Surveillance-tech restrictions stripped from Uyghur bill could end up in NDAA

The Senate’s passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act was the culmination of a months-long effort to hold Beijing accountable for a sweeping crackdown against its minority Muslim community in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

But when the bill finally sailed through the Senate on unanimous consent on Thursday, it did so stripped of the one section that reportedly angered Chinese officials the most.

Ahead of the bill’s passage by the House in a 407-1 vote last December, lawmakers inserted a provision imposing strict export controls on U.S. technology that provides Beijing with a “critical capacity” to surveil Uyghurs through facial and voice recognition, monitor and suppress their internet usage, and track their movements.

Read the full article and more in National Journal.