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.
The Washington Post quotes Joel Brenner, head of counterintelligence for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, saying “Chi Mak acknowledged that he had been placed in the United States more than 20 years earlier, in order to burrow into the defense-industrial establishment to steal secrets.” If that was the case, that’s some serious espionage. I’d wish somebody could explain to me, though, why it is that the Feds had wiretaps and videotapes giving evidence that he was meeting a Chinese intelligence operative, yet still couldn’t charge him with espionage.
Probably most disturbing is that the prosecutor, arguing why he believed Chi Mak should have the book thrown at him, went with this approach:
Staples noted that the disks Mak attempted to send to China were encrypted, a clear sign that he knew it was illegal to export them.
“Why encrypt if it wasn’t going to hurt the U.S.,” he said.
Encryption suggests guilt? That’s creepy. Midnight rendezvouses, secret code words, a shoe phone – those are signs of a spy. PGP? I hope not. Is it also suggestive of guilt if he locked the briefcase that carried the disks?
The Minerva Consortia idea kinda loses some appeal when you consider that some or perhaps none of the material Chi Mak was carrying was classified, some of it he wrote himself, and I can even download some of it right now, if I can just find a pirated IEEE website password on Baidu that works, which is likely with a little effort. Let’s also not forget Wen Ho Lee’s stolen “crown jewels” were almost entirely in the public domain until after he was arrested. But most importantly, it treads close to what the U.S. government and others have accused China of using, namely the “thousand grains of sand” strategy (supposedly a Chinese proverb, though I can’t find attribution. It’s not Sun Tzu, as far as I can tell).
That aside, I’m not sure what Gates is referring to when he says that open source information on the Chinese military is only available in China. There are plenty of Chinese military websites that are accessible outside the Mainland. And here’s a handy tip for the Pentagon: Dangdang.com alone has about 300 books on Military Technology for sale online. And they ship internationally. You can even buy Tactical Data Links in Information Warfare (信息化战争中的战术数据链), the book that inspired the Army War College paper by Larry Woertzel that inspired a completely irresponsible London Times piece about China’s “secret cyberarmy”. Since shipping is either 50% of item costs or a 50 RMB minimum, they’re even encouraging you to order bulk. Has nobody been doing this all this time?
If Gates is referring to research papers delivered at international conferences, though, I would think twice if I were an academic in China. They might think I’m carrying a copy to hand off to an “American intelligence operative” at Minerva.
What happens when you don’t speak up for Chi Mak? You are next:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24755526/
Another professor indited for scholarly exchange and plastered all over the media as “spy”. Look at the boggie-man words “China”, “Iran”.
For what end? Incite anti-Chinese hysteria as far as I can tell.
That Chi Mak was not convicted of espionage, despite the best attempts at the prosecution and government to pillory him in the press essentially for that suggests that the prosecution did not have enough on him.
I’m no expert on US law, but here is US code title 18 section 1831a on economic espionage:
(a) In General.— Whoever, intending or knowing that the offense will benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent, knowingly—
(1) steals, or without authorization appropriates, takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud, artifice, or deception obtains a trade secret;
[…]
shall, except as provided in subsection (b), be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both
[‘trade secret’ is defined as follows:]
(3) the term “trade secret” means all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if—
(A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret; and
(B) the information derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through proper means by, the public
…that the prosecution didn’t charge him with this suggests even the ‘Silent Drive’ wasn’t a trade secret, or Chi Mak didn’t ‘steal’ it. Whether the Silent Drive or other technologies are in the public domain is not the question.
hello,
i remember last year ExportLawBlog had a couple of post about the Chi Mak affair:
http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/134
http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/135
If you were an American working for a Chinese defence enterprise, I’m pretty certain most Americans would expect you to sell out your employer – almost as some national/democratic duty. That’s if they don’t lynch you first.
In fact, it’s so rare to find analogies in THAT direction… that pretty much leaves only Gerald Bull. How he met his end is a good indicator of the taboo he breached.
But I digress. I certainly don’t think there is a ‘duty’ for Chinese to help their motherland through espionage. The fact that so few actually do shows just how the media have played this up to create a panic.
Just for the record, Chi Mak was not convicted of espionage. The spy charge was dropped after revelation of prosecutorial misconduct according to LA Times. Bulk of the 25 years were not even from the export control violation, but nebeulous FARA prosecution:
Here’s the amended recharge after initial espionage charge fell apart:
http://www.4law.co.il/fbicn5.pdf
Here’re the IEEE documents in question – they remain available for download by anyone in China with a credit card:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/10252/32672/01531392.pdf?arnumber=1531392
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/10225/32591/01524692.pdf?isnumber=32591&arnumber=1524692
Anything that you invent at your employer (private or government) is not necessarily yours to disclose. Certainly military hardware would qualify for that.
Bad, bad China.
Bob,
I share your concerns, look at what those Neocons at AEI have done with Iraq. China must become stronger to prevent the Neonuts at AEI to start another war.
Hang on, hang on… he helped design this QED himself? And everything he had was unclassified? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/11/commie_spies_under_beds_once_more/
That makes him less guilty than Joel or Ethel Rosenberg. Let’s put this into perspective: Anything not in the public domain he himself helped make.
This technology isn’t even that sensitive – I’ve read that the Germans have their silent drive technology completely in the public domain.
It’s impossible to get too morally excited about espionage anyway. If it was in their interests the CIA would have tried to turn him. As it was, they decided it would make a good public trial instead.
Chi Mak got caught spying, and alot of the information he possessed was not publicly available (such as the Quiet Electric Drive for the USN).
Now even Businessweek online acknowledges how bad China is:
http://tinyurl.com/6k6ft4
http://www.feer.com/essays/2008/may/beijing-embraces-classical-fascism
‘The act of espionage itself is a crime’ Thanks for that.
When you work for a company you breach trade secrets by abusing confidential data. That is trade secrets. But remember in a job you give up many of your supposed freedoms – e.g. what you can look at on the internet, what you can say, etc – in the context of the employment contract.
Outside of that there is no reason why using public domain data – no matter how guilty your mind is – would be espionage. The only way you could possibly draw a parallel is if you treat Chi Mak – or indeed any immigrant – as living a permanent contract of employment with limited freedoms in the US.
The act of espionage itself is a crime, not just the possession of classified materials. If someone downloads something off of public domain, that is not espionage. If someone takes material that is stored in their workplace for sale or public distribution, that is theft and/or espionage.
Same logic applies in the corporate world. Any “plans” your company has on its intranet or in file cabinets is company property. Any “plans” within government or military filing systems are the property of the government.
And the “thousand grains of sand” strategy has other permutations, in the middle east and europe it was not uncommon for a king or warlord to send many diseased members of the population to live among their rivals’ populations to weaken them economically and hopefully infect some military people and important members of the court as well.
That period’s version of “special forces” or “grains of sand” might be multi-lingual military people and members of the royal court sent to hold positions of skill that would get them access to mid and high levels of the target’s society, civilian services to the military and even the royal court for the purpose of making observations.