What I Know about Cellphone Surveillance

(Minghui.org) I recently read several sharing articles on Minghui.org about practitioners’ being persecuted as a result of neglecting cellphone security. The persecution has gone on for so long that I was surprised to learn that some practitioners still don’t take cellphone security seriously. I would like to share my experiences and hope others can learn from my lesson.

More than ten years ago, I was forced to stay away from home to avoid being persecuted. The police collected the phone numbers of all my coworkers and family members and monitored every call they made, in their attempt to find me. But because I didn’t use a cellphone, they didn’t find me for over a year.

Two years later, I moved back and rented a place. I soon found a job as a project manager. But two days before I started work, someone from the company’s human resources department called me in for something. When I got there, the police were waiting for me. They arrested me and took to the station.

I couldn’t understand how they found me. A friend who had connections with the police learned that, because my daughter’s cellphone was being monitored, they heard about me when she told her new boyfriend.

Aside from this, I knew someone whose husband worked at the national security bureau. She said her husband was always busy following and monitoring people, especially those who returned to China from abroad. As soon as they landed, the authorities would begin monitoring their cellphones, fearing that they might engage in “espionage activities”. Even after her husband got off work, he still had to listen to people’s conversations.

Someone suggested that I have two phones, one for general purposes and a burner phone to contact specific people, such as other practitioners. I once saw a police officer carrying two phones when he harassed a petitioner. Out of curiosity, I asked him why he had two phones. He said that one of them was for law-enforcement. When he entered someone’s name, the device would show all the information about that person.

I once clarified the facts about Falun Dafa at a gathering of my college classmates. One of them who worked for the prison administration bureau was very nervous and asked if we had cellphones with us. He said that when the prison officials made announcements of internal directives, they insisted that everyone remove the batteries in their cellphones. Not only that, the walls of their meeting rooms were soundproof. This further shows that people in the regime all know about how prevalent cellphone surveillance is.

In addition to cellphone surveillance, the regime also arranges for people to follow and monitor practitioners in person—which is another way they collect information about practitioners.

This was the situation over ten years ago, and technology today is far more advanced. We can never let our guard down when it comes to cellphone security. Let’s all do better so that Master doesn’t have to worry about us.