention to security issues for a long time. But, looking at the present situation, we have yet to attach sufficient importance to the issue, and the omission has brought a lot of unnecessary losses to us. Here I shall talk about how the telephone is commonly bugged to let everyone have a basic understanding so they can take precautions to avoid the problem.

How are telephones tapped?

There are many tapping devices on the market. For starters, a device can be attached directly to a user's phone line to eavesdrop on the conversation, and there are many such products out there, but it is easy for the user to detect it.

Since 2001, the national and public security agents in China have been using a new type of telephone tapping device extensively, which taps into the switchboard of the local telephone exchange directly rather than the users' telephone lines, so that its use could not be detected. It can also monitor large number of users and record the numbers they dial, the length of their conversation and what they say.

It can tap in anytime whenever the user picks up the phone, record the conversation and any phone numbers the user dials, including wrong numbers or unanswered calls. It can also monitor any calls to the monitored phone number and see the contents of any fax to and from this phone line.

Be that as it may, at the beginning, the national security agents had misgivings about using this device because it is after all an illegal practice, so they did it in secret and were fearful of being found out. The local telecommunication bureau is accountable for the invasion of people's privacy, so initially it met with strong resistance and was not passed by the National People's Congress several times. Later Luo Gan wrote to the head of the information products department, requiring that telecommunication authorities nationwide install such devices.

Now all the cities beyond the provincial level have installed this device, so the national security department is able to directly monitor a particular telephone number from their surveillance center without having to involve the telecommunication bureau. All the Dafa practitioners known to them are possible targets of surveillance. International telephone communication is also closely monitored. So we must pay more attention to security in telecommunication.

How to make our communication safe?

My personal suggestion is to use public telephones rather than home telephones for contact between practitioners. We can first make an appointment and then talk through public telephone.

Hope all practitioners in Mainland China attach full importance to the matter. It is not a question of fear, but that we must be responsible for Dafa and the safety of the fellow practitioners. Clarifying the truth with clear minds, rationality and righteous thoughts, do the three things that Dafa practitioners should well, and save more sentient beings.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/2/9/95148.html

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