Category Archives: Treasury

Planned Parenthood, ‘Call it Research, Not Business’

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While Texas Governor, Greg Abbott has issued 3 subpoenas to abortion facilities in his home state, the Attorney General for California, Kamala Harris has sought a restraining order to keep further videos from being released.

The depravity and evil has been revealed that festers inside Planned Parenthood.

FNC: Call it ‘research,’ not ‘business,’ Planned Parenthood doc says in latest sting video

A Colorado Planned Parenthood doctor stresses calling the harvesting of fetal tissue “research” and not “business” — and casually pokes around in a petri dish of aborted remains as a colleague exclaims, “Another boy!” — in the latest video released Thursday by an activist group whose hidden camera stings have imperiled the embattled nonprofit’s taxpayer funding.

The video’s release by the Center for Medical Progress comes a day after CMP was issued a restraining order preventing it from issuing any new footage of a group that worked with Planned Parenthood, StemExpress. But Thursday’s material focuses almost entirely on a woman identified as Dr. Savita Ginde, the vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

“A lot of times, especially with the second [trimester fetuses], we won’t even put water, because it’s so big you can put your hand in there and pick out the parts.”

– Dr. Savita Ginde

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Click here to see the latest Planned Parenthood video

Ginde is shown for the majority of the edited video having a discussion about whether to frame tissue procurement as research or business with the undercover activists, whom she believes to be from a procurement company. It is against federal law to sell fetal body parts for profit.

“Putting it under the research gives us a little bit of a, a little sort of overhang over the whole thing,” Ginde said. “Yeah, and in public I think it makes a lot more sense for it to be in the research vein than I’d say the business vein.”

Ginde says in the video that it’s important for all Planned Parenthood affiliates to be on the same page about the issue, particularly those affiliates who may be in states where prevailing public opinion goes against abortion.

“Because if you have someone in a really anti-state that’s going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught,” she said.

During the conversation, Ginde is asked if she ever gets intact specimens.

“Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then we are intact,” she said.

CMP alleges that, since this particular Planned Parenthood affiliate does not use feticides in its second-trimester procedures, any intact deliveries prior to an abortion “are potentially born-alive infants under federal law.”

Near the end of the more than 11-minute video, Ginde digs through the remains of an 11-week-old fetus in a petri dish, showing different body parts to the undercover activist.

At one point, a sound identified as a skull cracking is heard. Later, someone in the room asks questions such as “Do they want brain?” and “Do people do stuff with eyeballs?” The activist laments that using water in the petri dish has caused some of the tissue to come apart.

“Well you know, a lot of times, especially with the second [trimester fetuses], we won’t even put water, because it’s so big you can put your hand in there and pick out the parts,” Ginde says. “So I don’t think it would be as war-torn.”

As Ginde looks over the fetal tissue she says, “It’s a baby.”

The last quote in the video comes from a medical assistant, joyfully proclaiming “And another boy!” when she realizes the sex of the fetus they are dissecting.

The video is the fourth to be released by CMP. Like the first three, it contains undercover video of Planned Parenthood officials and associates.

Previous videos show Dr. Mary Gatter, a Planned Parenthood medical director in Southern California, meeting with people posing as buyers of fetal specimens. The conversation focuses on how much money the buyers should pay, although Planned Parenthood insists that it only sought to cover its expenses. The videos have brought investigations of Planned Parenthood’s policies on aborted fetuses by three Republican-led congressional committees and three states.

Federal law prohibits the commercial sale of fetal tissue, but it allows the not-for-profit donation of tissue if the women who underwent abortions give their consent. Planned Parenthood says the payments discussed in the videos pertain to reimbursement for the costs of procuring the tissue — which is legal.

 

 

#IranDeal, Lobbyists and Hollywood

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The White House has gathered the army to sell to Congress and the American people the misguided and frankly dangerous Iran deal.

Just the Facts

Israel’s intelligence wing has been tracking the Iran talks from the beginning and recently allowed certain key facts to be revealed, the behind the scenes activities that demonstrate the collusion between Secretary of State,, John Kerry, the White House and Iran.

The lobby group behind this social media promotion that the White House and the State Department is Global Zero.  Enlisting in the propaganda army are Jack Black, Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas among others. Further if Thomas Pickering and Valerie Plame are also public relations soldiers, you know it is a bad deal as Pickering is the master of the Iran lobby. What would anyone in Hollywood know about the facts of the deal? It is suggested, nothing and worse they should be challenged if they even read the 160 pages of the JPOA.

The Global Zero Washington DC network with associated lobby groups run deep.

Former Senator from Georgia Sam Nunn is a co-founder of Global Zero and it was his daughter, Michelle who recently ran for a U.S. senate seat in Georgia when it was discovered she was very connected to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Former Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel was also a Board member of Global Zero.

From Real Clear Politics:

Several dozen people gathered around a giant inflatable missile on the White House lawn Saturday morning to protest anticipated spending of $1 trillion to upgrade the U’S. nuclear arsenal. Matt Brown, co-founder of the organizer, Global Zero, spoke to RCP reporter James Arkin.  The White House lawn video is here.

MATT BROWN, GLOBAL ZERO: Six years ago President Obama promised to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, and now he is about to launch a major overhaul of our nuclear arsenal that will cost us, the American taxpayers over one trillion dollars over the next three decades. And we’re saying, you’ve got to drop this plan, get back to the work of eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide. We can’t afford this, it is unnecessary, and these weapons don’t even address the threats we face today.

I interviewed Clare Lopez on June 24th about the recently signed #IranDeal. That podcast is here.

From my friend and former CIA analyst, Clare Lopez in 2009:

Across the Atlantic, the “special relationship” meant the American-British alliance, the core of the alliance that defeated Hitler in a hot war and the Soviet Union in a cold one.

But now the “special relationship” is between Iran and North Korea, the two nations which prove daily that the “axis of evil” idea wasn’t just another poor choice of words by George W. Bush.

In late July, a cargo ship carrying North Korean weapons bound for Iran was seized by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The seizure was the first since the United Nations Security Council stiffened a tough arms embargo against North Korea in the wake of its second nuclear test in May. The UNSC sanctions authorize ship searches on the high seas and complement sanctions already in place against Iran that are intended to curb its nuclear weapons development program.

There are a number of things wrong with this picture. The most obvious problem is the open working arrangement between Iran and North Korea to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. Both countries have made it abundantly clear that they hold Iran’s obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and UNSC resolutions aimed at curbing North Korea’s proliferation activities in about the same regard as they do the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

North Korea was caught building a nuclear reactor in Syria (destroyed by the Israelis in September 2007) and defector reports recently made public allege Pyongyang is also helping Myanmar to build a nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant. It was specifically to authorize interdiction of North Korean shipments of nuclear-related material to this rogues gallery of global pariah states that the UNSC passed Resolution 1874 on June 12, banning all arms exports from North Korea. Likely not the first or the last North Korean ship to challenge the new measures, the Australian-owned, Bahamian-flagged cargo ship, the ANL Australia, that was seized in the UAE was nevertheless the one that made headlines.

The 10 containers of rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition, and other prohibited items disguised as oil equipment found on board had been ordered by the Tehran-based Tadbir Sanaat Sharif Technology Development Center (TSS). TSS is a subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and both of them plus the South African company, Icarus Marine (Pty) Ltd., were named in a U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security Temporary Denial Order (TDO) on 14 April 2009.

At that time, the TDO was imposed because IRISL and TSS were about to take delivery of a Bladerunner S1 powerboat, the “Bradstone Challenger,” for intended use by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The Bradstone Challenger caught the Commerce Department’s attention not only because it features U.S.-origin engines and other components, but because it is a highly-capable fast attack craft that the IRGC arms with torpedoes, rocket launchers, and anti-ship missiles and sends out in swarms to harass U.S. ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz.

The original TDO carried an expiration date of 22 July 2009. The ANL Australia reportedly was seized at the end of July. Even though the entire IRGC, IRISL and its naval fleets are listed by the U.S. Treasury Department as Specially Designated Nationals to which unlicensed export or re-export of prohibited items is a violation of U.S. Export Administration Regulations, somehow it doesn’t come as any real shock that regimes evil enough to rape young girls before execution and use political prisoner populations to test biological weapons agents just might choose to disregard such niceties — or wait for their expiration date.

This is where the picture really begins to not make much sense. The UAE, and especially Dubai, is a known hub for the transshipment of all manner of goods, legitimate and not, including weapons and Afghan heroin, into and out of Iran. The large Iranian expatriate community in the UAE supports the tight economic relationship with the IRGC-dominated mullahs’ regime in Tehran. But at a time when the international spotlight is focused more than ever on North Korean ships heading for the Middle East, it seems odd that Iran would be giving a green light to a weapons cargo like this. It also begs the question why the weapons discovered on the one ship to have been turned in by the UAE (thus far) are so mundane. Kudos to the UAE for this demonstration of support for the UNSC sanctions, but is a batch of RPGs really the worst cargo putting in to Abu Dhabi these days?

It gets worse. On August 19, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson played host to two North Korean diplomats from Pyongyang’s U.N. mission. Gurgling happily about a possible “thaw” in relations, Gov. Richardson told reporters afterward that North Korea is ready to engage in a dialogue with the U.S. (again).

This upbeat announcement comes shortly on the heels of former President Bill Clinton’s 4 August visit to North Korea, where he obtained the release of two American journalists held by Kim Jong Il’s regime after they had ‘strayed’ into North Korean territory. Gov. Richardson hinted helpfully that the North Koreans obviously feel entitled to some kind of reward for having let the two reporters go free. Myanmar’s military junta might be looking for some quid pro quo of its own after permitting yet another wayward American to leave that country on August 16 in the company of visiting U.S. Senator Jim Webb, who’d negotiated his release.

John William Yetlaw is the swimmer who violated the house arrest restrictions on Myanmar’s most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi. Webb, too, burbled cheerily to reporters, telling them about the atmosphere of goodwill and trust that is building with the genocidal generals of Rangoon.

The capstone episode of the summer was the 21 August release of Pakistan’s father of the Islamic bomb, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, from all restrictions on his movement. The nuclear scientist whose black market proliferation activities spanned the globe and gave Iran and Libya the foundations of their nuclear weapons programs, A.Q. Khan will now be free to resume his busy career on behalf of a country beset with a jihadist threat both from within and without.

The Obama administration must surely have known about the seized North Korean ship and its weapons cargo before granting the special approvals required for the North Korean diplomats to travel from New York to Santa Fe. It probably knew about it even before President Clinton’s trip to Pyongyang. Whether the White House or Intelligence Community had any advance knowledge about AQ Khan’s impending release is not publicly known.

If there is any connection between these various events, it is not immediately apparent what it is. But what is both obvious and worrisome is that this administration lacks a strategic framework of principles and objectives for dealing with a very real and very active axis of evil that means harm to U.S. national security.

As the renowned Purdue University law professor, Louis Rene Beres, likes to say, “International law is not a suicide pact.” If North Korea and Pakistan are permitted to continue aiding and abetting Iran, Myanmar, Syria, and who knows who else to “go nuclear,” American strategic doctrine will have to scramble to persuade anyone that the U.S. retains truly persuasive military power and the will to use it.

Given the events of August 2009 and the alliances both obvious and concealed (such as Iran’s long-standing relationship with al-Qa’eda) that are moving inexorably to acquisition of catastrophic offensive power, a U.S. policy that incapacitates our intelligence capabilities, abandons our missile defense shield, makes nuclear Global Zero a national priority, and pleads piteously for reciprocity from the thugs of the world, exposes us all to Armageddon.

 

Amb. Hill and General Mattis Roundtable Discussion, Iran and America

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The last half of the video is better than the first half, but in totality, it must been viewed.

Hoover Institute:

Recorded on  July 16, 2015 – Hoover fellows Charles Hill and James Mattis discuss the Iran deal and the state of the world on Uncommon Knowledge with Hoover fellow Peter Robinson. In their view the United States has handed over its leading role to Iran and provided a dowry along with it. Iran will become the leading power in the region as the United States pulls back; as the sanctions are lifted Iran will start making a lot of money. No matter what Congress does at this point, the sanctions are gone. Furthermore, the president will veto anything Congress comes up with to move the deal forward. This  de facto treaty circumvents the Constitution.

If we want better deals and a stronger presence in the international community, then the United States needs to compromise, and listen to one another other, and encourage other points of view, especially from the three branches of government. If the United States pulls back from the international community, we will need to relearn the lessons we learned after World War I. But if we engage more with the world and use solid strategies to protect and encourage democracy and freedom at home and abroad, then our military interventions will be fewer. The United States and the world will be in a better position to handle problems such as ISIS.

Selected Israeli Intelligence Items Revealed on Iran Talks

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The deal is just too dangerous, even some Democrats are expressing that dynamic.
On Nov. 26, 2013, three days after the signing of the interim agreement (JPOA) between the powers and Iran, the Iranian delegation returned home to report to their government. According to information obtained by Israeli intelligence, there was a sense of great satisfaction in Tehran then over the agreement and confidence that ultimately Iran would be able to persuade the West to accede to a final deal favorable to Iran. That final deal, signed in Vienna last week, seems to justify that confidence. The intelligence—a swath of which I was given access to in the past month—reveals that the Iranian delegates told their superiors, including one from the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, that “our most significant achievement” in the negotiations was America’s consent to the continued enrichment of uranium on Iranian territory.

That makes sense. The West’s recognition of Iran’s right to perform the full nuclear fuel cycle—or enrichment of uranium—was a complete about-face from America’s declared position prior to and during the talks. Senior U.S. and European officials who visited Israel immediately after the negotiations with Iran began in mid 2013 declared, according to the protocols of these meetings, that because of Iran’s repeated violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, “Our aim is that in the final agreement [with Iran] there will be no enrichment at all” on Iranian territory. Later on, in a speech at the Saban Forum in December 2013, President Barack Obama reiterated that in view of Iran’s behavior, the United States did not acknowledge that Iran had any right to enrich fissile material on its soil.

In February 2014, the first crumbling of this commitment was evident, when the head of the U.S. delegation to the talks with Iran, Wendy Sherman, told Israeli officials that while the United States would like Iran to stop enriching uranium altogether, this was “not a realistic” expectation. Iranian foreign ministry officials, during meetings the Tehran following the JPOA, reckoned that from the moment the principle of an Iranian right to enrich uranium was established, it would serve as the basis for the final agreement. And indeed, the final agreement, signed earlier this month, confirmed that assessment.

The sources who granted me access to the information collected by Israel about the Iran talks stressed that it was not obtained through espionage against the United States. It comes, they said, through Israeli spying on Iran, or routine contacts between Israeli officials and representatives of the P5+1 in the talks. The sources showed me only what they wanted me to see, and in these cases there’s always a danger of fraud and fabrication. This said, these sources have proved reliable in the past, and based on my experience with this type of material it appears to be quite credible. No less important, what emerges from the classified material obtained by Israel in the course of the negotiations is largely corroborated by details that have become public since.

In early 2013, the material indicates, Israel learned from its intelligence sources in Iran that the United States held a secret dialogue with senior Iranian representatives in Muscat, Oman. Only toward the end of these talks, in which the Americans persuaded Iran to enter into diplomatic negotiations regarding its nuclear program, did Israel receive an official report about them from the U.S. government. Shortly afterward, the CIA and NSA drastically curtailed its cooperation with Israel on operations aimed at disrupting the Iranian nuclear project, operations that had racked up significant successes over the past decade.

On Nov. 8, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw him off at Ben Gurion Airport and told him that Israel had received intelligence that indicated the United States was ready to sign “a very bad deal” and that the West’s representatives were gradually retreating from the same lines in the sand that they had drawn themselves.

Perusal of the material Netanyahu was basing himself on, and more that has come in since that angry exchange on the tarmac, makes two conclusions fairly clear: The Western delegates gave up on almost every one of the critical issues they had themselves resolved not to give in on, and also that they had distinctly promised Israel they would not do so.

One of the promises made to Israel was that Iran would not be permitted to stockpile uranium. Later it was said that only a small amount would be left in Iran and that anything in excess of that amount would be transferred to Russia for processing that would render it unusable for military purposes. In the final agreement, Iran was permitted to keep 300kgs of enriched uranium; the conversion process would take place in an Iranian plant (nicknamed “The Junk Factory” by Israel intelligence). Iran would also be responsible for processing or selling the huge amount of enriched uranium that is has stockpiled up until today, some 8 tons.

The case of the secret enrichment facility at Qom (known in Israel as the Fordo Facility) is another example of concessions to Iran. The facility was erected in blatant violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and P5+1 delegates solemnly promised Israel at a series of meetings in late 2013 that it was to be dismantled and its contents destroyed. In the final agreement, the Iranians were allowed to leave 1,044 centrifuges in place (there are 3,000 now) and to engage in research and in enrichment of radioisotopes.

At the main enrichment facility at Natanz (or Kashan, the name used by the Mossad in its reports) the Iranians are to continue operating 5,060 centrifuges of the 19,000 there at present. Early in the negotiations, the Western representatives demanded that the remaining centrifuges be destroyed. Later on they retreated from this demand, and now the Iranians have had to commit only to mothball them. This way, they will be able to reinstall them at very short notice.

Israeli intelligence points to two plants in Iran’s military industry that are currently engaged in the development of two new types of centrifuge: the Teba and Tesa plants, which are working on the IR6 and the IR8 respectively. The new centrifuges will allow the Iranians to set up smaller enrichment facilities that are much more difficult to detect and that shorten the break-out time to a bomb if and when they decide to dump the agreement.

The Iranians see continued work on advanced centrifuges as very important. On the other hand they doubt their ability to do so covertly, without risking exposure and being accused of breaching the agreement. Thus, Iran’s delegates were instructed to insist on this point. President Obama said at the Saban Forum that Iran has no need for advanced centrifuges and his representatives promised Israel several times that further R&D on them would not be permitted. In the final agreement Iran is permitted to continue developing the advanced centrifuges, albeit with certain restrictions which experts of the Israeli Atomic Energy Committee believe to have only marginal efficacy.

As for the break-out time for the bomb, at the outset of the negotiations, the Western delegates decided that it would be “at least a number of years.” Under the final agreement this has been cut down to one year according to the Americans, and even less than that according to Israeli nuclear experts.

As the signing of the agreement drew nearer, sets of discussions took place in Iran, following which its delegates were instructed to insist on not revealing how far the country had advanced on the military aspects of its nuclear project. Over the past 15 years, a great deal of material has been amassed by the International Atomic Energy Agency—some filed by its own inspectors and some submitted by intelligence agencies—about Iran’s secret effort to develop the military aspects of its nuclear program (which the Iranians call by the codenames PHRC, AMAD, and SPND). The IAEA divides this activity into 12 different areas (metallurgy, timers, fuses, neutron source, hydrodynamic testing, warhead adaptation for the Shihab 3 missile, high explosives, and others) all of which deal with the R&D work that must be done in order to be able to convert enriched material into an actual atom bomb.

The IAEA demanded concrete answers to a number of questions regarding Iran’s activities in these spheres. The agency also asked Iran to allow it to interview 15 Iranian scientists, a list headed by Prof. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Mossad nicknamed “The Brain” behind the military nuclear program. This list has become shorter because six of the 15 have died as a result of assassinations that the Iranians attribute to Israel, but access to the other nine has not been given. Neither have the IAEA’s inspectors been allowed to visit the facilities where the suspected activities take place. The West originally insisted on these points, only to retreat and leave them unsolved in the agreement.

 

In mid-2015 a new idea was brought up in one of the discussions in Tehran: Iran would agree not to import missiles as long as its own development and production is not limited. This idea is reflected in the final agreement as well, in which Iran is allowed to develop and produce missiles, the means of delivery for nuclear weapons. The longer the negotiations went on, the longer the list of concession made by the United States to Iran kept growing, including the right to leave the heavy water reactor and the heavy water plant at Arak in place and accepting Iran’s refusal of access to the suspect site.

It is possible to argue about the manner in which Netanyahu chose to conduct the dispute about the nuclear agreement with Iran, by clashing head-on and bluntly with the American president. That said, the intelligence material that he was relying on gives rise to fairly unambiguous conclusions: that the Western delegates crossed all of the red lines that they drew themselves and conceded most of what was termed critical at the outset; and that the Iranians have achieved almost all of their goals.

 

The China Hack of United Airlines, Electronic Insurgency

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Warning corporations, industry and government entities is one thing, action and protection and or declaration of a cyber war is yet another.

July 2015:

Aspen Institute: Cyber warfare is one of the most potent security threats the United States faces, National Security Agency Director and Commander of the US Cyber Command General Keith Alexander told the crowd at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, discussing in conversation with NBC News Correspondent Pete Williams the nature of the threat and how his department is working to address it.
With the Stuxnet, Duqu, and Flame viruses in the fore of the public consciousness, Alexander took pains to point out that nation-states were not the only potential cyber actors. Citing power and water grids as his chief concerns, he said, “Somebody who finds vulnerability in our infrastructure could cause tremendous problems. They could erase the Input/output of a system so it can’t boot, and would have to be replaced. And these capabilities are not only nation-state-only capabilities.”

Alexander assessed the US’ readiness to confront such an attack as a three on a scale of ten, calling lack of adequately trained cyber defense forces the critical impediment to greater preparedness. “Our issue isn’t [having the tools] to address the threat,” he said. “It’s having the capacity, and building and training cyber forces. We have a big requirement, and a small force that is growing steadily.”

China-Tied Hackers That Hit U.S. Said to Breach United Airlines

Bloomberg:

The hackers who stole data on tens of millions of U.S. insurance holders and government employees in recent months breached another big target at around the same time — United Airlines.

United, the world’s second-largest airline, detected an incursion into its computer systems in May or early June, said several people familiar with the probe. According to three of these people, investigators working with the carrier have linked the attack to a group of China-backed hackers they say are behind several other large heists — including the theft of security-clearance records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and medical data from health insurer Anthem Inc.

The previously unreported United breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions of Americans, adding airlines to a growing list of strategic U.S. industries and institutions that have been compromised. Among the cache of data stolen from United are manifests — which include information on flights’ passengers, origins and destinations — according to one person familiar with the carrier’s investigation.

 

It’s increasingly clear, security experts say, that China’s intelligence apparatus is amassing a vast database. Files stolen from the federal personnel office by this one China-based group could allow the hackers to identify Americans who work in defense and intelligence, including those on the payrolls of contractors. U.S. officials believe the group has links to the Chinese government, people familiar with the matter have said.

That data could be cross-referenced with stolen medical and financial records, revealing possible avenues for blackmailing or recruiting people who have security clearances. In all, the China-backed team has hacked at least 10 companies and organizations, which include other travel providers and health insurers, says security firm FireEye Inc.

Tracking Travelers

The theft of airline records potentially offers another layer of information that would allow China to chart the travel patterns of specific government or military officials.

United is one of the biggest contractors with the U.S. government among the airlines, making it a rich depository of data on the travel of American officials, military personnel and contractors. The hackers could match international flights by Chinese officials or industrialists with trips taken by U.S. personnel to the same cities at the same time, said James Lewis, a senior fellow in cybersecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“You’re suspicious of some guy; you happen to notice that he flew to Papua New Guinea on June 23 and now you can see that the Americans have flown there on June 22 or 23,” Lewis said. “If you’re China, you’re looking for those things that will give you a better picture of what the other side is up to.”

Computer Glitches

The timing of the United breach also raises questions about whether it’s linked to computer faults that stranded thousands of the airline’s passengers in two incidents over the past couple of months. Two additional people close to the probe, who like the others asked not to be identified when discussing the investigation, say the carrier has found no connection between the hack and a July 8 systems failure that halted flights for two hours. They didn’t rule out a possible, tangential connection to an outage on June 2.

Luke Punzenberger, a spokesman for Chicago-based United, a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc., declined to comment on the breach investigation.

Zhu Haiquan, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in a statement: “The Chinese government and the personnel in its institutions never engage in any form of cyberattack. We firmly oppose and combat any forms of cyberattacks.”

Embedded Names

United may have gotten help identifying the breach from U.S. investigators working on the OPM hack. The China-backed hackers that cybersecurity experts have linked to that attack have embedded the name of targets in web domains, phishing e-mails and other attack infrastructure, according to one of the people familiar with the investigation.

In May, the OPM investigators began drawing up a list of possible victims in the private sector and provided the companies with digital signatures that would indicate their systems had been breached. United Airlines was on that list.

Safety Concerns

In contrast to the theft of health records or financial data, the breach of airlines raises concerns of schedule disruptions or transportation gridlock. Mistakes by hackers or defenders could bring down sensitive systems that control the movement of millions of passengers annually in the U.S. and internationally.

Even if their main goal was data theft, state-sponsored hackers might seek to preserve access to airline computers for later use in more disruptive attacks, according to security experts. One of the chief tasks of the investigators in the United breach is ensuring that the hackers have no hidden backdoors that could be used to re-enter the carrier’s computer systems later, one of the people familiar with the probe said.

United spokesman Punzenberger said the company remains “vigilant in protecting against unauthorized access” and is focused on protecting its customers’ personal information.

There is evidence the hackers were in the carrier’s network for months. One web domain apparently set up for the attack — UNITED-AIRLINES.NET — was established in April 2014. The domain was registered by a James Rhodes, who provided an address in American Samoa.

James Rhodes is also the alias of the character War Machine in Marvel Comics’ Iron Man. Security companies tracking the OPM hackers say they often use Marvel comic book references as a way to “sign” their attack.

Targeting Pentagon

This isn’t the first time such an attack has been documented. Chinese military hackers have repeatedly targeted the U.S. Transportation Command, the Pentagon agency that coordinates defense logistics and travel.

A report last year from the Senate Armed Services Committee documented at least 50 successful hacks of the command’s contractors from June 2012 through May 2013. Hacks against the agency’s contractors have led to the theft of flight plans, shipping routes and other data from organizations working with the military, according to the report.

“The Chinese have been trying to get flight information from the government; now it looks as if they’re trying to do the same in the commercial sector,” said Tony Lawrence, a former Army sergeant and founder and chief executive officer of VOR Technology, a Columbia, Maryland-based cybersecurity firm.

It’s unclear whether United is considering notifying customers that data may have been compromised. Punzenberger said United “would abide by notification requirements if a situation warranted” it.

The airline is still trying to determine exactly which data was removed from the network, said two of the people familiar with the probe. That assessment took months in the OPM case, which was discovered in April and made public in June.

M&A Strategy

Besides passenger lists and other flight-related data, the hackers may also have taken information related to United’s mergers and acquisitions strategy, one of the people familiar with the investigation said.

Flight manifests usually contain the names and birthdates of passengers, but even if those files were taken, experts say that would be unlikely to trigger disclosure requirements in any of the 47 states with breach-notification laws.

Those disclosure laws are widely seen as outdated. The theft by hackers of corporate secrets usually goes unreported, while the stealing of customer records such as Social Security numbers and credit cards is required in most states.

“In most states, this is not going to trigger a notification,” said Srini Subramanian, state government leader for Deloitte cyber risk services.