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Old 02-01-2020, 08:49 AM
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Exclamation Raytheon engineer arrested for taking US missile defense secrets to China

Raytheon engineer arrested for taking US missile defense secrets to China
By: Justin Rohrlich & Tim Fernholz - Quartz News - 02-01-20
Re: https://qz.com/1795127/raytheon-engi...rets-to-china/

Photo link: https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/upload...l&w=1100&h=618
The alleged rogue employee was involved with systems designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

When Wei Sun, a 48-year-old engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems, left for an overseas trip last year, he told the company he planned to bring his company-issued HP EliteBook 840 laptop along.

Sun, a Chinese-born American citizen, had been working at Raytheon, the fourth-largest US defense contractor, for a decade. He held a secret-level security clearance and worked on highly sensitive missile programs used by the US military.

Since Sun’s computer contained large amounts of classified data, Raytheon officials told him that taking it abroad would not only be a violation of company policy, but a serious violation of federal law, as well.

2nd link Federal Charges: https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/upload...all&quality=75
Source: US District Court for the District of Arizona.
Topic: Sun had access to sensitive missile defense technology.

Sun didn’t listen, according to US prosecutors. While he was out of the country, Sun connected to Raytheon’s internal network on the laptop. He sent an email on Jan. 7, suddenly announcing he was quitting his job after 10 years in order to study and work overseas.

When Sun returned to the United States a week later, he told Raytheon security officials that he had only visited Singapore and the Philippines during his travels. But inconsistent stories about his itinerary led Sun to confess that he traveled to China with the laptop.

A Raytheon lawyer examined the machine, and confirmed it contained technical specifications prohibited from export by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), in addition to security software that is itself export-controlled and requires a special license to take outside the United States.

Sun was arrested by FBI agents the next day. His attorney, Cameron Morgan, did not respond to a request for comment. Raytheon said only that the company “cooperated with this investigation,” declining to elaborate further.

Court documents reviewed by Quartz refer to Sun possessing classified files related to several different air defense systems designed by Raytheon for the US military and sold to American allies and proxies around the world.

The case, which has not been reported until now, is yet another example of China’s increasing efforts to acquire American military technology. The country’s security services have already compromised dozens of crucial US weapons systems, such as the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system, and the Aegis ballistic missile defense system used by the Navy. In 2018, Chinese hackers stole top-secret plans for a supersonic anti-ship missile being developed by the Navy known as Sea Dragon. The intruders reportedly managed to get massive amounts of sensitive signals and sensor data, in addition to the Navy’s entire electronic warfare library.

The weapons with which Sun worked are “pretty much top-of-the-line American systems,” according to Dean Cheng, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation who studies China’s military capabilities.

The AMRAAM, or Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile, is used on US fighter jets like the F-16 and F-22 to destroy other aircraft before they can be seen by anything but radar. It has also been converted into a ground-based air defense system, which may have been Sun’s focus, since prosecutors describe his work as focusing on ballistic missile defense.

The documents also say Raytheon employees will provide testimony about the Stinger missile, a “man-portable” air-defense missile that can be fired by troops on the ground, made most famous when the US supplied it to Afghan warlords fighting against occupying Soviet troops.

Perhaps most significant is Sun’s involvement with the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program, an effort to replace the interceptor used by US air defense systems to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

The Pentagon cancelled the program last year because of technical problems, but information about the project would still be useful to China to understand what the US might do to defend from conventional or nuclear missiles. Missile technology has become central to Beijing’s strategy to deter US power (Quartz member exclusive) in the Pacific, making up for deficiencies and a lack of experience with weapons systems like jet fighters.

China would be eager to learn how to defeat the missiles by understanding the technical details of how they find their targets with radar and other sensors, and how they respond to attempts to jam or distract them, Cheng told Quartz.

China already has its own equivalents of these weapons, so it’s not necessarily seeking to copy US technology. However, as one example, China’s advanced air-to-air missile has never been used in combat, while the AMRAAM has, so its design may offer lessons that China’s defense industrial base has yet to learn.

Cheng said this is “one piece of the larger Chinese espionage picture…we tend to focus on Chinese cyber [but] they have human intelligence, they have people trying to steal examples of it in other countries as well.”

None of the documents shed any light on Sun’s co-conspirators, if any, and it’s not clear if Sun was acting at the behest of Chinese intelligence.

“I can assume that Chinese government agencies are keeping their eye on former citizens who are working in big US companies [like Raytheon],” said Janosh Neumann, a former counterintelligence officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service who now lives in the United States.

Regardless, William Mackie, the lead prosecutor on the Sun case, said someone like Sun can do damage without directly cooperating with anyone. The files Sun allegedly took out of the country could have just as easily been purloined by an adversarial spy service without the engineer’s knowledge.

“If your computer gets left in a hotel room, somebody could image the whole thing and you’d never know it,” Mackie told Quartz. “There’s always the risk of something like that—no different than if somebody took pictures or copies of blueprints or a paper file.”

Legal filings suggest that Sun, who initially pleaded not guilty, is preparing to change his plea to guilty as part of an agreement with the Department of Justice. He is scheduled to appear in court on Feb.

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Personal note: Wow! Secret Clearance on Military Spec's allowed to leave the country is pretty bad. I'd suggest all Secret Data be kept in the area of those departments. He should also have been stopped at the airport during examination. The Airports will have to have additional personal information regarding Foreign National's departing the country for family visits or what ever. Special documents having Top Secret information should never leave this country without undo special attention and the reasons why and some Governmental Document authorizing its movements. Uncle Sam has to get smarter this was too easy to have happen. Shame on us and lock him up regardless. This is cold war stuff that won't go away. Who know's maybe they had his family locked up and in order to free them up he had to supply Top Secret Data to get them released. However his supervisor and the document control departments have to be very leery and sensitive to Top Secret data especially on laptops. It's bad enough he could've taken this on a data stick as well.

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U.S. Congress passes Espionage Act
June 15th 1917
Re: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-...-espionage-act

On this day in 1917, some two months after America’s formal entrance into World War I against Germany, the United States Congress passes the Espionage Act.

Enforced largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson, the Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. Anyone found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years.

The Espionage Act was reinforced by the Sedition Act of the following year, which imposed similarly harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making false statements that interfered with the prosecution of the war; insulting or abusing the U.S. government, the flag, the Constitution or the military; agitating against the production of necessary war materials; or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts. Both pieces of legislation were aimed at socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists during World War I and were used to punishing effect in the years immediately following the war, during a period characterized by the fear of communist influence and communist infiltration into American society that became known as the first Red Scare (a second would occur later, during the 1940s and 1950s, associated largely with Senator Joseph McCarthy). Palmer–a former pacifist whose views on civil rights radically changed once he assumed the attorney general’s office during the Red Scare–and his right-hand man, J. Edgar Hoover, liberally employed the Espionage and Sedition Acts to persecute left-wing political figures.

One of the most famous activists arrested during this period, labor leader Eugene V. Debs, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a speech he made in 1918 in Canton, Ohio, criticizing the Espionage Act. Debs appealed the decision, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where the court upheld his conviction. Though Debs’ sentence was commuted in 1921 when the Sedition Act was repealed by Congress, major portions of the Espionage Act remain part of United States law to the present day.

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Personal note: This type of espionage needs to be updated and reformed to include more specifics and screening of all foreign nationals having families aboard. The are open to possible threats to their families back home. We have way too much sensitive data today on many electronic equipment. High tech data with Secret and above need more attention to these issues. This old 1917 Espionage Act needs to be update and more extensive attention to who gets to work in these areas and how to safeguard US secrets. We are to blame for not watching those who may be subject to foreign elements again in the near future without us knowing just what may result.

Boats
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Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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