China's Growing Treat: How Many More Maks Are Out There?

China's Spying

If you have not been paying attention, read a little about Chi Mak. And for those who've been paying attention, recall Bobby Fletcher said this case was much ado about nothing, and that the U.S. lied about Chi Mak. Now, you can decide, first bit is Bobby Fletcher's post and the second is from Bloomberg. You decide.
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Original charges against Chi Mak et al have been dropped. Government's petition to hold without bail has been denied.

It seems the prosecution have lied on so many things, it's beginning to smell like another Wen Ho Lee.

- no classified document; not about weapons at all
- files were not encripted in music; It's zipped for size
- no such list from China asking for data
- map of Knolls Atomic Lab turned out to be a hotel map from an old visit
- wiretap showed Chi Mak had no interested in the broken down Mak ancestrial home in Hong Kong

With no charge to nail the sister in-law, prosecution have trumped up a "fake marriage" charge, insinuating she whored herself out. Shame on us America:

Posted by bobby fletcher | February 14, 2006 6:52 PM

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China's Spying

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- In a Santa Ana, California, courtroom, 66-year-old engineer Chi Mak listens to federal prosecutors describe how he and his family stole secrets from his employer, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. The alleged target: data about Navy submarine engines that run silently to avoid detection.

U.S. intelligence officials say the Mak case is unusual -- not in the nature of the charges brought against him, but that charges were brought at all.

For every person caught and accused of passing U.S. military and trade secrets to China, they say, scores of others go undetected. Taking advantage of an outmanned counterintelligence effort drained and distracted by the wars in Iraq and against al-Qaeda, current and former officials say, China has systematically managed to gain sensitive information on U.S. nuclear bombs and ship and missile designs.

``Iraq and the struggle with terrorism are sucking resources across the board,'' says Joel Brenner, the top counterintelligence official in the office of Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell. Meanwhile, ``the Chinese are really making a run at us.''

Adds Keith Riggin, a former senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency who focused on China issues: ``If the American people knew the number of officers going against the Chinese, they would be appalled.'' He says his frustration with the lack of resources was one reason he ended a 24-year career in 2006.

`Troublesome'

While 140 foreign intelligence services are trying to penetrate U.S. agencies, China's is the most aggressive, Brenner says. He describes China's activities as ``an intensifying and troublesome pattern.''

Chinese officials say the U.S. allegations are meritless.

``I wonder why people always feel threatened by others and treat others as thieves,'' Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said at a March 15 press briefing in Beijing. ``It indicates these people have a chip on their shoulders and have fragile psychologies.''

While the Federal Bureau of Investigation tripled the size of its China unit in 2001, plans for further expansion were scotched when the Iraq war began, says Rudy Guerin, a China expert who retired from the bureau last year. David Szady, the FBI's former assistant director for counterintelligence, says the FBI should hire another 1,500 agents, and most should be used against China's espionage within the U.S.

More Agents

Stephen Kodak, an FBI spokesman, declines to say how many more might be necessary. At the same time, he adds that ``the bureau would always welcome additional assets.''

Central Intelligence Agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano says his agency has enough resources, and that ``it would be wrong to suggest that other priorities have diluted the attention we pay to China. Over the past five years, the opposite has been true.''

The FBI spent $2.2 billion on counterterrorism and counterintelligence programs last year; the CIA budget is classified. The U.S. won't disclose how many counterintelligence agents are working on China-related issues.

U.S. officials say there's overwhelming evidence that China has a well-thought-out plan to employ thousands of professional spies and amateurs to get sensitive U.S. military and business data, sometimes directly from sympathetic employees, sometimes through a joint venture or third party.

Submarine Data

Mak, his wife, brother, sister-in-law and nephew were indicted on charges of conspiring to export U.S. defense articles to China's government. In court papers, prosecutors say he copied submarine data from L-3's Anaheim, California-based Power Paragon unit onto compact discs and enlisted the other family members to encrypt the information and help smuggle it to China. Brenner says the disks also contained information on the U.S. Navy's next-generation DD(X) warship.

Under questioning, Mak admitted sending information to Chinese operatives since 1983 on technology that included radar systems of Aegis cruisers, which are used to defend against multiple missile attacks, Brenner says.

Mak and his relatives pleaded innocent to the charges. His lawyer, Ronald Kaye, says he was taking the disks for a conference with fellow engineers, and that the information about the Navy engine was obsolete. The engineer also got approval from his supervisor to make presentations at the conference, Kay says.

`Asset to His Country'

Mak ``was not only an asset to the company but a profound asset to his country,'' he says. Mak's relatives will go on trial in May.

U.S. officials say China's effort encompasses industrial secrets as well as national-security ones. Brenner cites the case of Gary Min, a DuPont Co. chemist who admitted obtaining information on company products, including materials used in airplane construction, that prosecutors valued at $400 million.

Authorities say that between August and December 2005, Min, 43, downloaded 22,000 confidential abstracts from the Wilmington, Delaware-based company's electronic library. The documents included information on all DuPont's major product lines as well as emerging technologies.

Some of the searches focused on Vespel, a synthetic resin used to coat car, airplane and oil pump parts, and Declar, a plastic material used in the automotive and energy industries and in airplane interiors, according to court papers.

Shredded Documents

U.S. law-enforcement authorities said that when they searched Min's Grove City, Ohio, home, they found computers containing confidential files, garbage bags filled with shredded company documents and the remains of DuPont papers that had been burned in the fireplace. In court documents, DuPont said the information would be ``highly valuable'' on the open market in ``foreign countries, specifically China.''

A call to Min's lawyers wasn't returned. Min hasn't been charged with being a Chinese spy.

Brenner says his office is still assessing the damage from another case involving Katrina Leung, who the FBI had used for 20 years as a double agent to obtain information from the Chinese, and who prosecutors in turn accused of being a Chinese agent herself.

Authorities accused Leung, 52, of taking documents from James Smith, head of the FBI's Chinese counterintelligence operation in Los Angeles, over the course of a nearly 20-year affair with him.

Peter Lee

Some of those documents related to ``Royal Tourist,'' the FBI code name for the investigation of Peter Lee, an employee of defense contractor TRW Inc. Lee, who was accused of giving radar technology being developed to track submarines to Chinese scientists, pleaded guilty in 1997 to willful transmission of national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it.

While the case against Leung was dismissed in 2005, Smith pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI about his relationship with her. Smith was one of the FBI's most seasoned China experts, a resource the agency has struggled to replace, intelligence officials say.

The CIA also hasn't been able to replace its veteran China experts when they retire, Riggin says. ``We're losing huge experience in this area.''

With the CIA occupied with preventing U.S. government secrets from falling into the wrong hands, Riggin and others say, companies doing business in China are especially vulnerable to losing non-defense information. U.S. businesses are paying particular attention to the first intellectual-property suit brought in a Chinese court by Santa Clara, California-based Intel Corp., the world's biggest semiconductor maker.

Chinese spies ‘very aggressive’ threat to US

Chinese spies ‘very aggressive’ threat to US

China’s intelligence agencies are among the most aggressive at spying on the United States, followed by Cuban, Russian and Iranian spy agencies, The Washington Times quoted the US government’s top counterintelligence coordinator as saying.

Ya, not only do they just spy, but they break into homes and assault U.S. citizens.

Exposed: Chinese Black Operations On U.S. Soil - Part III

I've been conducting more research on the matter of Chinese Operatives working against U.S. interests on U.S. Soil. What better source to understand the problem than the U.S. Congress.

Every day we read or hear about U.S. authorities attempting to identify sleeper cells and black operatives on U.S. soil. Nearly all of this relates to terrorism. Yet, the halls of Congress are dressed with testimony that reads like a spy novel... and the enemy is China. I encourage everyone to Google search "Congressional Testimony" and "Falun Gong". You'll be amazed at what is known about Chinese covert operations within the U.S. Yet, we never see these reports in the media. Why?

Below I provide a few snippets of what is known about Chinese Covert Operations in the U.S., and what's worse, it's often directed against U.S. citizens.

Resolution 304 also specifically mentioned section 401(a)(1)(B) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)(1)(B)):

Agents of China’s Communist Party Operating in the US

Resolution 304 calls on China’s agents in the United States to halt all operations being carried out against practitioners of Falun Gong on United States soil.

The resolution makes reference to China’s agents carrying out acts of violence and assault, property theft and destruction, illegal wire-tapping, harassment, intimidation, and persecution against practitioners of Falun Gong in the United States.

Chinese Attack: Is this the work of Chinese Intelligence?

What's really going on here? The average Chinese citizen cannot move about the Internet without strict monitoring. Anyone attempting to hack from within China will immediately catch the attention of the CHICOM's great Firewall. Yet, we see unrelenting cyber attacks on sensitive U.S. computer systems. How could this be? The AVERAGE citizen is restricted from such activities, but those granted permission to attack the U.S. are given free access. Who can grant a person or group access around the firewall? Who has the ability to get around the firewall? The CCP of course....the question is: who in the Chinese government is behind the well planned and directed attack: Chinese Military, Chinese Intelligence, Chinese Cyber Army?????

APPSENSE SECURITY

The cyber attacks on the Critical National Infrastructures of the US and UK, originating from inside China have hit the headlines again. This time they appear to be targeted against one specific agency within the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). The BIS is involved in the regulation of the export of sensitive goods and technologies as well as enforcing export control and anti-boycott laws. The targeting of this organization is in some ways not surprising, it is responsible for the prevention of the exportation of military technology to China.

The exact method used for this attack has not been publicised, but there have been strong suggestions that this involved carefully researched e-mails and possibly Trojans. This involved the Chinese group sending e-mails apparently from internal e-mail address to various government employees. The subject and content of these mails were deliberately chosen. The careful research mentioned above allowed the mails to be targeted in such a way that the victim would be more inclined to trust the mail and any attachment to it.

The same method of researched e-mails would also work if malicious websites were being used to exploit some vulnerability in Internet Explorer, as was seen recently with the VML based exploitation. There have been reports of Web sites registered on Chinese Internet service providers hosting malware with Rootkit capabilities. It is likely that this is true as the BSI has admitted that they are not attempting to repair any computers perceived to be infected. Instead wholly new machines are being used to replace these.

This is the latest in a long line of attempts to spy on other areas of the Government and infrastructure which were traced back to China. The, so called, Titan Rain attacks used some similar techniques as did the attack on the United Kingdom government at the start of 2006. This one used the, at the time, unpatched vulnerability in WMF rendering. This involved e-mails containing information apparently about a secret rendezvous being sent to around 70 members of the UK parliament as well as other staff in the British Government.


The levels of complexity and preparation involved in these attacks may mean they are the first things to warrant the, massively over hyped, name of cyber warfare.

Chinese Front Companies in the U.S.? You decide!

There seems to be some question, or concern about Chinese front companies operating within the U.S. There has been some doubt to the veracity of the report, which was first mentioned in the Cox document. But, what is the official and most legitimate position on the Front Companies? Seems to me that the U.S. intelligence community would have the best understanding of this, since they work on the issue daily.

Of course, some random journalist or reporter can post whatever they want, but their not really close to the issue. Below are just a few reports since Cox. You decide, are there front companies operating in the U.S.? Before you respond, and I know someone will jabber about the 3000 front companies. The info is coming from the Director of the FBI. If you have an issue with it's truthfulness, take it up with the him, I'm simply using it to support the other reports. Oh ya, and his statement was given under oath during testimony to the U.S. Congress. Use that as weight when you judge its veracity!

CNN
State Metal Industries, a Camden, New Jersey, company convicted in June of violating export laws over a shipment of AIM-7 Sparrow missile guidance parts it bought from Pentagon surplus in 2003 and sold to an entity partly owned by the Chinese government. The company pleaded guilty to an export violation,

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. government investigators say the number of cases involving China and its middlemen who have illegally obtained sensitive or classified U.S. weapons technology

Spy visits Cover For Action?

I'm amazed at the interest generated by a very small snippet I posted last week. The interest is over an Organ Harvesting report by David Kilgour and David Matas. After an initial challenge of the post by Anon, several others posted highlighting Anon as being the spy "Bobby Fletcher", alias of course.

What an honor! If Bobby Flether is truly a spy, we welcome him back. We have to ask, what kind of spy would be concerned with a little bit on the Falun Gong? An agent of propaganda... of misinformation?

As I said before, I appreciate comments and debate, and encourage everyone to continue posting on these issues.

As you can imagine, with an alleged spy visiting the blog, I did a little research of the so called Spy: Bobby Fletcher. Here's what I've come up with:

- Fletcher has posted on numerous other blogs and sites about the Kilgour report, the links and language appear to be identical to those which Anon posted here. From this analysis, I will assume Anon is Bobby Fletcher.

Fletcher has also posted on other issues. In Febuary of last year, he posted a rather shallow bit about Chi Mak on the Jawa Report. In the post Fletcher says:

- "It seems the prosecution have lied on so many things, it's beginning to smell like another Wen Ho Lee."
- the "prosecution have trumped up a "fake marriage" charge, insinuating she whored herself out."

Just as he did here, Fletcher provided a link to an article which did not support his claims. In this instance, it was the San Mateo Daily Journal. The article does it say the prosecution lied or "trumped up" fake marriage charges. Perhaps Fletcher is hoping you'll just take his word for it, (a type of propaganda ). Interestingly, what the article does say is the following:

- prosecutors said they found a detailed hand-drawn map of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, used for testing prototype nuclear reactors, at Chi Mak’s house.
- U.S. Magistrate Judge Marc Goldman set Chi Mak’s bond at $300,000 and placed him in home detention with a global positioning system to monitor his movements.
- Mak, 65, stole computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a sensitive research project involving propulsion systems for Navy warships. Power Paragon has more than 200 contracts with the U.S. Navy, according to court documents.
- Prosecutors have previously said authorities recovered from the CD restricted documents on the DDX Destroyer, considered the destroyer of the future, that were marked “for official use only.” Authorities also allege they found two lists in Chinese asking Chi Mak to get documents about submarine torpedo technology, electromagnetic artillery systems, weapon standardization, early warning technology to detect incoming missiles and defenses against nuclear attack.

Nothing in the news article speaks to trumped up charges or wrong doing by prosecutors. When a judge sets $300,000 bail and forces you to wear a GPS monitor... that's a pretty good indication your up a creek. Stealing computer discs that have sensitive Naval research on involving propulsion, that's not so good either. Then when prosecutors find a list asking you to acquire EM system technology, sub torpedo technology and early warning system technology, you've got problems.

So the question from Cover For Action (CFA) is: what was the motivation of Fletcher's post? Why the Anti-U.S. rhetoric with no supporting documentation?

We've outlined at least two of Fletcher's post with anti-US sentiment which has little or no legitimate documentation to support it, however, we've not seen Fletcher post any concerns about China's anti U.S. machine. For example, no criticism on the other Chinese Spy cases in the U.S., China's stalking U.S. subs, China's laser attack on U.S. Sats, Chinese persecution of dissidents, etc. etc. This leaves one wondering what Fletcher is doing out there is cyber space. Could he be a spy, and Agent of influence? If so, we welcome him back.

Fletcher also listed an article from the LA Times. I could not access the article, but did find a later (June 7, 2006) official press release. Here are the highlights.

- Two Southern California family members originally from the People’s Republic of China were indicted today by a grand jury on charges of lying to the government and acting as agents of the People’s Republic of China. Fuk Heung Li, 48, and her son, Billy Yui Mak, 26, were charged with failing to register as agents of a foreign government and making false statements to federal authorities.

- Chi Mak, an engineer with a U.S. Navy defense contractor, allegedly collected technical information about the U.S. Navy’s current and future warship technologies. This information was sensitive and subject to restriction regarding its distribution, storage and handling. According to court documents, Chi Mak and his wife allegedly copied the information intended for the PRC onto CD-ROM disks, which were then given to Tai Mak. Billy Mak then allegedly encrypted the defense data onto a CD-ROM disk in preparation for surreptitious delivery to the PRC.

CFA asks: Since Fletcher's anti-U.S. posting on Chi Mak, several other news reports and indictments have come to pass and shine negative light on Chi Mak and his intelligence cell, yet Fletcher has not retracted his allegations that the U.S. lied about the Mak's. Why?

In addition, in October of 2006, new indictments were again handed down and Fletcher was silent. Military.com reported the news which included the following:

- The new indictment includes three counts of actual and attempted unlawful export of defense articles for Chi Mak; one count of possession of property in aid of a foreign government for Tai Mak

- Five members of a family accused of scheming to send sensitive information about Navy warships to China were indicted Wednesday on new conspiracy charges, prosecutors said.

More Fletcher analysis coming soon!