(PatrioticPost.com)- Given that Western nations including the United States have for some reason not stopped their athletes attending the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing – despite ongoing human rights abuses taking place in China – Western athletes will be traveling to the country in February with a long list of things they’ll need to do in order to protect themselves.
The British Olympic Association is already advising Team GB not to take their cell phones to China, citing fears about spying and stealing their personal data.
British athletes competing in the games have been told that the Chinese government may hack them upon connecting to the nation’s wireless infrastructure. Athletes have been given temporary phones to take with them instead, and have been trained on how to protect their sensitive personal information from being obtained by the Chinese authorities.
If the Chinese Communist Party refuses to admit that concentration camps are being operated in the Xinjiang province, refuses to admit that Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities are being forced into slave labor and worse, and is likely to try to hack the phones of athletes arriving from abroad, why is any Western country willingly sending athletes to this country?
The British Olympic Association did not ban athletes from taking their own phones but has strongly encouraged people to “make their own choice” after highlighting the extreme risk to their personal information.
Given that Facebook and Twitter are banned in China, Chinese authorities have promised athletes temporary access to social media networks. On the one hand it looks to be a concession to Western athletes, but to those who know how the Chinese Communist Party operates, it’s a blatant security nightmare.
If China can dictate a user’s access to social media, then it can track their access and the stream of data between devices, too.
Not only that, but it’s already common practice in China for the police to scan devices to discover “illegal information.” This happens routinely on the streets, including during traffic stops, and there has been no indication from the Chinese government that this wouldn’t also happen to foreign nationals.
Isn’t it time for President Joe Biden to step in, block American athletes from traveling, and encourage Western allies to do the same with their own athletes?
Is the security risk worth it?
