New Jersey Used COVID Relief Funds To Buy Banned Chinese Surveillance Cameras (404media.co) 25
A federal criminal complaint has revealed that state and local agencies in New Jersey bought millions of dollars worth of banned Chinese surveillance cameras. The cameras were purchased from a local company that rebranded the banned equipment made by Dahua Technology, a company that has been implicated in the surveillance of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. According to 404 Media, "At least $15 million of the equipment was bought using federal COVID relief funds." From the report: The feds charged Tamer Zakhary, the CEO of the New Jersey-based surveillance company Packetalk, with three counts of wire fraud and a separate count of false statements for repeatedly lying to state and local agencies about the provenance of his company's surveillance cameras. Some of the cameras Packetalk sold to local agencies were Dahua cameras that had the Dahua logo removed and the colors of the camera changed, according to the criminal complaint.
Dahua Technology is the second largest surveillance camera company in the world. In 2019, the U.S. government banned the purchase of Dahua cameras using federal funds because their cameras have "been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in Xingjiang." The FCC later said that Dahua cameras "pose an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security." Dahua is not named in the federal complaint, but [404 Media's Jason Koebler] was able to cross-reference details in the complaint with Dahua and was able to identify specific cameras sold by Packetalk to Dahua's product.
According to the FBI, Zakhary sold millions of dollars of surveillance equipment, including rebranded Dahua cameras, to agencies all over New Jersey despite knowing that the cameras were illegal to sell to public agencies. Zakhary also specifically helped two specific agencies in New Jersey (called "Victim Agency-1" and "Victim Agency-2" in the complaint) justify their purchases using federal COVID relief money from the CARES Act, according to the criminal complaint. The feds allege, essentially, that Zakhary tricked local agencies into buying banned cameras using COVID funds: "Zakhary fraudulently misrepresented to the Public Safety Customers that [Packetalk's] products were compliant with Section 889 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 [which banned Dahua cameras], when, in fact, they were not," the complaint reads. "As a result of Zakhary's fraudulent misrepresentations, the Public Safety Customers purchased at least $35 million in surveillance cameras and equipment from [Packetalk], over $15 million of which was federal funds and grants."
Dahua Technology is the second largest surveillance camera company in the world. In 2019, the U.S. government banned the purchase of Dahua cameras using federal funds because their cameras have "been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in Xingjiang." The FCC later said that Dahua cameras "pose an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security." Dahua is not named in the federal complaint, but [404 Media's Jason Koebler] was able to cross-reference details in the complaint with Dahua and was able to identify specific cameras sold by Packetalk to Dahua's product.
According to the FBI, Zakhary sold millions of dollars of surveillance equipment, including rebranded Dahua cameras, to agencies all over New Jersey despite knowing that the cameras were illegal to sell to public agencies. Zakhary also specifically helped two specific agencies in New Jersey (called "Victim Agency-1" and "Victim Agency-2" in the complaint) justify their purchases using federal COVID relief money from the CARES Act, according to the criminal complaint. The feds allege, essentially, that Zakhary tricked local agencies into buying banned cameras using COVID funds: "Zakhary fraudulently misrepresented to the Public Safety Customers that [Packetalk's] products were compliant with Section 889 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 [which banned Dahua cameras], when, in fact, they were not," the complaint reads. "As a result of Zakhary's fraudulent misrepresentations, the Public Safety Customers purchased at least $35 million in surveillance cameras and equipment from [Packetalk], over $15 million of which was federal funds and grants."
Misuse of Federal Funds (Score:5, Insightful)
So we are gonna focus on the brand of surveillance cameras purchased, instead of the fact that state and local authorities misused federal COVID relief funds to buy surveillance equipment?
WTF
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Yeah, those funds were supposed to be given away to business owners and congressmen! How dare they buy equipment with it!
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Yeah, those funds were supposed to be given away to business owners and congressmen! How dare they buy equipment with it!
By buying equipment, they gave away that money to certain business owners - just not necessarily ones that were negatively impacted by something Covid-related.
BTW, the few millions this story is about are nothing compared to the 60 billion Euros that the German government hallucinated into their budget under the disguise of something-something-Covid, then started to spend it on all sorts of their most favorite unrelated projects, only to be stopped recently by the Federal Constitutional Court [politico.eu].
And let's not
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
misused federal COVID relief funds to buy surveillance equipment
Just checking to see if you have your mask pulled up over your nose.
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So we are gonna focus on the brand of surveillance cameras purchased, instead of the fact that state and local authorities misused federal COVID relief funds to buy surveillance equipment?
The brand was important because the Chinese solution came with mask detection software to help enforce government dictates.
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Besides that, there's also the issue that a number of established, legitimate US companies rebadge and resell Dahua gear under their own name. We've got Dahuas here that have no trace of Dahua anywhere in the branding or firmware, but they're Dahua through and through. Some of them have been reflashed with Dahua firmware when the US company is slow with updates, and then flashed back to US-company firmware when they finally update.
So, what happens if you buy one of these not-even-remotely-Dahua systems t
Which is worse (Score:1)
>"New Jersey Used COVID Relief Funds To Buy Banned Chinese Surveillance Cameras"
Now ask yourself which is worse- having "accidentally" purchased banned products, -OR- the pork of endless Federal dollars that kept pushing up inflation that were MEANT to be used for something to actually help with the pandemic or those who suffered due to it AND that *all* of us having to pay for it with much higher prices and loss of savings values on top of the taxes?
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When the government prints/creates debt money and then spends it (directly or indirectly), that deflates the value of existing currency because there is more of it in circulation. That is one cause or accelerator of inflation, especially the recent bout. It is not the ONLY cause, but it was a part of it, one that absolutely could have been avoided.
https://www.aei.org/articles/h... [aei.org]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/g... [wsj.com]
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Since when is government spending the source of inflation? How does that work?
Supply and demand pretty much covers it. Hypothetical scenario: You are a city official with control over money and you feel sorry for all the Taylor Swift lined up outside the concert trying to afford good tickets from scalpers so you fly overhead the crowd and throw $100 bills down from a helicopter. Want to guess what happens to the price of scalped tickets? Anyone want to argue it doesn't go up by a corresponding amount? Bigger supply of money, same supply of tickets. Obvious result.
Ok so that example i
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stuff that doesn't make sense here:
1 Payments certainly did not go to everyone, the employed among others, got no payment.
2 unemployment benefits have been regularly extended during downturns without resulting in inflation.
3 the government is always spending, that's like one of its primary jobs weather it's on the military, public works, social security, war spending, no record of inflation from all that. What makes this spending so different? only the recipient was more direct.
4 Is price gouging really inf
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stuff that doesn't make sense here:
1 Payments certainly did not go to everyone, the employed among others, got no payment.
Au contraire mon frère. Anyone "eligible" to work (so pretty much everyone breathing and in the country legally). See the official links, be sure to check answer A7 about getting payments while in jail. There were even special instructions for getting the money if you weren't filing tax returns.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/q... [irs.gov]
https://home.treasury.gov/poli... [treasury.gov]
2 unemployment benefits have been regularly extended during downturns without resulting in inflation.
Well now that you've discovered that this included a helicopter money drop and not just unemployment benefits, I should also remind you that th
Re:Which is worse (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies increased prices because they could. Inflation had nothing to do with it, this is pure and simple greed. Are you going to stop buying groceries?
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Companies will always increase prices to what they can get. And consumers will try to pay the least they can. Welcome to the free market. That is how the system works. Competition and tension that sets market prices.
When the attempt is made to artificially stimulate the economy is made by dropping money from the sky all over (money that ultimately has to be paid back and with interest) that increases spending, which is increased demand and the market will automatically respond with increasing prices (at
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If competition doesn't put a clamp on the greed based price increases, then the market is unhealthy. There are a LOT of unhealthy markets in the U.S. because government has failed to regulate it properly.
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>"If competition doesn't put a clamp on the greed based price increases, then the market is unhealthy. There are a LOT of unhealthy markets in the U.S. because government has failed to regulate it properly."
Agreed. And there are also a lot of unhealthy markets because the government has interfered too much and put startups and smaller businesses at a disadvantage so no new competition can be created. And also granting monopolistic powers too long or too freely (cable companies, phone companies, copyrig
Bad summary. (Score:2, Insightful)
The seller is in trouble because they repainted them, stuck a new label on them, and then sold them as something they were not.
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What about the misuse of the COVID funds?
Turn (Score:2)
"They will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
Somehow this got turned around.