Category Archives: China

U.S. Deploys Commandos to the Philippines

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Why? Well as both Barack Obama and John Kerry tell us that Islamic State has lost territory, which may only be barely accurate in Iraq or Syria, they have gained a larger footprint globally and that includes the Philippines.

The Philippines-based jihadi group Abu Sayyaf Group released a new video with its Canadian, Filipino, and Norwegian hostages, giving a final deadline for their ransoms to be met and threatening to behead one of the four on April 25.

So we are deploying special forces to the region.

MANILA, Philippines— In a military buildup certain to inflame tensions with China, the United States said Thursday it will send troops and combat aircraft to the Philippines for regular, more frequent rotations, and will conduct more joint sea and air patrols with Philippine forces in the South China Sea.

In fact, Defense Secretary Ash Carter is in the region on has taken some time to board the carrier battle group the USS Stennis.

ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS —U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on Friday made a second sail of the South China Sea, underscoring the U.S. commitment to its Asia-Pacific allies amid increasing tensions with China.

Carter said his presence on the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, which was sailing about 60 to 70 miles West of the Philippines’ main island, Luzon Island, was to send “a message to the region.”

“The United States intends to continue to play a role in keeping peace and stability in this region’” said Carter, who was accompanied by Philippines defense minister Voltaire Gazmin.

What is the problem there you ask? Islamic State….the terror operation that is spreading to other regions in the world.

From Time magazine:

ISIS Is Making Inroads in the Southern Philippines and the Implications for Asia Are Alarming

Counter-terrorism operation in Philippines Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesPhilippine army soldiers stage a counterterrorism operation against Maute terrorists, who are allegedly linked with ISIS, in Butig, the Philippine province of Lanao Del Sur, in Mindanao Island, on March 1, 2016

Islamist extremism is growing in Mindanao, with serious security implications for the region and beyond

Musa Muhammad stands at the site where 400 Islamist militants launched an invasion of the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga little over two years ago, sparking 20 days of heavy fighting with security forces. The ruins of his old house can be found there, amid several hundred other razed homes. Since then his family has lived in a sports stadium, refusing to move to a newly built house in another part of town.

“This has been our home for 50 years,” he says. “We’re afraid, but we’ll never leave.”

The Moros (“Moors”), as the Muslims of the southern Philippine region of Mindanao are called, are known for their intransigence. For centuries, they fought the Spanish, Americans and Japanese for their independence. Today, they are fighting Manila too. Some 120,000 people have died, and millions have been displaced, in the past 40 years of insurgency. (Muddying the picture, a separate communist insurgency is also sporadically waged in parts of Mindanao by the New People’s Army, which is thought to consist of some 3,200 fighters.)

Yet many Moros, like Musa, are not victims of a heavy-handed central government but the casualties of infighting among their own kin. The battle at Zamboanga, which led to the destruction of Musa’s home, started off when factions of one rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front, wanted to signal their displeasure with the peace negotiations with Manila then being carried out by another rebel group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It took 3,000 troops to end the rebel occupation of several districts of the city, in an operation that saw 51 insurgents killed and drove 70,000 people from their homes.

Now those talks have stalled and, in the frustrated void that has followed their collapse, extremism has taken root. Several Moro outfits have pledged allegiance to terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and carried out attacks in its name.

One of those groups is the Abu Sayyaf militia, whose head Isnilon Hapilon — now styled Sheik Mujahid Abu Abdullah al-Filipini — has been appointed ISIS’s leader in the Philippines. Presently, the Philippine army is attempting to strike at the group’s jungle stronghold on the island of Basilan. In one of the bloodiest days for the armed forces in years, 18 soldiers were killed and over 50 wounded on April 9. ISIS claimed responsibility for the killings. Shortly after, Abu Sayyaf beheaded two Filipino hostages. (The group is also holding 10 Indonesians, two Canadians and a Norwegian captive.)

“It’s very likely that [Abu Sayyaf] will declare a satellite of the caliphate in the coming year,” says Rohan Gunaratna, an international terrorism expert at S. Rajaratnam School of Security Studies in Singapore. “Once that is done, it will be much more difficult to dismantle these groups.”

Already, up to 1,200 Southeast Asians have joined ISIS in the Middle East. Experts now worry that an ISIS stronghold in the southern Philippines will act as a regional lure, providing extremists from across Asia with a place to gain combat experience, before they set act to attack Asian targets or even targets further afield. The Jakarta attack in January that killed four civilians is just a taste of what could come, says Greg Barton, chair in global Islamic politics at Deakin University in Melbourne.

“Next time they won’t mess around with pistols but bring assault rifles,” says Barton. “That’s all it takes to turn amateurs into a lethal bunch of killers.”

Some claim that the biggest threat currently is that competing, ISIS-inspired groups would seek to upstage each other with small-scale attacks. However, organized, international networks still exist, even if the influence of al-Qaeda, which once funded training camps in the southern Philippines, has waned, along with that of its affiliates.

Indonesian operatives are already trading Syria-hardened tutors for weapons and training grounds in Mindanao, reports the ISIS Study Group, an intelligence collective run by the Washington, D.C., think tank Center for a New American Security. The area is evidently attracting insurgents from further afield too. Mohammad Khattab, an alleged bombmaking instructor from Morocco, was reportedly among the five killed militants on Basilan earlier in April. There have been rumors of Muslim Uighurs from China in the area. And in January last year, Zulkifli bin Hir — a Malaysian described as a key facilitator between Indonesian and Filipino extremist groups — was cornered and killed in Mamasapano in central Mindanao, but at the cost of 44 deaths among the Philippine army’s Special Action Force. Five civilians also lost their lives in an operation that turned the tide of support against President Benigno Aquino III’s peace negotiations with the Moro separatists.

“Before the Mamasapano tragedy, it looked really promising,” says Richard Javad Heydarian, a security expert at De La Salle University in Manila. “There were even rumors that Aquino would be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately a lot of journalists sensationalized the story, fanning anti-Muslim sentiment. Politicians running for office have then been trying to score political points on this.”

Further talk of a new, autonomous province within the Philippines for the Moro — it would be called Bangsamoro — has now been suspended until the general elections in May. In the meantime, says terrorism expert Gunaratna, intolerance is putting down deeper roots. As an example, he points to the March 1 assassination attempt on a Saudi cleric, Aaidh al-Qarni. The preacher, who has been on ISIS hit lists, was shot while visiting Western Mindanao State University in Zamboanga for a two-day symposium.

“Recent arrests in Malaysia and Indonesia clearly show that a new terror attack from ISIS in the region is imminent,” Gunaratna warns. “And the next one will be bloodier.”

New Balance Sneakers vs. the Pentagon

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Enter the early consequences of the Trans Pacific Partnership

New Balance accuses Pentagon of reneging on sneaker deal

BostonGlobe: New Balance is renewing its opposition to the far-reaching Pacific Rim trade deal, saying the Obama administration reneged on a promise to give the sneaker maker a fair shot at military business if it stopped bad-mouthing the agreement.

New Balance has several Northeast factories, including in Lawrence. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff/File

New Balance has several Northeast factories, including in Lawrence.

After several years of resistance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact aimed at making it easier to conduct trade among the United States and 11 other countries, the Boston company had gone quiet last year. New Balance officials say one big reason is that they were told the Department of Defense would give them serious consideration for a contract to outfit recruits with athletic shoes.

But no order has been placed, and New Balance officials say the Pentagon is intentionally delaying any purchase.

New Balance is reviving its fight against the trade deal, which would, in part, gradually phase out tariffs on shoes made in Vietnam. A loss of those tariffs, the company says, would make imports cheaper and jeopardize its factory jobs in New England.

The administration has made the pact a priority. It could be voted on by Congress later this year, though possibly not until after the November elections.

“We swallowed the poison pill that is TPP so we could have a chance to bid on these contracts,” said Matt LeBretton, New Balance’s vice president of public affairs. “We were assured this would be a top-down approach at the Department of Defense if we agreed to either support or remain neutral on TPP. [But] the chances of the Department of Defense buying shoes that are made in the USA are slim to none while Obama is president.”

The administration says the issues of foreign tariffs and of whether the Pentagon should be required to buy shoes made domestically are entirely separate.

New Balance disagrees. Though most of the company’s shoes are made overseas, domestic manufacturing is a big priority for owner Jim Davis, a longtime Republican donor.

Dept of Energy Computers, ah Really Nuclear Management

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We often wonder just what kind of work the Department of Justice is doing if so many of the cases and crimes in the news never seem to have real consequences for the criminal…ahem Holder and Hillary.

Anyway, we will never know the scope of crimes that really do occur across the country and for sure those against the homeland from a foreign power or rogue actors.

There was the recent posting on this site about the industrial espionage or rather agricultural espionage by China against our farmers. Then there is the matter of drug cartels and money laundering.  For sure you can think of other cases and your comments are welcome.

Rarely do we understand the matter of cyber intrusions or attacks. The case noted below is but one such case.

Justice News

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Columbia
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 11, 2016

Former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Employee Sentenced To Prison for Attempted Spear-Phishing Cyber-Attack On Department of Energy Computers

            WASHINGTON – Charles Harvey Eccleston, 62, a former employee of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was sentenced today to 18 months in prison on a federal charge stemming from an attempted e-mail “spear-phishing” attack in January 2015 that targeted dozens of DOE employee e-mail accounts.

The sentencing was announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia, and Assistant Director in Charge Paul M. Abbate of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Eccleston pleaded guilty on Feb. 2, 2016, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to one count of attempted unauthorized access and intentional damage to a protected computer.  In his guilty plea, Eccleston admitted scheming to cause damage to the computer network of the DOE through e-mails that he believed would deliver a computer virus to particular employees.  An e-mail spear-phishing attack involves crafting a convincing e-mail for selected recipients that appears to be from a trusted source and that, when opened, infects the recipient’s computer with a virus.

In addition to the prison time, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss ordered Eccleston to forfeit $9,000, an amount equal to the sum the FBI provided to Eccleston during the course of the undercover investigation. Following his prison term, Eccleston will be placed on three years of supervised release.

“Eccleston’s sentence holds him accountable for his attempt to compromise, exploit and damage U.S. government computer systems that contained sensitive nuclear weapon-related information with the intent of allowing foreign nations to gain access to that information or to damage essential systems,” said Assistant Attorney General Carlin.  “One of our highest priorities in the National Security Division remains protecting our national assets from cyber intrusions.  We must continue to evolve and remain vigilant in our efforts and capabilities to confront cyber-enabled threats and aggressively detect, disrupt and deter them.”

“Charles Harvey Eccleston is a scientist and former government employee who was willing to betray his country and his former employer out of spite,” said U.S. Attorney Phillips.  “His attempts to sell access to sensitive computer networks demonstrate why the government must be so vigilant to prevent cyber-attacks. Thanks to the FBI, this defendant was apprehended before he could do any damage. Together with our law enforcement partners, we will continue to make the detection and prevention of cyber-crimes a top priority.”

“Today’s sentencing sends a powerful message that no one will be allowed to sabotage the U.S. Government’s cyber infrastructure or threaten our national security through the illicit sale of information to a foreign intelligence service,” said Assistant Director in Charge Abbate.  “The FBI will continue to investigate and pursue those who attempt to disclose sensitive knowledge about our nation’s information systems and bring them to justice.”

Eccleston, a U.S. citizen who had been living in Davao City in the Philippines since 2011, was terminated from his employment at the NRC in 2010.  He was detained by Philippine authorities in Manila, Philippines, on March 27, 2015, and deported to the United States to face U.S. criminal charges.  He has been in custody ever since.

According to court documents, Eccleston initially came to the attention of the FBI in 2013 after he entered a foreign embassy in Manila and offered to sell a list of over 5,000 e-mail accounts of all officials, engineers and employees of a U.S. government energy agency.  He said that he was able to retrieve this information because he was an employee of a U.S. government agency, held a top secret security clearance and had access to the agency’s network.  He asked for $18,800 for the accounts, stating they were “top secret.”  When asked what he would do if that foreign country was not interested in obtaining the U.S. government information the defendant was offering, the defendant stated he would offer the information to China, Iran or Venezuela, as he believed these countries would be interested in the information.

Thereafter, Eccleston met and corresponded with FBI undercover employees who were posing as representatives of the foreign country.  During a meeting on Nov. 7, 2013, he showed one of the undercover employees a list of approximately 5,000 e-mail addresses that he said belonged to NRC employees.  He offered to sell the information for $23,000 and said it could be used to insert a virus onto NRC computers, which could allow the foreign country access to agency information or could be used to otherwise shut down the NRC’s servers.  The undercover employee agreed to purchase a thumb drive containing approximately 1,200 e-mail addresses of NRC employees; an analysis later determined that these e-mail addresses were publicly available.  The undercover employee provided Eccleston with $5,000 in exchange for the e-mail addresses and an additional $2,000 for travel expenses.

Over the next several months, Eccleston corresponded regularly by e-mail with the undercover employees.  A follow-up meeting with a second undercover employee took place on June 24, 2014, in which Eccleston was paid $2,000 to cover travel-related expenses.  During this meeting, Eccleston discussed having a list of 30,000 e-mail accounts of DOE employees.  He offered to design and send spear-phishing e-mails that could be used in a cyber-attack to damage the computer systems used by his former employer.

Over the next several months, the defendant identified specific conferences related to nuclear energy to use as a lure for the cyber-attack, then drafted emails advertising the conference.  The emails were designed to induce the recipients to click on a link which the defendant believed contained a computer virus that would allow the foreign government to infiltrate or damage the computers of the recipients.  The defendant identified several dozen DOE employees whom he claimed had access to information related to nuclear weapons or nuclear materials as targets for the attack.

On Jan. 15, 2015, Eccleston sent the e-mails he drafted to the targets he had identified.  The e-mail contained the link supplied by the FBI undercover employee which Eccleston believed contained a computer virus, but was, in fact, inert.  Altogether, the defendant sent the e-mail he believed to be infected to approximately 80 DOE employees located at various facilities throughout the country, including laboratories associated with nuclear materials.

Eccleston was detained after a meeting with the FBI undercover employee, during which Eccleston believed he would be paid approximately $80,000 for sending the e-mails.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office with assistance from the NRC and DOE.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas A. Gillice of the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Julie A. Edelstein of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.  Trial Attorney Scott Ferber of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section assisted in the investigation of this matter.  The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and the government of the Philippines also provided significant assistance.

Is there Anything the Chinese Wont Steal?

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In Iowa corn fields, Chinese national’s seed theft exposes vulnerability

ARLINGTON, Iowa (Reuters) – Tim Burrack, a northern Iowa farmer in his 44th growing season, has taken to keeping a wary eye out for unfamiliar vehicles around his 300 acres of genetically modified corn seeds.

Along with other farmers in this vast agricultural region, he has upped his vigilance ever since Mo Hailong and six other Chinese nationals were accused by U.S. authorities in 2013 of digging up seeds from Iowa farms and planning to send them back to China.

The case, in which Mo pleaded guilty in January, has laid bare the value — and vulnerability — of advanced food technology in a world with 7 billion mouths to feed, 1.36 billion of them Chinese.

Citing that case and others as evidence of a growing economic and national security threat to America’s farm sector, U.S. law enforcement officials are urging agriculture executives and security officers to increase their vigilance and report any suspicious activity.

But on a March 30 visit to Iowa, Justice Department officials could offer little advice to ensure against similar thefts, underlining how agricultural technology lying in open fields can be more vulnerable than a computer network or a factory floor.

“It may range down to traditional barriers like a fence and doing human patrols to making sure you get good visuals on what’s occurring,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said when touring Iowa State University.

But agriculture sector executives say fences and guards are not feasible, due to the high cost and impracticality of guarding hundreds of thousands of acres.

Tom McBride, intellectual property attorney at Monsanto — one of the firms whose seeds were targeted by Mo — said it safeguards its genetically modified organism (GMO) technology by protecting its computers, patenting seeds and keeping fields like Burrack’s unmarked. Monsanto says it is not considering physical barriers like fences or guards.

The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department say cases of espionage in the agriculture sector have been growing since Mo was first discovered digging in an Iowan field in May 2011. Over the past two years, U.S. companies, government research facilities and universities have all been targeted, according to the FBI.

Although prosecutors were unable to establish a Chinese government link to Mo’s group, the case adds to U.S.-China frictions over what Washington says is increasing economic espionage and trade secret theft by Beijing and its proxies.

A U.S. law enforcement official told Reuters the agency looked for a connection between the Chinese government and the conspiracy carried out by Mo.

“In cases like this, we can see connections, but proving to the threshold needed in court requires that we have documents that the government has directed this,” the official said. “It’s almost impossible to get.”

A Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, Zhu Haiquan, said he did not have detailed information on the Mo case but that China “stands firm” on the protection of intellectual property and maintains “constant communication and cooperation” with the U.S. government on the issue.

On his visit to Washington last September, President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s denial of any government role in the hacking of U.S. corporate secrets.

Mo, an employee of Chinese firm Kings Nower Seed, pleaded guilty to stealing seed grown by U.S. firms Monsanto, Dupont Pioneer and LG Seeds.

Prosecutors say he specifically targeted fields that grow the parent seeds needed to replicate GMO corn. The FBI says it suspects he was given the location by workers for the seed companies, but did not charge any employees.

DuPont Pioneer and LG Seeds declined to comment for this story.

Mo, whose case was prosecuted by the Justice Department as a national security matter rather than a simple criminal case, now faces a sentence of up to five years in prison. Five others charged in the case are still wanted by the FBI and are believed to have fled to China or Argentina. Charges were dropped against a sixth Chinese suspect.

NATIONAL SECURITY

The number of international economic espionage cases referred to the FBI is rising, up 15 percent each year between 2009 and 2014 and up 53 percent in 2015. The majority of cases reported involve Chinese nationals, the U.S. law enforcement official told Reuters. In the agriculture sector, organic insecticide, irrigation equipment and rice, along with corn, are all suspected to have been targeted, including by Chinese nationals, the official said.

Mo Hongjian, vice president of Kings Nower Seed’s parent company, Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group, declined to comment on the case or on the company’s connection with the Chinese government.

The parent firm is privately owned, but says it receives government money for research in “science and technology.”

China bans commercial growing of GMO grains due to public opposition to the technology and imports of GMO corn have to be approved by the agriculture ministry. Still, President Xi called in 2014 for China to innovate and dominate the technique, which promises high yields through resistance to drought, pests and disease.

In January, a Greenpeace report found some Chinese farmers are illegally growing GMO corn whose strains belong to companies including Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont Pioneer.

Monsanto, which supplies Burrack’s seed, said it can block foreign groups who request to tour their lab and learning center in Huxley, Iowa. For the past few years, Monsanto says it has run its own background checks on Chinese delegations that ask for a tour, and, if they are approved, boosts security to be sure they do not steal anything or take pictures.

In Washington, U.S. senators have called for a review of the $43 billion deal by state-owned ChemChina to buy Swiss seed group Syngenta, which generates nearly a quarter of its revenue from North America.

Acquiring GMO seed and successfully recreating a corn plant would allow Chinese companies to skip over roughly eight years of research and $1.5 billion spent annually by Monsanto to develop the corn, the company says.

Burrack’s farm itself was not targeted by Mo, though he grows the Monsanto parent seed that the Chinese national was digging for. Burrack grows the corn in two fields in front of and behind his house where he can watch them, a small part of his 2,800-acre farm.

He said he is told by Monsanto where and when to plant the parent seed, but has never been told to keep what he is planting a secret.

“What no one seems to understand is that they’re stealing from people like me,” Burrack said. “They’re stealing the research that farmers pay for when they buy Monsanto seed.”

Navy LTC Accused of Spying and Prostitution

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Navy Officer Accused of Spying for Foreign Power Held Secretly for 8 Months

RTSA2O4

The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer transits the East Sea during Exercise Ssang Yong 2016 on March 8. It’s been revealed that a U.S. Navy officer accused of spying was held in secret for eight months.

The redacted charge sheet is here.

By Jeff Stein/Newsweek: A U.S. Navy officer accused of spying for an unidentified foreign power was secretly arrested last summer in an espionage investigation that is ongoing, authorities said Saturday.

The heavily redacted charge sheets say the unidentified officer gave secret information “relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.” But the four-page document does not say exactly what information was provided, or for how long a period it was provided, how the information was transmitted or which nation it was provided to.

The multiple charges of espionage and attempted espionage, made public only on Friday, suggest the accused officer was under surveillance by Navy counterespionage agents for an extended period of time. The officer was arrested “about eight months ago,” according to a U.S. official who asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing some details of the case.

The name of the officer, a lieutenant commander who was assigned to a sensitive maritime patrol and reconnaissance group, is being withheld from the public “out of respect for the ongoing investigation” and the privacy rights of the accused, said the official.

The official did not rule out the possibility of further arrests in the case, which is being jointly pursued by both the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS. The officer is being held in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va.

 

The officer’s unit “provides airborne anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations from planes such as the P-8A Poseidon, P-3C Orion and unmanned MQ-4C Triton,” according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper. The command of the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force is headquartered at Hampton Roads Naval Support Activity in Norfolk, “although it’s not clear whether he was stationed there,” the paper said. The unit has wings at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida, Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state and Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

The Navy’s charge sheet said the officer is accused of three counts of attempted espionage, three counts of making false official statements and five counts of communicating defense information “to a person not entitled to receive said information.” It also said the officer provided a false address when he was on leave “rather than the actual foreign destination,” and failed to report contacts with foreign nationals.

The Navy also accused the officer, “a married man,” of procuring prostitutes ”on divers occasions” and having sex with “a woman not his wife,” a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.

The dates of the alleged espionage, the identity of the foreign spy service—if any—and the foreign nationals involved will not likely be disclosed until and if the Navy prefers court martial charges against the accused.

Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of Fleet Forces Command, will weigh the results of an Article 32 investigation, the military’s version of a grand jury, to determine whether a court martial is warranted.

The accused officer could face the death penalty if found guilty of the most serious espionage charges.

Under the UCMJ, a service member is eligible for the death penalty for espionage if found “guilty of an offense that directly concerns nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, war plans, communications intelligence or cryptographic information, or any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy.”

****

InquisitR: A U.S. Navy officer was charged with giving secrets to China and prostitution at the Norfolk Air Station in Virginia. It is believed that Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin gave secrets about vital communications systems, although the Navy has yet to determine how much and for how long.

CBS News reported that the Navy officer charged worked as a flight officer on an EP-3E Reconnaissance, a sensitive intelligence gathering aircraft. Lin is alleged to have given information on the aircraft’s communications system. The information he gave could be used to counter U.S. eavesdropping capabilities.  Additional details here.

The heavily redacted documents released accused Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin of five counts of espionage and attempted espionage, three counts of making false official statements, and five counts of communicating information to a person not authorized to receive it.