Yaxon Networks, a Chinese company that makes some of the monitoring systems used in Beijing taxis admits the authorities can listen to passenger conversations as well as take pictures, all with GPS information noted.

While it is common for digital cameras to be used by taxi fleets in cities such as London, Sydney or New York, it is very uncommon to record the passengers' conversations. Not even Britain has reached that level of security consciousness or paranoia.

What is interesting is the greatly increased functionality of the Yaxon unit compared with what is used in American taxi fleets. Some of the American taxis have functions for the driver to alert the central office if there is an emergency. GPS tracking is becoming standard in many fleet vehicle uses including police, fire, garbage trucks, ambulances, and taxis, along with some parcel delivery fleets.

China has launched a massive operation to protect the Olympic Games compared to our trip a year ago in May. Monday's deadly attack in Xinjiang on a police station underscored Beijing's worries that terrorists will attack during the Olympics. The government news agency says it has deployed over 125,000 police, military troops and volunteers in Beijing to ensure security.

The US State Department said on March 20 that during the Olympics no place is safe from eavesdropping. They say all visitors should be aware they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. Sounds like old London town, doesn't it?

The State Department notice further explains that all hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. They also say hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant's consent or knowledge.

In case anyone should think America's State Department employees are not listening to their foreign counterparts. In May 1960, for example, US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. showed the United Nations Security Council a listening device found inside a wood carving of the Great Seal of the United States that was presented to the US Embassy in Moscow by the Soviet Union in 1945.

Employees working for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security needed a receiver in order to find devices subversively transmitting signals to the enemy. The best kind of clandestine receiver for checking on your enemies eavesdropping was one that could be moved from room to room without looking like a radio. It was the MASON A3B Receiver.

Size matters! But in the spy world, it's reversed. Obviously the folks over at Yaxon Networks have mnay more miniaturized products compared to the 1960's Bureau of Diplomatic Security radio technology above.Yaxon offers a wide variety of communications and fleet monitoring products on its website.

Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Chinese security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private Washington DC think tank, mentioned China's use of the microphones in taxis at a news conference in Washington in advance of President George W. Bush's arrival in Beijing on Thursday. Rumours were starting to come from taxi drivers that these systems began to appear about three years ago. X