From the Washington Post, April 3rd, after the verdict in the Chi Mak espionage trial:
“The Chinese government, in an enterprise that one senior official likened to an “intellectual vacuum cleaner,” has deployed a diverse network of professional spies, students, scientists and others to systematically collect U.S. know-how, the officials said.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, April 13th, announcing the Minerva Consortia (h/t Danger Room):
“The Chinese government publishes a tremendous amount of information about military and technological developments on an open-source basis. However, it is often inconvenient, if not impossible, for American researchers to get access to this material since it is often available only in China. A real – or virtual – archive of documents acquired by researchers and others abroad would help us track Chinese military and technological developments.”
Yes! Because U.S. academics should be thrilled to copy and export unclassified public domain data from China after the U.S. locked up someone for the rest of his natural life for doing the same thing.