MICHAEL LUCCI: Legal Leaders Wanted To Save Critical Infrastructure

Chinese surveillance cameras contain a secret functionality that allows China’s military to take over the networks to which the cameras are connected. Tens of thousands of these cameras are connected to American critical infrastructure, transmitting data to overseas servers controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and giving China’s military the ability to sabotage utilities like water purification .

This quiet national security crisis must be transformed into a cacophony of legal activity to drive these products out of our markets and to finance their replacement with superior equipment. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers are leading the way in showing how state consumer fraud laws can defend America against Chinese spyware. (POSTED: China Dangerously Close To Circumventing The Panama Canal, Alarming Report Finds)

A 2022 federal ban on Chinese surveillance cameras hasn’t terminated the threat. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ended authorizations for CCP-controlled Dahua and Hikvision cameras in November 2022, yet their prevalence on American critical infrastructure grew by 40% from 2023 to 2024. A Department of Homeland Security bulletin explains why: dangerous Dahua and Hikvision cameras are being re-labeled and sold to unsuspecting consumers without disclosure about the cameras’ risks.

You might think that sounds like consumer fraud, given the likelihood of material omissions if not outright deceptions in such sales. That’s why Florida General Uthmeier subpoenaed Lorex Technologies to investigate Lorex’s product disclosures and ties to CCP-controlled Dahua on Aug. 29. And that’s why Nebraska General Hilgers followed up by suing Lorex Technologies recently. Industry experts at Internet Protocol Video Market (IPVM) detail millions of Dahua and Hikvision cameras being imported, re-labeled and sold in the U.S. by dozens of companies each year, implicating billions of dollars in annual sales.

America’s other 48 state attorneys general must join the legal fight to clean out these compromised cameras and other Chinese technologies that flood our markets. Chinese manufacturers, product re-labelers, and global retailers all potentially have legal liability for not coming clean on the cameras’ dangerous capabilities. Florida and Nebraska have formidable consumer protection teams, but nationwide camera sales that undermine national security should draw enforcement action from all 50 state attorneys general. The 1990s tobacco legal settlements should be matched in the 2020s by CCP spyware lawsuits and settlements to punish re-labelers and protect national security.

Chinese camera vulnerabilities have been exposed in detail by America’s leading researchers. A February DHS bulletin describes tens of thousands of compromised cameras deployed on U.S. critical infrastructure. Dr. Nate Gleason from Lawrence Livermore National Lab offered chilling July 22 congressional testimony that revealed China’s plan to “pre-position themselves on U.S. critical infrastructure networks for disruptive or destructive cyber-attacks.” Dr. Gleason described how relabeled Dahua and Hikvision cameras are a part of that plan, beaconing data back to hostile overseas servers and simultaneously providing Chinese hackers with backdoor access to commandeer our utilities.

Yet compromised cameras have infected more than just critical infrastructure, as Uthmeier and Hilgers reveal in their investigations. They’re also going into baby cribs, back yards, children’s rooms, and medical exam rooms. Imagine the worst-case scenarios for how CCP agents might monetize video feeds from these insecure devices. IPVM investigators have found nightmare scenarios are coming true through widespread sale of hacked Hikvision video feeds being distributed on the dark web with names like “kids room,” “bedroom of a young girl,” and “gynecological office.”

State A.G.s should initiate a flurry of subpoenas and lawsuits to solve this national security scandal. If fraud is found, maximum penalties should be sought to punish fraudsters and fund solutions.  State legislatures should earmark CCP-tied fraud payouts to rip-and-replace Chinese technologies from state systems and critical infrastructure. The penalties extracted from companies that have betrayed the U.S. should be used to fund solutions from companies who remained faithful to American security.

 Americans are learning the hard way that nothing is more expensive to our national security than a cheap Chinese product. It’s time for state Attorneys General to make life harder for Chinese hackers, and a little easier for FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who is barnstorming his way through solving a stupendous backlog of national security vulnerabilities.

With General Uthmeier attacking from Tallahassee and General Hilgers from Lincoln, America has two state legal warriors in the fight. If a legion of state lawyers join the fight, they can partner with the FCC, FTC and other agencies for joint state-federal action to block infected tech and reclaim the CCP’s ill-gotten financial gains. Only then will America be flexing the legal muscles necessary to restore the rule of law and prevent the CCP’s ongoing technological infiltration.

Michael Lucci is Founder and CEO of State Armor.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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