I recently bought 3 Conti 26" tires at MEC, none made in Germany, and they all had this problem. Thought it was just my bad luck, but maybe it's a wider problem?
I've had a couple of 28 non Kevlars and bought these two 23 kevlar ultra sports, the 28s were fine (I'd be running the first still had it not been torn by a blowout from overinflation) - the other 23 I put on my buddies bike and haven't heard anything, so it could be just this one for me. *shrug*
Re: pitlocks, interesting - I'd not heard of anything like that before. Novel, but not something I'm interested in so much.
Just got back from Wal-Mart at the AIM and endured a good portion of the initial downpour walking over there (I was picking up a mecha-size pack of ***** tickets so knew it'd be tricksy biking that without a trailer). Ended up cabbing it back as it was still coming down, ah well.