China’s cheap surveillance cameras are not just a privacy problem, they are a national-security time bomb. These devices can be co-opted to give hostile actors backdoor access to the networks that run our water, power, and transportation systems. Republicans must treat this as a legal fight as much as a tech and diplomatic one.
These cameras were manufactured with secret functionality that allows foreign military actors to hijack networks. Tens of thousands of these devices are embedded in American critical infrastructure and can beacon data to overseas servers controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is not hypothetical risk, it is intelligence-grade exposure.
Federal action in 2022 aimed to block the worst offenders but it did not shut the door. Manufacturers like Dahua and Hikvision were effectively banned from authorization, yet rebranded and relabeled hardware keeps turning up inside our systems. Relabeling and deceptive sales practices are exactly the kind of consumer fraud that screams out for state enforcement.
That is why state attorneys general have to move beyond press statements and into courtroom action. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers have shown the playbook: subpoenas, lawsuits, and a willingness to follow the money. These are the kinds of legal blows that can make the market for compromised devices inhospitable.
A Department of Homeland Security bulletin and top Lab testimony leave no wiggle room about intent and capability. Researchers testified that China has pre-positioned access on U.S. infrastructure networks to enable disruptive or destructive cyber-attacks. That is the exact scenario lawmakers warned about during the last decade, now playing out in real-time.
Re-labeling and stealth resales mean the 2022 ban was necessary but not sufficient. Vendors and middlemen quietly import billions of dollars of camera hardware, scrub the branding, and sell it through familiar retail channels without meaningful disclosure. The result is a flourishing secondary market for spy-ready gear hiding in plain sight.
When manufacturers or resellers omit material risks about remote control and overseas data flows they commit consumer fraud with national security consequences. State consumer protection laws were built for this moment: they can hit bad actors where it hurts, extract penalties, and fund remediation. That legal leverage should be used aggressively, starting with targeted subpoenas and followed by civil suits.
Congressional testimony and investigative reporting detail the human side of the threat: the same family cameras that stream into cribs and children’s rooms can be exploited for voyeurism or worse. Dark web feeds of hacked devices with labels like “kids room” and “bedroom” are not horror stories, they are evidence. State AGs should treat those findings as proof the market is broken.
Think big and act big. All 50 state attorneys general should coordinate to pursue multi-state litigation against manufacturers, relabelers, and negligent retailers. The tobacco-era master settlement shows how states can marshal legal muscle to both punish and fund remediation on a national scale.
Penalties extracted from fraudsters should be earmarked for rip-and-replace programs in state and local systems. That money should pay for vetted, secure alternatives sourced from trusted suppliers and for ongoing monitoring to prevent reinfection. This is a pay-now-or-pay-much-more-later proposition for taxpayers and for national security.
State prosecutors should also partner with federal regulators like the FCC and FTC to combine enforcement tools. Joint actions would amplify penalties and speed up remedies, while signaling to global vendors that the U.S. market will not tolerate surreptitious spying. That kind of cooperative federalism is both practical and politically popular.
Republicans should lean into this fight because it is a clear national-security, economic, and consumer-protection win. It defends American infrastructure, protects families, and robs hostile actors of an easy pathway into our systems. Let state legal teams and federal agencies work in unison to close the loopholes and make cheap betrayal of our security an unprofitable business model.
