Concerned About National Security, Bipartisan U.S. Senators Require U.S. Digital Advertisers to Submit Lists of Foreign Customers
When anyone loads a Web page, a digital ad auction occurs within seconds to determine which personalized ads that person will see. During the auction, users’ personal data – including location, browsing history and demographic details – may be sent to hundreds of companies bidding for ad slots.
The barrier to entry into these auctions is so low that any company participating in the auction can access user information without bidding. Even if all user information obtained through these auctions is anonymous, it can be cross-referenced with other data to identify specific individuals.
Voice of America reported on April 3 that on April 2, a group of U.S. senators led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to the largest companies running these auctions asking what steps they have taken to ensure that companies participating in the auctions are doing so for the sole purpose of buying advertising time. The lawmakers also asked the companies to provide the names of all foreign customers who have obtained user data through the auctions in the past three years.
These large companies include AT&T Inc., Index Exchange Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.).
As Congress discusses possible federal privacy legislation, we must understand that the unrestricted sale of Americans’ data to foreign companies and governments poses serious national security risks,” the senators said in the letter, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The Wall Street Journal” (The Wall Street Journal) reviewed a copy of the letter.
Several U.S. government agencies have warned that foreign actors could use data collected from these auctions to spy on users working for the military and intelligence community. Last year, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recommended that members of the military and intelligence community shut down location-sharing services and turn off advertising licenses on mobile devices.
U.S. media: High-tech people give 12 times more to Democrats than Republicans
Voice of Hope compiled reports that a report released recently by the Internet Accountability Project IAP shows that employees of large tech companies and the political action committees responsible for each company’s political contributions gave more than 12 times more to Democrats than Republicans in 2020, according to an exclusive report by Breitbart News, for example, employees of Facebook and Twitter raised more than $5.5 million for For example, Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter) employees raised more than $5.5 million for the Democratic Party, while donating less than $435,000 to the Republican Party, a ratio of 12 to 1.
In terms of percentages, the Democratic Committee received 97.39 percent of the total contributions, while the Republicans received only 2.61 percent, the report said. Not even Twitter employees gave a penny of their political contributions to the House Oversight Committee to the Republican Party.
Cornell Professors Vote to Overturn BYU Partnership for Chinese Funding
Pictured here is Cornell Tech (College), located in New York City and part of Cornell University.
On March 31, Cornell University professors voted overwhelmingly to reject a joint degree program between the university and Peking University.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Cornell’s faculty senate rejected the project on the grounds that the Communist regime violates human rights and threatens academic freedom. The non-binding resolution failed to pass by a vote of 16 to 39, with 20 abstentions. The large number of objections to this resolution complicated the university’s plans to move forward with its cooperation with Peking University, which is funded by the Communist Party’s Ministry of Education.
The growing faculty opposition represents part of a community-wide rethinking of the relationship between elite U.S. universities and the Chinese Communist Party’s interests. For decades, Cornell and other top U.S. universities have established numerous programs and partnerships in China that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. But as the Communist government’s crackdown on the people grows worse, some professors worry that their institutions value lucrative relationships more than their moral principles.
Cornell professors weren’t the only opponents of the Chinese-funded project. The university’s student leaders voted unanimously to ask the university to cancel its partnership with BYU, a sign that faculty discontent is spreading to the student body. And across the United States, more than a hundred academics and professors have signed a petition urging Western universities to fully disclose their ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Another Country Participates in Military Exercises in Japan for the First Time
CTS News quoted the South Japan News Agency as reporting that French Army units will participate in a joint exercise organized by the U.S. Marine Corps and the Japanese Land Self-Defense Force from May 11 to 17. The Asahi Shimbun pointed out that this is the first time that the French Army has participated in a military exercise in Japan, with the intention of keeping the increasingly powerful Chinese Communist Party in check.
The report noted that the exercise will be conducted in the southern Kyushu Land Self-Defense Force Kirishima exercise site, the western Kyushu air and sea areas, as well as Japan’s only amphibious force “Surface Mobile Corps” base in Aura. The first is to hold military chess drills and other basic training at the Aigaura base from May 11 to 13, and from 14 to 16 at the Kirishima drill site to practice air assault, town warfare and night warfare. However, the Ministry of Defense’s Land Forces Supervision Department (staff) noted that the schedule and training content may change due to the epidemic.
It is not clear how many troops from the three countries will participate in the exercise, but according to reports, the total number may be about 300, and all will not leave the Kirishima exercise site during the mission and will be camped there. In addition, the U.S. Marine Corps will also send four MV-22B “Fish Hawk” tilt-rotor aircraft to participate in the exercise, during the period will be temporarily borrowed in Kagoya Air Base of the Maritime Self-Defense Force in Kagoshima Prefecture, accompanied by about 60 U.S. Marine Corps air and ground officers and soldiers.
German Defense Minister Warns: Communist China Wants to Build World Order Its Own Way
German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer issued a warning about the Chinese Communist Party’s claim to power. “China (the Communist Party) wants to create a world order,” she said.
In an interview with the German Editorial Network, Kramp-Karrenbauer spoke about her views on China (Communist Party) and Russia, RFE/RL reported. She said, “Unlike China (Communist Party), Russia, with its arsenal of weapons, poses a very clear threat to us both in terms of conventional and nuclear weapons. But China has an ambitious plan to make its military the largest and most modern in the world. China (the Communist Party) clearly wants to forge a world order on its own terms and force the weak to behave in a certain way. That said, Europe and the West cannot be the weaker party …… If we want the world to look in the future like we want it to from a democratic perspective, then we have to do something about it.”
Kramper Kallen Powell added, “I view the inhumane treatment of the Uyghurs in China as a violation of basic human rights. But the Chinese (Communist) leadership calls it an internal matter and refuses to engage in critical discussion. This contradicts our understanding of the universal concept of human rights. We are part of the Western world and we must ensure that human rights are effective. I would be surprised if the Social Democrats took a different view.”
Asked if China (the Communist Party) is striving for world domination, Kramper Kallen Powell said, “China is a very power-conscious country, and that shows not only in its pursuit of economic interests and its concern for its neighborhood.”
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