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U.S. prosecutors say Hao Zhang is a professor-spy who conspired with a colleague from USC to steal and sell American secrets to the Chinese government and military through a shell company in the Cayman Islands. (please see link for full article)

Mercedes Stephenson from Global News has done some excellent follow-up coverage on the arrest of RCMP Intelligence Director Cameron Ortis. Mr. Ortis is facing seven serious charges of intelligence violations including obtaining information to pass to a “foreign entity.” The intelligence compromise is the biggest scandal in “a generation”. New evidence shows the arrest was a result of a 2018 international intelligence operation that targeted the encrypted communications service known as “Phantom Secure”. A man named Victor Ramos was the CEO of Phantom Secure, an enterprise that provided encrypted communication devices to criminal agents involved in drug smuggling, money laundering...

The Australian federal police have raided the Canberra home of intelligence officer Cameron Gill... Cameron Gill was also listed as an adviser to then defence materiel minister, Mal Brough, in defence documents recording a meeting with former US ambassador John Berry in 2015. It is unclear whether Wednesday’s raid is connected to the Smethurst story, which reported that the heads of the defence and home affairs ministries had discussed draconian new powers to allow the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australian citizens for the first time.

the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force's iconic SR-71 Blackbird ... also incorporated then-state-of-the-art features to reduce its radar cross-section. These included a combination of a stealthy overall shape and radar-evading structures, as well as the use of composites in its construction, and the incorporation of radar absorbing materials on its skin. A far less known, but still a key component of the Skunk Works plan to make the A-12 harder to spot on radar involved a cesium-laced fuel additive to dramatically reduce the radar signature of the plane's massive engine exhausts and afterburner plumes by creating an ionizing cloud...

<p>Israeli intelligence agents were likely behind the placement of surveillance devices near the White House, U.S. intelligence has reportedly concluded.</p> <p>Politico reported Thursday that U.S. investigators had determined that Israel was most likely the culprit responsible for placing StingRay phone trackers near the White House, with the apparent purpose of capturing information from phones used by President Trump or top White House aides.</p>

It's no longer just always-listening microphones -- Google's new Nest Hub Max smart display adds a camera that's always scanning for faces.Google Home and Nest Hub gadgets already feature microphones that are always listening for the words that wake up the Assistant ("OK, Google" or "Hey, Google"). Now, the search giant's newest gadget for your home, the Nest Hub Max smart display, adds in a camera that's always watching for a familiar face.Google calls the feature Face Match, and it uses facial recognition technology to remember what you look like. After that, you can tap on the screen to see...

Trump Attorney Jay Sekulow posted a tweet on Monday alleging fired FBI Director James Comey may have colluded with the Clinton lawyers to circumvent federal law. https://aclj.org/government-corruption/aclj-submits-foia-request-to-expose-former-fbi-director-james-comeys-covert-operation-and-spies-in-the-white-house?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Informational&utm_content=Government%20Corruption&sf108059784=1 Jay Sekulow alleges the FBI may have been colluding with Hillary Clinton’s lawyers. Sekulow also reported on the second FBI operative Jordan Rae Kelly who replaced Comey spy Anthony Ferrante who was placed into White House to spy for the FBI against the Trump administration. FBI oprerative Jordan Rae Kelly took over for Ferrante and gave him access inside the Trump White House after he left government to work for Buzzfeed. Via the...

In a piece headlined "Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system," Fast Company's Mike Elgan reports on similar, albeit extralegal efforts to create something similar right here in the United States. Ever gotten out of an Uber and given your driver a low rating because his car was dirty or he drove unsafely? Well, he can rate, you too, as can other "gig" service providers. Elgan writes:

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson – President George W. Bush’s top speechwriter from 2001 to 2006 – was hired by the Post in 2007 because he would be “a different kind of conservative” and "an independent voice." Translation: he would slash other people on the right as dishonest, dishonorable, unpatriotic people. He has not attacked talk-show hosts on MSNBC or other leftists this way. In his Friday column, Gerson whacked Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh, and Mark Levin with these harsh attacks. Mark Levin offered NewsBusters his reaction. Gerson began: A number of libertarians and conservative populists have found data collection...

Growth in advanced science and engineering degrees shows the U.S. graduating the largest number of doctorate recipients of any individual country, but 37% were earned by temporary visa holders with as many as 25% of STEM graduates in the U.S. being Chinese nationals.

NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) - A new film by former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is sounding the alarm over China's encroachment into the high-tech industry. Slated for release in September, Claws of the Red Dragon spotlights the relationship between telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People's Liberation Army (PLA). Based on Canada's 2018 arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, the film tells the story of Chinese-Canadian journalist Jane Li as she covers the detention of the CFO of a fictional Chinese tech firm Huaxing Hi-Tech and exposes the company's connections...

The mass surveillance of innocent Americans continues as George Orwell’s 1984 becomes more of a reality with each passing day. “All told, we are barreling toward a future where every ritual of public life carries implicit consent to be surveilled,” writes Sidney Fussell for The Atlantic. A new report from Georgetown Law‘s Center on Privacy & Technology (CPT) suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may be using the rampant problem of illegal immigration as a type of cover to track and spy on Americans in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. Three years ago, the center revealed that nearly...

The Trump administration is urging Congress to reauthorize the National Security Agency's (NSA) authority to collect phone record information on millions of Americans, according to a letter obtained by The Hill. Dan Coats, the departing director of national intelligence (DNI), in a letter to senators dated Wednesday urged Congress to reauthorize all provisions in the USA Freedom Act, a controversial law that is set to expire later this year. Top Republicans on the key committees overseeing the reauthorization of the law are likely to follow DNI's lead.

The White House is seeking reauthorization of a law that lets the N.S.A. gain access to logs of Americans’ phone and text records — while acknowledging that the program has been indefinitely halted. Breaking a long silence about a high-profile National Security Agency program that sifts records of Americans’ telephone calls and text messages in search of terrorists, the Trump administration on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the system has been indefinitely shut down — but asked Congress to extend its legal basis anyway. In a letter to Congress delivered on Thursday and obtained by The New York...

A new report from The Wall Street Journal could be another damning piece of evidence for a company already under a good deal of international scrutiny. The paper is reporting that technicians working for Huawei helped members of government in Uganda and Zambia spy on political opponents. The report cites unnamed senior surveillance officers. The paper adds that an investigation didn’t confirm a direct tie between the Chinese government or Huawei executives. It did, however, appear to confirm that employees for the tech giant played a part in intercepting communications. The list includes encrypted messages, the use of apps...

Patriotism is giving Huawei a boost, but netizens say, “Talk is cheap, show me the code” Huawei has finally revealed its homegrown operating system dubbed HarmonyOS, or Hongmeng as it’s known in China. For many social media users in the country, the launch is an exciting development that represents the rise of the country as a tech power. But at the same time, many people think the company’s unveiling of the OS raised more questions than it answered. “Talk is cheap, show me the code,” one Zhihu user posted under a question about the Hongmeng launch. The user was quoting...

In May of this year, in a commentary titled “United States, don’t underestimate China’s ability to strike back,” Wu Yuehe, a journalist at the People’s Daily, had this to say: We advise the U.S. side not to underestimate the Chinese side’s ability to safeguard its development rights and interests. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! A few weeks later, two Chinese professors at Emory university lost their jobs. Li Xiaojiang and Li Shishua, who were conducting research in the field of genetics, failed to disclose grants they received from nebulous institutions in China.  Two questions: [1] Why were two...

Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance company, is teaching police how to convince residents to share camera footage with them. When police partner with Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance camera company, they get access to the “Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal,” an interactive map that allows officers to request footage directly from camera owners. Police don’t need a warrant to request this footage, but they do need permission from camera owners.Emails and documents obtained by Motherboard reveal that people aren’t always willing to provide police with their Ring camera footage. However, Ring works with law enforcement and gives them advice on how to persuade people to...

If you heard the reverberation of a few thousand heads exploding last week, it was the sound of information security professionals reacting to US Attorney General Barr saying that Big Tech "can and must" put backdoors into encryption. In his speech for a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University, Barr warned tech companies that time was running out for them to develop ways for the government to break encryption. FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed with him. At this week's big meeting of the "Five Eyes" countries, Barr was in attendance. His demands that internet companies break safe security standards of encryption...

...{Align w/ Strzok's Collusion} While the Department of Justice is investigating what triggered the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign that commenced at the end of July 2016, a new piece of information has been thrown into the mix: Andrew McCabe, who was FBI deputy director during the 2016 campaign, was exchanging messages with his counterpart in Britain's MI5, Jeremy Fleming, at the time... In one exchange in August 2016, Fleming noted that members of the FBI and MI5 had “met on our strange situation,” a veiled reference to discussions about Russian activities, according to the source.... { * *...