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Fifth Column |
US confirms major damage from Chi Mak tech theft for China |
2007-12-14 |
From East Asia Intel, subscription. National Counterintelligence Executive Joel Brenner said recently that the case of defense contractor Chi Mak represents a major compromise of U.S. military technology. It was the first such case by a non-government employee. Maybe first case gone to trial. Mak, a China-born U.S. national, was found guilty of passing technology to China in a case that had “profound implications for our military, especially our Navy and also for the Air Force,” Brenner said. It was the first public reference that Mak and his brother, Tai, compromised Air Force technology. Brenner also said in a recent speech that the Mak case is “the first major espionage case we've had that didn't involve a government employee.” “As we push out information and privatize across all government operations, much of what we have to protect in the way of information is no longer in the government,” Brenner said. “This now was a contractor employee; in fact, a subcontractor employee.” Mak worked on developmental Navy systems, including advanced missile destroyers and advanced submarines for Power Paragon, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications/SPD Technologies/Power Systems Group in Anaheim, CA. |
Posted by:Alaska Paul |
#21 and all air traffic to Iran and Lebanon is cancelled. I don't doubt that they have short-term "vision - thing" going, but a MOAB or two would take most air defenses (and the civilians around them) out. At one point, the stakes are raised beyond what Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, et al, are capable of comprehending. That is the only good thing to say about the USSR - they understood |
Posted by: Frank G 2007-12-14 19:26 |
#20 IRGC installs |
Posted by: ed 2007-12-14 19:16 |
#19 Let me give what seems like an innocuous example. Take IR missile defense. A spy transfers the wavelength of the lasers used to burn out the IR seeker. The IRGC stalls wavelength rejection filters on their SAMs and gives them to Hezballah to shoot down western airliners. Billions of dollars and hundreds of lives wasted. |
Posted by: ed 2007-12-14 19:16 |
#18 Bottom line is that it is much simpler for our adversaries to get little pieces than the big picture. And if our counter-intelligence people are any good, we're also running programs in which we're feeding them fake technical and design data, accompanied by fake prosecutions. |
Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-14 18:51 |
#17 ed: Even one foreign spy out of 1000 workers can undo billions of dollars worth of R&D Not necessarily. As far as I know, R&D gets broken out into pieces for individuals to solve. But no one gets the whole enchilada. It's like the story of the blind men and the elephant. The guy who touched the tail thought elephants were rope-like and slender, whereas the one who touched the legs thought elephants were like tree trunks: It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind The First approached the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: “God bless me! but the Elephant Is very like a wall!” The first blind man of six blind men feels the side of the elephant and interprets it as a wall. The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried, “Ho! what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ’tis mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!” The second blind man of the six blind men feels an elephant tusk and interprets the elephant to be like a spear. The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a snake!” The third blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's trunk and interprets it to be a snake. The Fourth reached out an eager hand, And felt about the knee. “What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain,” quoth he; “ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!” The fourth blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's leg and mentally visualizes it to be a tree. The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: “E’en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!” The fifth blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's ear and imagines it to be a fan. The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a rope!” The sixth blind man of the six blind men touches the elephant's ear and interprets it to be a fan. And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong! Moral: So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen! |
Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-14 18:48 |
#16 There are two trends working against the US. 1. PC stupidity. It's just stupid to expect all immigrants in the US to have good intentions or loyalties to the US. Other nations spend time and treasure to plant, recruit or pressure spies in the US. Even one foreign spy out of 1000 workers can undo billions of dollars worth of R&D or steer US policy to the detriment of US interests (e.g. Chalabi). 2. Shortage of US born technical talent. In many companies more than half of their engineers are foreign born. The US trains a huge number of foreign science talent/competition. In both my Master's and PhD studies, the majority of students were foreign citizens. American born prefer the financial or legal sectors where the rewards where the work is easier and the reward much greater. So you have crazy policies where Iranian engineers are working on missile defense for airliners while the IRGC is funding terrorist groups to blow up those airliners. Or Chinese engineers engineers are working on aircraft or missile defense systems whose deployment will be targeted at Chinese forces. Even in the commercial world, many of us just assumed the foreign engineers were feeding design information back to their home intel services or industries. America is it's own worst enemy in many cases. |
Posted by: ed 2007-12-14 18:05 |
#15 gromky: Another ABC traitor. Surprise, surprise. Feeling more loyalty towards the mother race than towards the country whose passport he holds. I think ABC means American-born Chinese. From the article: Mak, a China-born U.S. national In our current politically-correct climate, the problem with hiring ethnic Chinese for sensitive defense-related tasks is that every time we investigate people who are suspected to be spies for the opposition, we get accusations of racism. The great thing about investigating Eastern Bloc nationals during the Cold War was that they couldn't play the race card. |
Posted by: Zhang Fei 2007-12-14 18:00 |
#14 And a trained agent/pathological liar can beat a polygraph. |
Posted by: Rambler 2007-12-14 17:36 |
#13 Waterboard. |
Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-12-14 16:47 |
#12 wxjames, only an idiot accepts polygraph reports. "Lie detectors" are voodoo, and about as effective. Polygraphs didnt stop the walkers, nor Hanssen. The Australians already discarded them. The only thing polys do is fool the uninitiated and untrained into confessing. Someone that is simply nervous can lose their job over a bad poly, or a bad polygrapher. Its simply a scare tactic. If polygraphs were truly effective, you wouldnte need specially trained questioners face to face. They could replace it with simple intrumentation, a video screen and a yes-no switch the person being questiond would flip one way or another. When run that way it has a very high failure rate, meaning its NOT SCIENCE. Its a con-game to call it that. Best thing is to actually do the footwork, and rely on good "detective" skills of good investigators. |
Posted by: OldSpook 2007-12-14 15:44 |
#11 I remeber when I was working in aerospace they had a requirement that all workers on these projects be born in the US. Allowing foreigners to work in these projects makes them vulnerable to blackmail (families in the home country) not to mention divided loyalties. I think it was Clinton whoi changed the rules. Al |
Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-12-14 14:00 |
#10 When is it gonna occur to the assholes in charge to use lie detectors on a routine basis to 'keep' honest men honest ? |
Posted by: wxjames 2007-12-14 11:01 |
#9 I'm starting to wonder if it is a good idea to have any ex-chinese people in classified work. Maybe if the family moved here in the 70s and the person was born here. It is not a good idea. It is also not a good idea to allow thousands of Mainland Chinese to attend our best technical Institutes. Even 2nd and 3rd Generation Americans of Chinese extraction present an unreasonable risk, even if loyal to the U.S. Usually Chinese immigrants have extensive families still in China that can be leveraged to coerce even loyal Americans of Chinese ancestry. This is not rocket science, it is willfully blindness and PC bull sh!t on the part of the authorities. It will ultimately result in massive loss of life, here and in the world as a whole. |
Posted by: WazzaWuzzaBilly 2007-12-14 10:42 |
#8 Another ABC traitor. Surprise, surprise. Feeling more loyalty towards |
Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-12-14 10:29 |
#7 Or maybe not. The parallel with the Japanese/American population pre WW2 is becoming apparent. |
Posted by: Grunter 2007-12-14 10:05 |
#6 I'm starting to wonder if it is a good idea to have any ex-chinese people in classified work. Maybe if the family moved here in the 70s and the person was born here. |
Posted by: DarthVader 2007-12-14 07:29 |
#5 the first major espionage case we've had that didn't involve a government employee What about Christopher Boyce at TRW - "The Falcon and the Snowman" |
Posted by: Chuck 2007-12-14 05:08 |
#4 Another ABC traitor. Surprise, surprise. Feeling more loyalty towards the mother race than towards the country whose passport he holds. |
Posted by: gromky 2007-12-14 04:15 |
#3 Make this a life in w/o the possibility of parole offense. Also set up sting operations with the same penalty. |
Posted by: gorb 2007-12-14 03:42 |
#2 ION, KOREA TIMES > US SENATOR DEMANDS CONDITION ON REMOVING NK FROM US TERROR SPONSOR LIST. Norkies must first prove they have stopped or are not engaged in WMD proliferations + have stopped counterfeiting US currencies + have shut down covert Govt bureau/sections in charge of handling illicit/criminal activities. |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-12-14 01:00 |
#1 L-3 is way high up on the list of earmark recipients. Prolly at least in the top 10. |
Posted by: Seafarious 2007-12-14 00:19 |