*Rendition people and desaparecidos aren't exactly news in authoritarian countries (and other ones). The interesting trend here is a private security agency finding itself a cozy and profitable niche between a regional government and a national government. It does this by kidnapping people who want to complain to the national government about the regional government. And it gets paid for that! Lots! It's got a fee-for-services menu.
*One wonders if a scheme like this hasn't been offshored already. It's a lot easier to disappear people when they're out of the country; like the Zetas in Mexico, if you get your mitts on some transnational illegals and they refuse to join your for-profit enterprise, you can just liquidate the lot of 'em.
*There are those who seek privacy in a digitized world, and there are those who have privacy thrust upon them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11420443
"Chinese police are investigating claims that a security firm colluded with officials to detain protesters in secret prisons, known as "black jails".
"State media said police had arrested the chairman and general manager of the company, Anyuanding Security Services. (((I wonder what their online social network looks like.)))
"It is alleged they took money from local governments to abduct and imprison people who travelled to the capital, Beijing, to complain about local injustices.
"The company denies this.
"Human rights groups say China has hundreds of such jails, and detainees are often subject to abuse - but the Chinese government has repeatedly denied they exist. " (...)
'Beyond one company'
"Phelim Kine, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told AFP news agency that the police investigation into Anyuanding Security Services was an "encouraging development".
"But he said the case was only the tip of the iceberg.
"The fact is that the problem of black jails goes far beyond one company. It involves a web of government officials, security forces, huge numbers of plainclothes thugs and dozens of facilities in Beijing alone. ((("The phantom state." "The revolving door." Just as a practical matter, how do you know when you're immune to the depredations of an apparatus like this? How can you even tell how many people they grabbed? The first thing the kidnappers do is confiscate cellphones and official ID documents.)))
"Meaningful action against black jails will require the political will to locate and close all of them, freeing their detainees and prosecuting their captors."
(((Presumably these privatized security gangs have been designed from the get-go for their plausible deniability. How does that work (and fail to work)? How much money could one make, one wonders, with a private kidnapping service in the pay of the state? Everybody gets it about crushing loudmouths for the sake of tyranny (that's pretty easy). But how long before they start kidnapping their employers, and the global-guerrilla tail wags the Chinese dog, there? If the regions pay to subvert the center with private armies, that's warlordism.)))
