Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has called on the U.S. Commerce Department to blacklist several Chinese firms that allegedly aid Beijing in its surveillance and repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Blackburn, in a Dec. 15 letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, urged for the addition of firms in China connected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation to the “entity list.” The list is made up of firms whose practices are incompatible with a pro-democratic, pro-human rights stance, or with the safeguarding of U.S. national security. According to Blackburn and her fellow signatories, firms tied to the academy are actively assisting Beijing in the development of surveillance technology and equipment that enhance the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ability to persecute its ethnic Muslim minorities in the far west Xinjiang region. Joining Sen. Blackburn in her appeal to the Commerce Department were Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), …