Tag: Espionage

House Select Committee on China Demands FBI and DOD Briefing on Communist China Spies Infiltrating U.S. Military Bases

M.D. Kittle

U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI-o8), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wants a briefing from top Biden administration officials on increasing incidents of CCP spies accessing sensitive military, economic, and technological secrets on U.S. soil.

Gallagher joined fellow committee member U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA-02) on Wednesday in calling on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and FBI Director Christopher Wray to explain to the committee why there’s been a surge in CCP espionage, and what they plan to do about it.

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‘Coordinated Campaign on a Grand Scale’: US, UK Spymasters Issue Dire Warning on Chinese Espionage

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by Micaela Burrow   Heads of intelligence agencies in the U.S. and UK warned against a widespread Chinese espionage campaign in a unique joint statement Wednesday. FBI Director Christopher Wray and MI5 Director General Ken McCallum addressed an audience of leaders in business and academia outside of the MI5 headquarters to rally against what McCallum called a “coordinated campaign on a grand scale.” The two warned of escalating Chinese attempts to steal data and technology from UK and U.S. innovators and disrupt the nations’ economies. “The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party,” said McCallum. “The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology—whatever it is that makes your industry tick—and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market,” said Wray, according to The Wall Street Journal. “They’re set on using every tool at their disposal to do it.” Wray said in February that the FBI opens a new investigation into alleged Chinese espionage every 12 hours, according to NBC News. China represents the “biggest long-term threat” to security for the U.S. and its western allies, Wray said, according to Fox News. #FBI, @CISAgov, and @NSAGov issued a #CybersecurityAdvisory about the ways in which People’s Republic of China state-sponsored #cyber…

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Husband and Wife Plead Guilty to Espionage-Related Charges, Disclosed Restricted Data to Undercover FBI Agent

Cooper Moran

A husband and wife, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to communicate restricted data, as the husband attempted to disclose confidential information to someone he believed was a representative of a foreign government.

Originally, Jonathan Toebbe sent a package to a foreign government, listing an address in Pittsburgh for the return. The package contained a sample of restricted data, related to his work as a nuclear engineer assigned to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.

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U.S. Wins Appeal in Case to Extradite Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange

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The U.S. won an appeal in its case to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the United Kingdom.

The U.K.’s High Court ruled Friday that Assange could be returned to the U.S. where he will face multiple charges related to espionage and hacking, reversing a lower court’s decision blocking his extradition.

Assange’s fiancee Stella Morris said she plans to appeal the decision as soon as possible, calling the decision a “grave miscarriage of justice,” CNBC reported.

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Tom Cotton Introduces ‘SECURE CAMPUS Act’ to Stop Chinese Spying at Universities

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Tom Cotton

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced a bill to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from conducting espionage on American college campuses.

According to a press release from his office, Sen. Cotton re-introduced the “SECURE CAMPUS Act” on April 22. The bill would “prohibit Chinese nationals from receiving visas to the United States for graduate or post-graduate studies in STEM fields and would ban participants in China’s foreign talent recruitment programs and Chinese nationals from taking part in federally-funded STEM research.”

Sen. Cotton remarked that “Allowing China unfettered access to American research institutions is akin to granting Soviet scientists access to our critical laboratories during the Cold War.”

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Feds Charge Former Green Beret with Espionage with Russia

The Associated Press

A former Army Green Beret living in northern Virginia was arrested on Friday, charged with divulging military secrets about his unit’s activities in former Soviet republics during more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.

Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, told Russian intelligence he considered himself a “son of Russia,” according to an indictment made public after his arrest.

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Commentary: TikTok is Just the First Chinese App the Trump Admin is Eyeing for Crackdown Over Spying

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TikTok Social Media

Two days after President Trump told reporters that he plans to ban TikTok from the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in an interview with Fox News that executive action may soon be taken against many other apps owned by Chinese firms.

Trump remarked to journalists aboard Air Force One on Friday that he could ban TikTok “with an executive order,” suggesting that the president has made up his mind about the popular short video platform. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, has been at the center of a months-long debate over whether the data that it collects from American users could be exploited by China’s government.

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American Paul Whelan Convicted of Spying in Russia, Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison

The Associated Press

A Russian court convicted an American corporate security executive Monday of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison after a closed trial that the U.S. denounced as a “mockery of justice,” and it angrily said his treatment in jail was “appalling.”

Paul Whelan, a former Marine from Novi, Michigan (pictured above), has insisted he was innocent, saying he was set up when he was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 while he was visiting Russia to attend a friend’s wedding.

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UCLA Professor Found Guilty of Conspiring to Steal US Missile Guidance Technology for China

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by Ethan Cai   A jury found an electrical engineer and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor guilty of exporting stolen U.S. military technology to China. UCLA adjunct professor Yi-Chi Shih was convicted June 26 on 18 federal charges, Newsweek reported, and could now lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, while also facing up to 219 years behind bars for numerous violations of the law. These include conspiracy to break  the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), committing mail and wire fraud, lying to a government agency, subscribing to a false tax return, and conspiring to gain unauthorized access to information on a protected computer, according to a Department of Justice news release. Shih and co-defendant Kiet Ahn Mai tried to access illegally a protected computer owned by a U.S. company that manufactured semiconductor chips called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs). MMICs are used by the Air Force and Navy in fighter jets, missiles and missile guidance technology, and electronic military defense systems. The chips were exported to Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC), a Chinese company, without a required Department of Commerce license. Shih previously served as the president of CGTC, which made the Commerce Department’s Entity List in 2014 “due to its involvement…

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Ex-CIA Officer Gets 20 Years for Spying for China

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  A former CIA officer was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison on charges that he spied for China and allegations he sought to expose human assets who were once his responsibility. The sentence issued by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in federal court in Alexandria for Kevin Mallory, 62, of Leesburg, Virginia, is less than the life sentence sought by prosecutors but more than the 10-year term requested by the defense. A jury convicted Mallory last year under the Espionage Act for providing classified information to Chinese handlers in exchange for $25,000. Mallory’s scheme began to unravel when he was selected for secondary screening at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in April 2017 on a flight back from Shanghai with his son and customs agents found $16,500 in unreported cash. Later, in voluntary interviews with authorities, Mallory was caught off guard when a Samsung phone given to him by the Chinese displayed text conversations between Mallory and the Chinese recruiter – Mallory had expected the phone’s secure messaging features would keep the conversation hidden. In one text message, Mallory wrote “your object is to gain information, and my object is to be paid.” “At its heart, this was…

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