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President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he was granting 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations in what his administation called the “largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.” But it’s not Thursday’s set of commutations that have caught the attention of concerned Americans — it’s those that were quietly given weeks ago to Chinese spies.X user Nick Sortor posted that “Joe Biden just pardoned multiple Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child p*rnography. WHY?”But the thing is, Biden didn’t “just” commute the sentences for these criminals — he did it quietly only days before Thanksgiving.While most Americans...

A Chinese-born researcher has been arrested for allegedly stealing trade secret technologies developed for the U.S. government to detect nuclear missile launches and to track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).Chenguang Gong, 57, of San Jose, California, was arrested in San Jose on Feb. 6, prosecutors said.Mr. Gong became a U.S. citizen in 2011. He got his master’s degree in electrical engineering from Clemson University and completed some work toward a doctorate at Stanford University, according to court documents.From January 2023 to April 2023, Mr. Gong worked as an engineer for a research and development...

A Chinese chemical engineer was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing trade secrets on drink can coatings to establish a Chinese company backed by the Chinese government.Xiaorong “Shannon” You, 59, was sentenced on Monday by a federal judge in Greeneville, Tennessee, on the charges of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, possession of stolen trade secrets, economic espionage and wire fraud. In addition, she is ordered to pay a $200,000 fine and serve three years of supervised release. “Stealing technology isn’t just a crime against a company,” Acting Assistant Director Bradley S....

Sometimes, it is good to be Pfizer — especially when there is a pandemic they can leverage to their advantage to create a monopolistic market-share of a vaccine that government literally buys from them and markets to patients, or when they can manipulate the government into protecting their data for another half-century. Other times, it isn’t so good to be Pfizer, as was the case with Project Veritas’ story which showed Pfizer employees contradicting the government’s vaccine narrative.And yet other times, Pfizer runs into a situation so dire, it could destroy their business for a decade to come. In pharmaceuticals,...

A BURIED LEAD IN JUDGE TIMOTHY C. BATTEN’S ORDER RELEASED LATE LAST NIGHT FROM AN ATLANTIC DISTRICT COURT DESCRIBES GEORGIA STATE LAWYERS – OSTENSIBLY ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE PUBLIC VIA THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT – DEFENDING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS’ “TRADE SECRETS”.The court ordered that voting software and information contained therein should not be destroyed, or erased or altered in Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties. But the order also revealed:“Defendants’ counsel also argued that allowing such forensic inspections would pose substantial security and proprietary/trade secret risks to Defendants.”https://www.scribd.com/document/486383882/Ga-Court-Order#download&from_embed The bizarre nature of government lawyers defending a private, foreign company’s “trade secrets”...

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Levandowski, who was convicted on Tuesday following a March plea agreement, said Levandowski could enter custody once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided. Alsup said a sentence short of imprisonment would have given “a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets,” comparing what Levandowski took to a “competitor’s game plan.” The 75-year-old judge, who has been involved in Silicon Valley litigation for nearly five decades, described Levandowski’s conviction as the “biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.” “Billions [of dollars] in the future were at play, and...

A former associate scientist was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in federal court today for stealing proprietary information worth more than $1 billion from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company.In November 2019, Tan pleaded guilty to theft of a trade secret, unauthorized transmission of a trade secret, and unauthorized possession of a trade secret. From June 2017 until December 2018, Tan was employed as an associate scientist at the petroleum company and was assigned to work in a group with the goal of developing next generation battery technologies for stationary energy storage, specifically flow batteries. In his...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 11, 2020 The head of a Houston-based company that was the subsidiary of a Chinese company that developed stolen trade secrets was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $330,000 by U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the District of Columbia.Shan Shi, 55, of Houston, Texas, had previously been found guilty of conspiracy to steal trade secrets by a jury on July 29, 2019.  Evidence admitted during a three-week trial showed that Shi had signed an agreement with Taizhou CBM Future...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, November 12, 2019 Chinese National Pleads Guilty to Committing Theft of Trade Secrets Hongjin Tan, a 35 year old Chinese national and U.S. legal permanent resident, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to committing theft of trade secrets from his employer, a U.S. petroleum company.Tan pleaded guilty to theft of a trade secret, unauthorized transmission of a trade secret, and unauthorized possession of a trade secret. The defendant stole the information from a U.S.-based petroleum company regarding the manufacture of a “research and development downstream energy market product”...

Pitbull went public with the contract he signed with Florida -- revealing the state paid him a ton of money to be its ambassador -- but he only did it after a politician pushed him into a corner. ....Florida state's Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran had filed a lawsuit asking a judge to allow Pitbull's deal to be made public. As we reported ...Pitbull's company had threatened to sue if representatives leaked the "trade secrets" in his contract.

China needs to better protect trade secrets and fairly enforce business rules to ensure European investment and hiring at a time when Chinese leaders are trying to foster a more innovative economy, the biggest European business group in China said Wednesday. Optimism about continued profitability is waning and nearly a quarter of European companies doing business in China plan to cut staff, according to an annual survey by the European Chamber of Commerce. […] To ensure continued European participation during China’s economic slowdown and its “paradigm shift” toward more value-added industries, the government must more uniformly enforce business rules without...

WASHINGTON—A former research scientist was sentenced late yesterday to 60 months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Dow Chemical Company and selling them to companies in the People’s Republic of China, as well as committing perjury, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux Jr. for the Middle District of Louisiana. U.S. District Court Judge James J. Brady also sentenced Wen Chyu Liu, aka David W. Liou, 75, of Houston, to two years of supervised release and ordered him to forfeit $600,000 and pay a $25,000 fine. A...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Chinese National Charged with Economic Espionage Involving Theft of Trade Secrets from Leading Agricultural Company Based in Indianapolis WASHINGTON—Kexue Huang, aka John, 45, has been arrested and charged in a 17-count indictment with economic espionage intended to benefit a foreign government and instrumentalities, and interstate and foreign transportation of stolen property, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison for the Southern District of Indiana. Huang was arrested on July 13, 2010, in Westborough, Massachusetts by FBI agents, and today made his initial appearance...

Former Engineer Sentenced To 15 years For Stealing Aerospace Secrets For China February 8 A Chinese-born aerospace engineer who had access to sensitive material while working with a pair of major defense contractors in Southern California was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for acquiring secret space shuttle information and other documents for China. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney in Santa Ana imposed a 188-month prison term on Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 73, a naturalized U.S. citizen who resides in Orange. At Monday’s sentencing, Carney declared that he could not “put a price tag” on national security...

Note: The following text is a quote: Swedish National Charged with Hacking and Theft of Trade Secrets Related to Alleged Computer Intrusions at NASA and Cisco Philip Gabriel Pettersson, aka "Stakkato," 21, a Swedish national, was indicted today on intrusion and trade secret theft charges. The five-count indictment includes one intrusion count and two trade secret misappropriation counts involving Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco), of San Jose, Calif., which is a provider of computer network equipment and producer of Internet routers. According to the allegations in the indictment Pettersson intentionally committed an intrusion between May 12, 2004, and May 13, 2004,...

A judge agreed Monday to postpone for 13 months the trial of a Chinese-American engineer charged with stealing military and aerospace trade secrets on behalf of China. Kenneth Miller, the attorney for 72-year-old Dongfan "Greg" Chung, asked for the delay because he is involved in a lengthy trial, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples. The trial was scheduled for April 8, but U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney agreed to delay it until May 5, 2009. The government alleges that Chung stole trade secrets on the space shuttle, C-17 military transport and the Delta IV rocket during his decades of employment...

A former Boeing engineer was arrested at his Orange home today after being accused of compromising national security by stealing trade secrets about several aerospace programs, including the Space Shuttle, to benefit the People's Republic of China. In an indictment unsealed today, Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 72, was charged with eight counts of economic espionage, one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, one count of acting as an unregistered foreign agent without prior notification to the attorney general, one count of obstruction of justice, and three counts of making false statements to FBI investigators, prosecutors say. A woman who answered...

A Chinese engineer was charged Thursday with stealing trade secrets from a Silicon Valley company that made military training software and attempting to sell them to Asian governments. Xiaodong Sheldon Meng, 42, a Chinese national with Canadian citizenship, was indicted on 36 felony counts, including the rare charge of economic espionage to benefit a foreign government and various violations of military technology export laws. In an unrelated but similar economic espionage case, two other engineers pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing proprietary computer chip designs from four technology giants and attempting to smuggle them to China. Prosecutors say Meng stole the...

Apple Sues Think Secret CNET News reports that Apple is suing rumor site Think Secret for posting Apple trade secrets and for encouraging and inducing persons to provide product information in breach of agreements. Previously, Apple had named ThinkSecret.com, along with AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org, in subpoenas while tracking down leaks of information about Asteroid. The court filings list particular Think Secret articles, including the headless iMac and iLife '05 stories, without identifying which reported details are true. "Apple has filed a civil complaint against the owner of ThinkSecret.com and unnamed individuals who we believe stole Apple's trade secrets," Apple said...

US Economic Intelligence Policy and Global Competition By Garth Hancock (When this was written --Mr. Hancock was a second year graduate student working towards his MA in International Policy Studies. Prior to attending the Institute he worked as a small company vice-president. His concentration was in trade, with a particular interest in govemment-private relations. "It would not surprise me that intelligence agencies in all countries are involved in examining what their international competitors are doing, but I'm not aware of any such activities on behalf of the US intelligence agencies." - US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, October 19, 1995. Many...