Senator says China set to spy on visitors

WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback Tuesday said China is preparing to spy on visitors at the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing.

The Hill reported that the Kansas Republican told reporters that the Chinese government has "carefully plotted to take advantage of the situation of having thousands of foreign visitors on its soil" and "set up a system to be able to spy and gather information about each and every guest at hotels where Olympic visitors are located."

Brownback said journalists, athletes' families and human rights advocates are among the government's alleged targets, The Hill reported.

To help gather information, the Chinese Public Security Bureau has foreign-owned hotels to install Internet monitoring equipment, he said.

"The Chinese government has demanded that these hotels allow the PSB to install software programs and hardware devices on the hotel networks," Brownback said. "These measures are designed to assist the PSB to spy on the Internet activities of guests and record Web sites visited, searches entered and even keystrokes."

He added that the letter suggests harsh punishments for hotel chains that fail to comply, including loss of license to operate a hotel in China."