Police and Law Enforcement

DAVID MARCUS: China trip a glimpse into the surveillance state America must never become

Baier's team showed how cameras catch jaywalkers and illegal parkers, sending tickets to phones almost instantly

By David Marcus Fox News

Published May 15, 2026 2:16pm EDT

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Special Report with Bret Baier - Thursday, May 14

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Watching Bret Baier live from Beijing this week, you couldn't help but be stunned at his 'Special Report' team's coverage of the surveillance state in China. It's scary.

Baier reported that in China, if you jaywalk, or ride a scooter without a helmet, cameras capture it and almost instantly you get a ticket on your phone. In fact, Baier’s own driver received one after illegally parking for just a couple of minutes.

It brings up an important question for Americans, because our government has every bit the capability, and most of the equipment in place to enforce such laws so aggressively. If that happened, would America still be America?

People walk past a screen showing images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kashgar, in China's western Xinjiang region. - A recurrence of the Urumqi riots which left nearly 200 people dead a decade ago is hard to imagine in today's Xinjiang, a Chinese region whose Uighur minority is straitjacketed by surveillance and mass detentions. A pervasive security apparatus has subdued the ethnic unrest that has long........

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