Posted on 02/01/2020 9:55:58 AM PST by NorseViking
When Wei Sun, a 48-year-old engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems, left for an overseas trip last year, he told the company he planned to bring his company-issued HP EliteBook 840 laptop along.
Sun, a Chinese-born American citizen, had been working at Raytheon, the fourth-largest US defense contractor, for a decade. He held a secret-level security clearance and worked on highly sensitive missile programs used by the US military.
Since Sun’s computer contained large amounts of classified data, Raytheon officials told him that taking it abroad would not only be a violation of company policy, but a serious violation of federal law, as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
growin up our top secret secrets were kept in a shoe box, and the only way to get to someone else’s secrets was to promise not to divulge what was in it, and pledge to ‘stick a needle in our eye, hope to die’ if we did-
I worked at Raytheon for 35 years until 2018. You cannot take a classified laptop out of the facility except as a courier, and only for a specific purpose. In general you cannot share unclassified company or government information with outside parties.
You cannot take a company laptop outside the country, even when traveling on company business. Not even to Canada. If you need a laptop during travel, for email for instance, you use a loaner.
There was a white engineer who had two daughters about to start college. He told the company that he considered the information on his laptop his business, and that he was taking it on a trip to India, whose government was paying him for a presentation. Customs seized his company owned laptop at Logan, the FBI raided his house and office, every strip of paper was removed his office. And he never came back. I wonder how his daughters are doing in college.
That is a special kind of stupid.
Thanos is dealing with the problem.
Family and friends left in China are great bargaining chips.
And we sit around - all teary eyed - at the horror of the Nisei and Issei interred at the start of WW2. (Most of ‘em were great folks and loyal Americans, I’m sure, BUT...)
If the leaders of a country are that utterly stupid as to entrust non-Americans with their crown jewels, then there is no hope for the country. Notice I said non-American, and not non-citizen. Just because someone has American citizenship status, that does not make him an American.
They told him he couldn’t bring his laptop, why the hell was he allowed out of the country with it?
Also sounds like they would have never caught him if he didn’t send them weird messages about quitting his job.
From the article:
The case, which has not been reported until now, is yet another example of China’s increasing efforts to acquire American military technology. The country’s security services have already compromised dozens of crucial US weapons systems, such as the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system, and the Aegis ballistic missile defense system used by the Navy. In 2018, Chinese hackers stole top-secret plans for a supersonic anti-ship missile being developed by the Navy known as Sea Dragon. The intruders reportedly managed to get massive amounts of sensitive signals and sensor data, in addition to the Navy’s entire electronic warfare library.
The weapons with which Sun worked are “pretty much top-of-the-line American systems,” according to Dean Cheng, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation who studies China’s military capabilities.
The AMRAAM, or Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile, is used on US fighter jets like the F-16 and F-22 to destroy other aircraft before they can be seen by anything but radar. It has also been converted into a ground-based air defense system, which may have been Sun’s focus, since prosecutors describe his work as focusing on ballistic missile defense.
The documents also say Raytheon employees will provide testimony about the Stinger missile, a “man-portable” air-defense missile that can be fired by troops on the ground, made most famous when the US supplied it to Afghan warlords fighting against occupying Soviet troops.
Perhaps most significant is Sun’s involvement with the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program, an effort to replace the interceptor used by US air defense systems to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
That’s a lot of detailed information on that, “White” engineer. Definitely a big national security issue. Could I see a news link to that?
Arrogance begets stupidity.
RED FLAG! Never take a company-issued computer out of the country.
I think many of them have relatives still there, so the Chicomms have leverage to blackmail them. We should never ever hire anyone from there. There is no way to know who is being blackmailed, bribed, threatened, etc. I can’t believe he was given a TS clearance.
with only a Secret, hopefully he didnt cause too much damage.
Or they have family/relatives back in China, and are told their “health will suffer” if they don’t cooperate. Threats work well, too.
One thing that comes to mind is they use family back in China to coerce - blackmail in effect - them.
“This is exactly why they are willing to do this. “
Most likely because he was able to trade something of value, like the names of other agents or the exact files he sold/delivered.
Actually, if this guy was a real agent, he is an absolute idiot. Most likely, he is an academic type. They believe that security rules are for other people.
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