Immigration Crackdown Extends To Government PC Purchases

from the but-we're-a-nation-of-immigrant-PCs dept

Fri, May 19th 2006 8:48am — Joseph Weisenthal

Averting a potential controversy, the State Department has decided not to install Lenovo PCs on their network. The move came at the behest of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was looking into the question of whether it is safe for the State Department to be using a Chinese-made PC. The commission's argument is that since it's known that China spies on the US, Chinese laptops may contain backdoors that would allow the government to snoop. But whoever thought this up probably doesn't realize how the PC industry really works. Computers don't have a nationality; they can be assembled in one country, while containing parts from ten others. Even before Lenovo bought out IBM's PC division, they certainly contained several components made in China. The State Department should be concerned with getting the best IT for its (ahem, our) dollars, not making arbitrary decisions that reflect little understanding of how technology works.

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29 Comments

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Eric Hastings, 19 May 2006 @ 8:57am

Since we have american companies that make some pretty good machines. Shouldn't the federal government buy american made computer?
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Joe Smith, 19 May 2006 @ 9:06am

The other shoe
Now that the issue has been brought up do you suppose that governments around the world might just start wondering what back doors are built into all those computers running (American) Windows software or networks running on (American) Cisco routers?
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Joe Snuffy, 19 May 2006 @ 9:53am

Lame
How retarded are these people and why are they making decisions?
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Techie, 19 May 2006 @ 9:58am

They should buy Emachine's, they work about as well as our Federal Government......HAHAHAHA! J/k
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retards run the gov, 19 May 2006 @ 10:01am

come on.. we elected Bush
need i say more?

lets go buy DELL laptops instead.
Meanwhile at Dell land: Oh China's unloading laptop motherboards for cheap?
PUT IT IN therrr!

Made in Malaysia = safe!
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Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2006 @ 10:12am

I hate to agree
While normally I would think that this is a stupid move for our government to make, in this case it may be justified.
Companies in china are not like companies in the US. Here in the US we have a fairly clear private vs government differentiation. In China that isn't really the case. The lines between government and private are often blurred. That in itself is not enough to justify banning the purchase of the computers.
When you match the above with China's stated policy of requiring back doors and surveillance tech on computers sold to its own citizens, and its very recent history of spying on our government, I think it may be justified. This isn't like purchasing a component that was manufactured in China. The government is purchasing a complete computer, with software installed.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2006 @ 10:12am

"The State Department should be concerned with getting the best IT for its (ahem, our) dollars, not making arbitrary decisions that reflect little understanding of how technology works."

Is this an editorial?

When have the government's decisions ever been anything but "arbitrary?" Moron.
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monkey, 19 May 2006 @ 10:13am

holy grilled cheese of christ they are stupid.
So: The united Arab emirates cannot control a shipping port because they used the same bank as taliban related groups a decade ago, the national guard has militarized our southern border, and the idiotic review commision thinks that a computer assembled by a chinese OWNED company, (note that the spokeswoman has a european name) has intelligence HARDWARE installed.
um. ... who wants to bet that world war three is going to be started by us?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2006 @ 10:14am

by Anonymous Coward on May 19th, 2006 @ 10:12am

Well, there's my answer; any site doing something this immature would naturally have moronic editorials by dolts who write phrases like "since it's knows"
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Mousky, 19 May 2006 @ 10:21am

Re:
What American made computers?
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Mousky, 19 May 2006 @ 10:25am

Re: I hate to agree
Here in the US we have a fairly clear private vs government differentiation
Ask the customers of the various telcos that gave up their customer's records to the NSA what they think of your statement. Or ask people what they think of lobbyists?
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Michael, 19 May 2006 @ 10:26am

Government Computer Purchases
I am a tech and I firmly believe that governments should BUY LOCAL and give the local economy a boost. I pay local and state taxes, and my state, county and city government buys Dell, HP and Compaq, and never even give uys an opportinity to bid on these purchases. We have laid off 2 employees, taken pay-cuts and lost vacation time to keep our jobs because business is slow, yet the local county has build a brand new building and equipped it with hundreds of Dell computers. Meanwhile Dell creates 20,000 jobs in India. My tax dollars at work! WHAT AN OUTRAGE!
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Kerry, 19 May 2006 @ 10:28am

Idiots running the country
Why are total morons running the country & making these types of decisions??
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Anonymous Coward's Smarter Cousin, 19 May 2006 @ 10:32am

Oh Come On
Anyone who has such rigid and unforgiving standards that all must live up to, who can't let one little typo/profreading gaffe go without calling the author a moron and a dolt, really needs to talk to someone about his former bad experiences with toilet training ...Or take a pill, whatever has gotten you through the days up till now.
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Anonymous Coward's Smarter Cousin, 19 May 2006 @ 10:32am

Oh Come On
Anyone who has such rigid and unforgiving standards that all must live up to, who can't let one little typo/profreading gaffe go without calling the author a moron and a dolt, really needs to talk to someone about his former bad experiences with toilet training ...Or take a pill, whatever has gotten you through the days up till now.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2006 @ 11:11am

Ask the customers of the various telcos that gave up their customer's records to the NSA what they think of your statement. Or ask people what they think of lobbyists?

Actually Verizon, Bell South and the other Telcos are demanging USA Today recent this story since it's not accurate at all - but no suprise there, most of the media anymore is about as accurate as a blind man shooting a gun.
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anon, 19 May 2006 @ 11:21am

The linked story missed one very critical thing
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, an arm of the Chinese government, had a "minority interest" in the company.
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Govt Worker, 19 May 2006 @ 11:26am

Smarter tech
"The State Department should be concerned with getting the best IT for its (ahem, our) dollars, not making arbitrary decisions that reflect little understanding of how technology works."

I think it's very ture b/c i been working in govt environment as an IT for short period of time now...All I can say is....conultants are the people that build the IT systems here, not the people work here...
enough said...
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fsckr, 19 May 2006 @ 11:27am

Xenophobia strikes again
Come the fsck on!

First of all, this has very little to do with immigration per se, except for the fact that foreigners are somehow involved.

Second, someone mentioned it before, the US doesn't make any computers, they pay foreigners to do it. That is the beauty of capitalism. Advocating anything to the contrary flies in the face of the capitalist ideal (do I hear socialism? the French?...)

Finally it is a little scary that the policy makers are so oblivious that they think such tactics would work.
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long sigh, 19 May 2006 @ 11:42am

long sigh
long sigh
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mark, 19 May 2006 @ 12:02pm

Wow
My first question is did any of you who bashed our current government even vote in the last election?

I may only be 17 but I hate it when people start running their mouths off about our government. I think to my self "Shut up if you didn't vote in the last election. You lost the right to bitch when you did not vote."

With this out of the way I do feel that it was a good move on the part of our government to stop buying a foreign made computer. I may be Xenophobic (probably spelled wrong) but when it comes to dealing with a Chinese owned computer producer. I reserve the right to only want an American, private corporation, made computer. One that if the company does break some law we can them hold responsible in an American (where we are not labeled as infidels) court of law. Besides it is wrong to be pumping American (yes I have the right to bitch here. I’ve worked and been taxed on that income for the past three and a half years of my life) tax money into a foreign company (government owned), while an American company stands ready to produce a just as good (if not better) a product. Where the money then can be re-spent and taxed at least once if not twice more.

But, hey I’m only 17 what do I know? Right?
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Jimbo, 19 May 2006 @ 12:03pm

Re: Xenophobia strikes again
fsckr writes:
> First of all, this has very little to do with immigration per se, except for the fact that foreigners are somehow involved.

Please head back home to have your sarcasm meter recalibrated. It's seriously screwed up.
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David, 19 May 2006 @ 12:56pm

Re: Wow
Praying is just as effective as voting. You are old enough to pray for the outcomes of elections and I hope you have been doing that, because if you haven't, you have no business bitching about people who don't vote.

There are no private American laptop manufacturers and the State Department shouldn't rely on trusting the manufacturers regardless. They should have in-depth security systems that catch network backdoors. All your other points are frivolous since they have nothing to do with the reasons given.

Stupid kid. Right.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 May 2006 @ 12:58pm

foreign stuff being used by the US governement?
""russian components, American components.... ALL MADE IN TAIWAN""

i think its funny, that a government that claims "superiourity" used stuff made everywere else!
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jdragon, 19 May 2006 @ 8:50pm

windows is the security hole
then again, china does have its own commie version of linux from red flag software.
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WTO605, 20 May 2006 @ 5:13pm

Re:
You're right... eMachines work a lot better than that
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Anonymous Coward, 20 May 2006 @ 5:17pm

Re: Government Computer Purchases
Of the 35 dell computers I've ever had any part in buying in the past 3 years all have shipped direct from China. I'm sure HP/Compaq isn't much different. Not to mention any repairs, (even though I sen't them to Texas they always came back through China)
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Mark, 22 May 2006 @ 1:36pm

Re: Re: Wow
Dave

Let me clear up a few things from my last post.

Firstly
Pray?!?! Since when has the candidate that spent his whole campaign in a church praying won the election?

Secondly
I meant by "Private" not owned by a government.

Thirdly
All of my points about the taxes do have a point to them if you read the previous comments. By firstly Michael you would see that some of us (who went out and voted or paid taxes (me there in the later option) not sat in our churches avoiding the IRS) were bitching about the government spending tax money buying a foreign product not a local one.

Stupid, spineless, adult. Done!
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Brad, 30 May 2006 @ 8:07pm

Re: Re: Re: Wow
Mark, you really ought to read more in-depth. And have been less stupid. But you're only 17, right?

The comment about prayer was to underscore the apparent futility of voting under the current regime. Popular vote doesn't matter, remember? Majority and even electoral college majority doesn't matter. There are nine people who vote in this country. They all sit in the Supreme Court.

I voted in the last election, AND I pay taxes, probably a lot more than you do. That means my voice counts more than yours.

As has been pointed out, but your semi-literate 17 year old mind glossed over, THERE ARE NO US COMPUTER MANUFACTURERS. THERE ARE NO US ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURERS. THERE ARE ONLY US LABELS THAT PURCHASE AND ASSEMBLE FOREIGN GOODS.

If you're buying something made with plastic, the plastic was made in China. The chips were probally made in Taiwan, and the boards stuffed in China. There's a good chance the vast majority of components were made in China. Just because an American company paid them to do it IN CHINA, then brought it over and slapped a Dell sticker on it, doesn't mean it's American. Get over it. Unions forced manufacturing out of the United States. The US government shopping "abroad" for laptops just means that they don't pay the American mark-up. Same parts, from the same factories, assembled by the same people. One just says something different than the other.

Go drive your made-in-Mexico Ford, you hick.
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