Chinese video surveillance at Australian military and gov centers

9-12-18    On September 12, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia’s national broadcaster, released an episode titled “Chinese Video Surveillance Network Used by the Australian Government.”

  ABC revealed the presence of a Hikvision camera at the Edinburgh Royal Australian Air Force base. The Australian military considers the Edinburgh base "the centre of the nation's military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare capabilities".  The ABC report caused Australia’s Defence Department to remove the camera.  "Should any further cameras be identified they will also be replaced," Defence told the ABC.  IPVM confirmed with the ABC that Defence was referring to all Australia's military, not just the Edinburgh base.

ABC also revealed the presence of a Dahua camera at the entrance of an office building housing highly sensitive Australian government agencies, including the Department of Home Affairs (which handles immigration and border control), the attorney general, and an intelligence agency.

ABC found that this Dahua camera and another had a field of view including the Department of Prime Minister building and other top-level government agencies. ABC also raised concerns about an Australian Federal Police contract with a well-known Hikvision distributor and Hikvision/Dahua equipment in state and local offices and a train station..    https://ipvm.com/reports/aus-fra-hik

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9-23-18     Chinese tech giant Hikvision, which supplies surveillance cameras to China’s concentration camps, gets a lot of help from its American friends.  The PR giant Burson-Marsteller earns $25,000 a month by helping Hikvision’s U.S. subsidiary with tasks such as “strategic planning and guidance.”…

  Was Burson-Marsteller aware of Hikvision’s cameras in concentration camps?  I asked.  And if they weren’t before, how do they feel now that they know the truth?  “Burson-Marsteller has been engaged by Hikvision USA to support its communications objectives in the United States,” the spokeswoman responded by email.  And what about the camps, I asked again.  “We have nothing further,” she said.

   In some ways this is back to the basics for Burson-Marsteller, a PR giant and part of the WPP Group family of companies.  B-M partnered with the Nigerian government to play down its genocide during the 1967-1970 Biafran war, the Argentine junta as it notoriously “disappeared” thousands of people, and the Indonesian government to cover up its slaughter of civilians in East Timor.

   Harold Burson wrote in a 2017 book, explaining how he decided to work with controversial clients:  “To me, it’s more a business decision than an ethical decision,” the firm’s co-founder https://magicvalley.com/opinion/columnists/other-view-why-are-us-companies-working-for-a-chinese/article_c58b35c8-912e-53e3-9ce0-55f5b35dc484.html

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  Burson-Marsteller is a global public relations and communications firm headquartered in New York City.  Burson-Marsteller consists of 77 offices and 85 affiliate offices, together operating in 110 countries across six continents.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burson-Marsteller

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