Posted on 04/03/2008 2:36:23 AM PDT by John W
WASHINGTON - Prosecutors called Chi Mak the "perfect sleeper agent," though he hardly looked the part. For two decades, the bespectacled Chinese-born engineer lived quietly with his wife in a Los Angeles suburb, buying a house and holding a steady job with a U.S. defense contractor, which rewarded him with promotions and a security clearance. Colleagues remembered him as a hard worker who often took paperwork home at night.
Eventually, Mak's job gave him access to sensitive plans for Navy ships, submarines and weapons. These he secretly copied and sent via courier to China -- fulfilling a mission that U.S. officials say he had been planning since the 1970s.
Mak was sentenced last week to 24 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge who described the lengthy term as a warning to China not to "send agents here to steal America's military secrets." But it may already be too late: According to U.S. intelligence and Justice Department officials, the Mak case represents only a small facet of an intelligence-gathering operation that has long been in place and is growing in size and sophistication.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
i guess you have to be a convicted honky-european spy to make the news anymore. sheesh! this is the second spy scum to be convicted in a week and not a peep from the msm.
My thoughts exactly. I had never heard anything about these guys until I started seeing the stories here at FR. Again, thank goodness for FR!!
I think these “defense contractors” had better start doing a better job of vetting their employees of Chinese extraction. Too bad if it hurts their feelings! (It wouldn’t hurt if they did a better job of checking out ALL of them.)
Say what you will about John McCain, I think, if nothing else, the willful selling out of America is intolerable to him ... and he just may be the one that says, "Mr Clinton, you're under arrest."
Wow, between spyies, Tibet, communist oppression, propaganda and murder of chinese civilians, I can’t wait to see our country partipate at the Olympics in China!
/s
it’s probably a safe bet that a sizabale portion of those foreign “students” at various US and Camadian universities are spying for China.
But the schools love the extra-high tuitions they pay, so don’t expect an end anytime soon.
It’s probably a safe bet that a sizabale portion of those foreign “students” at various US and Camadian universities are spying for China.
But the schools love the extra-high tuitions they pay, so don’t expect an end anytime soon.
The espionage methodology of the ChiComs is less focused on stealing the “big secrets” and concentrates instead on gathering lots and lots of small, seemingly insignificant pieces of information and then putting them together to form the “big secrets.”
Believe it or not, you may be working with Chinese-Americans who may be giving information to the ChiComs either unaware of the significances of what they are doing or because they've made the decision to support their motherland over the US.
Not everyone is an anti-American spy. But we need to “trust but verify” and we need to seriously overhaul our immigration at ALL levels, starting with an immediate freeze until we get our house in order.
That may be all true. But Mak was Chinese-born, and ultimately given a security clearance from a defense contractor. Something in that simply doesn’t seem right, and in this case proved to be dead wrong.
Whatever his motives or reasons, he passed on military secrets and I’m glad he’s been caught at it. Personally I wish we’d make an example out of him so the other “Chinese borns” working here had something even more to think about.
In my 3.5 years on FR, this is the first time I’ll say “it’s Bush’s fault” for not pursuing intellectual property legislation against China (and Asia) very early in his presidency.
There’s NO reason why a foreign born person should have any access to any defense related material.
Where/when did we go wrong on this issue?
Redux of the Japanese-Americans, being marched to the internment camps? My husband is american-born-*(Brooklyn)*, a loyal AMERICAN. Call me an over-emotional female, but fellow freepers-remember I am part-asian, so I am sensitive to these matters, plus my husband is an American of Chinese Ancestry. Mr. Mak, was allowed to steal information, unchecked, no watching eyes over him? I think not, I think the proper authorities, let the lo-si steal, maybe leading us to the bigger dai-lo-si?/Just Asking - seoul62.......
Hanging him would have sent a better message.
Chinese aren’t doing anything today, the Japs weren’t doing prior and during WWII.. until they were rounded up. I know the civil rights attorneys don’t like it but fact is, domestic sabotage ended almost immediately after the round up happened.
Their primary focus is industrial espionage. Manufacturing processes, etc.. You can steal the plans for the F-22, but it does you no good if you do not have the ability to reproduce it or the systems needed to defeat it.
The big stuff they can get through cash payments to the Clintons.
Actually it was H.W. Bush’s fault for giving the ChiComs favored nation trade status in the first place.
All bets were off then. No communist nation ever honors treaties or agreements except in the breach. Bush Jr. could have wailed all he wanted to about “intellectual property” and it would have made no difference.
When his dad gave them the right to freely trade in the US he gave away the only leverage we had over them.
My research (Google) indicates Carter was the first to grant China Favored Nation Trade Status, and the following administrations continued the trend. Clinton made it permanent.
Mak should have received the death penalty.
Under carter it was conditional and had to come up for re ratification every year or so (I forget). Bush #1 pushed for making it permanent, but it was not actually signed until he was out of office. I should have clarified that.
I fear you give too much credit to our "intelligence" services, but I bet they'd like your idea.
"See, it looks like a blunder, but really we were going for the big fish. That's it!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.