---
title: "Professor: US Surveillance State Is a Lot Like China’s"
description: "In a new piece for Quartz, professor David Carroll argues that the U.S. is a surveillance state not entirely unlike China."
date: "2019-07-24"
modified: "2019-07-24"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/professor-us-surveillance-state-china"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "china"
  - "immigration"
  - "surveillance state"
  - "the digest"
---

# Professor: US Surveillance State Is a Lot Like China’s

![In a new piece for Quartz, professor David Carroll argues that the U.S. is a surveillance state not entirely unlike China.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/professor-us-surveillance-state-like-china.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Jürgen Jester via Pixabay/Tag Hartman-Simkins\</em\>*

## Disturbing Similarities

Between its [social credit system](<https://futurism.com/china-social-credit-system-rate-human-value>), [car-tracking chips](<https://futurism.com/china-mandatory-rfid-car-tracking>), and widespread use of [facial recognition tech](<https://futurism.com/facial-recognition-china-social-credit>), China has earned a reputation as a surveillance state the likes of which previously only existed in [dystopian fiction](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/godfather-deep-learning-china-1984-big-brother>).

But in a scathing [new piece](<https://qz.com/1670686/the-us-has-a-lot-in-common-with-chinas-surveillance-state/>) for *Quartz*, David Carroll, an associate professor of media design at Parsons School of Design, argues that the United States is an equally brutal surveillance state — specifically in terms of how it uses technology to control a minority population.

## Minority Report

In China, members of the mostly-Muslim ethnic group the Uighurs live under some of the nation's most [intense surveillance measures](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/dragonfly-google-muslims-china>) — and if this surveillance reveals something the government doesn't like, Uighurs are sent to concentration camps China prefers to call "re-education camps."

In the U.S., meanwhile, the surveillance focus is on immigrants who've entered the country illegally — but the means of controlling the population isn't all that different.

## Glass Houses

As Carrol wrote in *Quartz*, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are now equipped with [an app](<https://futurism.com/lapd-documents-show-their-policing-algorithms-continue-to-target-minorities-and-past-offenders>) that has a user interface "seemingly optimized for ethnic cleansing" to help them "pinpoint targets for deportation."

The U.S. even has its own version of not-concentration-camps in its "[detention facilities](<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrant-detention-center-cbs-news-gets-exclusive-look-inside-america-largest-processing-facility-2019-07-17/>)."

"Pointing at China’s oppression of the Uighur peoples makes us feel better about the caged baby asylum seekers, all alone in Texas, wearing weeks-old diapers under 24-hour fluorescence on cold concrete," Carroll wrote. "But ignoring the problem at the border doesn’t fix it."

**READ MORE:** [China embraces its surveillance state. The US pretends it doesn’t have one.](<https://qz.com/1670686/the-us-has-a-lot-in-common-with-chinas-surveillance-state/>) \[*Quartz*\]

**More on China's surveillance state:** [*China Wants Google’s Help Persecuting Muslims. Google Appears Ready to Give It.*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/dragonfly-google-muslims-china>)

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)