China :: Exposé

The Director of National Intelligence has prepared a draft intelligence directive on access by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to intelligence information, but it is shockingly bad, a congressional official said. The GAO is an investigative arm of Congress that performs audits and reviews in support of congressional oversight and the legislative process. But GAO access to intelligence information has often been frustrated by resistance from the executive branch, which has sought to strictly limit the conduct of intelligence oversight to the congressional intelligence committees. In an attempt to clarify the role of the GAO in intelligence oversight, the 2010 intelligence authorization act directed the DNI to prepare a new intelligence community directive to govern GAO access to intelligence information. The first draft of the new directive is said to reserve maximum discretion to the DNI, and to offer little practical assurance that GAO will get access to the information i...

The U.S. intelligence community will prepare a National Intelligence Estimate on the implications of the continuing decline in U.S. manufacturing capacity, said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) citing recent news reports. Last month Forbes reported that the continued erosion of the U.S. manufacturing base has gotten so serious that the Director of National Intelligence has begun preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate to assess the security implications of the decline of American manufacturing, said Rep. Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Our growing reliance on imports and lack of industrial infrastructure has become a national security concern, said Rep. Schakowsky. She spoke at a March 16 news conference (at 28:10) in opposition to the pending U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The Forbes report referenced by Rep. Schakowsky was Intelligence Community Fears U.S. Manufacturing Decline, by Loren Thompson, February 14. The decision to prepare an intelligence es...

Liu Xianbin larger than life on a placard in Hong Kong. Supporters protest his detention on Aug. 27, 2010. (Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images) Chinese dissident Liu Xianbin was paraded into court on Friday and after two hours sentenced to ten years in prison. Liu had been convicted with the vague but perilous charge of inciting subversion of state power, through essays he had written advocating democracy. The judge in the Suining court in Sichuan Province repeatedly interrupted Liu as he attempted to make a statement, his wife told various Western media outlets in China. But he managed to cry out I'm not guilty. Observers see the harsh sentence as part of an overall attempt, ramped up in recent years, to extinguish the growing cohort of human rights lawyers, democracy activists, and other voices calling for civil society in China. Its actually very simple. Its the same thing theyve been doing over the last several years. They want to smash this group of people, said Guo Guoting, a Chine...

In a process that will shape the future of secrecy policy for better or for worse, a search for a new Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), which oversees the national security classification system, has formally begun. NARA seeks a Director of the Information Security Oversight Office with responsibility for policy and oversight throughout the executive branch of the United States Government for classified national security information and controlled unclassified information, according to a March 21 notice (pdf) in USA Jobs . The ISOO Director is the principal overseer of classification and declassification policy, and the scope of his authority over classification practice is broader than that of anyone other than the President. (Though located at the National Archives, the ISOO takes national security policy direction from the White House.) The Director is responsible to ensure compliance with classification policy, and he has the power to consider and take...

Nearly 300 civilians gathered outside Wuhan Intermediate Court on March 15 to protest a lawsuit against a severely handicapped local man, Zou Bin. Zou, who is wheelchair bound and cannot talk, was accused of causing intentional injury to two of a group that attacked his mother Zou Houzhen, in an attempt to force her to vacate her apartment. Locals were incensed by the charges, particularly given the sensitive background circumstances: forced evictions inspire deep resentment toward the authorities on the part of the Chinese masses. While around 300 had gathered, including victims of forced eviction and demolition from elsewhere in the city, only 100 were eventually allowed, in according to Zhang Chunxia, a petitioner. The others kept vigil outside the court house, sharing their doubts about the alleged death and injury that Zou Bin was accused of affecting as two men broke into his mothers home attempting to forcibly evict the two of them. Another petitioner who ...

The Director of National Intelligence is calling for the integrated defense of intelligence community (IC) information and systems to protect against unauthorized disclosures of intelligence sources and methods. While every intelligence agency already has its own security procedures, a new Intelligence Community Directive (pdf) issued by the DNI would require a more coordinated and consistent approach, involving unified courses of action to defend the IC information environment. The IC information environment is an interconnected shared risk environment where the risk accepted by one IC element is effectively accepted by all, the new Directive said. Therefore, integrated defense of the IC information environment is essential to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all information held by each IC element. The Directive does not specify the defensive measures that are to be taken, but states that they should address the detection, isolation, mitigation and r...

Under extreme circumstances, U.S. military force may be turned against American civilians. An unusually explicit 1945 U.S. military field manual (pdf) described tactics for suppressing riots or protests when State and local officials are unable to control the situation. Domestic disturbances are manifestations of civil unrest or tension which take the form of demonstrations or rioting. These public demonstrations or riots may reach such proportions that civil authorities cannot maintain law and order by usual methods. Such disturbances may be caused by agitators, racial strife, controversies between employees and employers concerning wages or working conditions, unemployment, lack of housing or food, or other economic or social conditions. A city held by any organized rioters will be attacked generally in the same manner as one held by enemy troops. When small-arms fire is necessary, troops are instructed to aim low to prevent shots going over the heads of the mob and injuring innocen...

REMOVED: The TibetCul website before it was unexpectedly shutdown on March 16. TibetCul was an independent website focused on Tibetan culture that studiously avoided wading into political issues. (Courtesy of Tibetan Cultural Net) A prominent Tibetan cultural website in China has been shut down, despite a history of attempting to mollify censors. TibetCul, a contraction of Tibetan Cultural Net, fostered a community of 80,000 Tibetans and Chinese interested in Tibetan culture. The site was founded in 2003 by two brothers, Wangchuk Tseten and Tsewang Norbu, in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province in northwestern China. On March 16 the owners wrote on their Sina microblog that they suddenly found it impossible to access their website. Later, the service provider clarified to Tseten that higher authorities ordered the closure but that the specific reasons were confidential. The brothers also host a Tibetan travel and encyclopedia website. That site wasnt closed down, but ...

Does the secrecy system function according to its own autonomous principles? Is it beyond the rule of law and outside of presidential control? Not exactly. If that were true, then there would never be involuntary changes to classification policy and there would be no compulsory declassification of classified information. Fortunately, that is not consistently the case. And yet there is a disturbing pattern of evidence to show that the secrecy system resists external control, and that it will not reliably fulfill even the most explicit presidential commands or the clearest requirements of law. For example: * On December 29, 2009 President Obama ordered all agencies that classify information to issue final implementing regulations for his new executive order on classification policy by the end of December 2010. The Department of Defense, the largest classifying agency, did not comply. It did not request a waiver or an extension, it simply did not comply. As a result, the most important c...

Prosecutors in the case of the former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake, who is suspected of leaking classified information to a reporter, last week asked the court to block public access to two letters that were introduced as exhibits by the defense earlier this month. Late Friday, the court agreed to seal the two exhibits. But they remain publicly accessible anyway. The exhibits (pdf) describe the classification status of several NSA records that were found in the home of Mr. Drake, explaining why in each case the prosecution considers the records classified. The defense disputes their classification and denies that Mr. Drake ever retained any classified records at his home. Mr. Drakes defense said (pdf) that it intends to introduce testimony at trial which will include a discussion of the appropriate assignment of classification controls under the Executive Order and the consequences and pervasiveness of inappropriately assigning classification controls. To documen...

Military intelligence budget figures that were disclosed last week document the steady rise of the total U.S. intelligence budget from $63.5 billion in FY2007 up to last years total of $80.1 billion. The total intelligence budget is composed of two separate budget constructs: the National Intelligence Program and the Military Intelligence Program. Last October, the DNI revealed that the FY2010 budget for the National Intelligence Program (NIP) was $53.1 billion . And the Secretary of Defense revealed that the FY2010 budget for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) was $27.0 billion , the first time the MIP budget had been disclosed, for an aggregate total intelligence budget of $80.1 billion for FY 2010. But prior year aggregate figures were unavailable. Previous year budget figures for the NIP had been released since 2007. ( $43.5 billion in FY2007, $47.5 billion in FY 2008, $49.8 billion in FY2009). But those numbers provided an incomplete picture, officials admitted. I thought...

Editor's note : The Epoch Times here publishes direct translations of statements made by Chinese people in renouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its subordinate organizations. Statements such as these are submitted to a website affiliate of the Chinese version of The Epoch Times, Dajiyuan. The movement to renounce, withdraw from, or quit the CCP, called tuidang in Chinese, began in late 2004, soon after The Epoch Times published the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," an editorial series that explores the nature and history of the CCP. The statements offer a rare and candid glimpse of history in the making: the Chinese people turning their backs on the Communist Party, choosing conscience over pragmatism, and peacefully ushering in a future China free of Party rule. The Communist Party will be overthrown sooner or later I hereby declare my renunciation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. Recently, I learned how to brea...

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned yesterday facing an Obama Administration backlash against his remarks declaring the treatment of suspected leaker Pfc. Bradley E. Manning ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid. The conditions of Private Mannings detention became the subject of controversy when his lawyer complained that Manning was being involuntarily forced to surrender his clothing to his Quantico military guards each night, supposedly in order to protect him from self-injury. Neither Manning, his attorney, nor any competent medical authority had requested any such protection. Instead, the compulsory nudity was widely perceived as a punitive measure, prompting protests from Amnesty International , among others. (We urged the DoD Inspector General to investigate the matter, to no known effect.) Mr. Crowley, an uncompromising critic of leaks of classified information, is no friend of Private Manning who, he said, is in the right place (i.e., in jail). It was the...

The Chinese authorities have shot themselves in the foot with their heavy-handed response to calls for a Chinese Jasmine Revolution, according to the revolutionaries themselves. In an e-mail interview in English with The Epoch Times a male in his late 20s calling himself Gracchus, a core member of the group, said that the Western media has failed to understand the impact that calls in China for a Jasmine Revolution are having. The announcement calling for peaceful strolls at major cities in China every Sunday afternoon, and the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) paranoid response, has actually helped the revolutionaries cause, he says. For example, an open letter the organizers sent to Chinas youth on March 5 resulted in blockades of university campuses by security forces across the country. This unusual treatment almost certainly antagonizes the young energies and triggers their curiosity to explore the cause, Gracchus wrote. Gracchus calls himself and his peers dedicated and professional...

Unauthorized disclosures of classified information are among the major challenges facing defense intelligence, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers told Congress last month. Mr. Vickers is awaiting Senate confirmation to be the new USD(I), a post that was last held by James R. Clapper, who is now the Director of National Intelligence. The Under Secretary is dual-hatted as Director of Defense Intelligence. One of the most serious problems currently confronting the USD(I) is the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. The spate of unauthorized disclosures of very sensitive information places our forces, our military operations, and our foreign relations at risk. It threatens to undermine senior leaders confidence in the confidentiality of their deliberations, and the confidence our foreign partners have that classified information they share with us will be protected, Mr. Vickers wrote (pdf) in response to advance questions for his February 15, ...

Large Scale Organ Harvesting in China Related Articles Source of Organs for Transplants a Mystery in China 'Beyond the Red Wall: The Persecution of Falun Gong' The story was hard to stomachgruesome, at the very least. What started as a rumor, however, would later unfold into a campaign of brutality and horror perpetrated by the Chinese regime. International human rights lawyer David Matas was in his office when the story broke in March 2006. It flowed into his e-mail box along with the flood of human rights updates he reads daily. It told the story of a woman under the pseudonym Annie, whose husband suffered nightmares, as he suffered for the terror he had inflicted on more than 2,000 people. Annie said her husband, a surgeon, was employed by the Chinese regime to remove the corneas from living Falun Gong practitioners, slicing their eyes open with his scalpel while they were still alive. The rest of their organs were also stripped from their bodies, all to ...

Former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake, who was charged last year with unauthorized retention of classified information about controversial NSA programs, should not be allowed to argue in court that overclassification is widespread or that he was engaged in whistleblowing in the public interest, government attorneys said last week. In a February 25 pre-trial motion (pdf), prosecutors asked the Court for an order barring the defense from introducing any evidence, presenting any defense, or making any argument relating to the legality, constitutionality or propriety of the rules and regulations governing the disclosure of classified information, including any opinion that the intelligence community overclassifies information. The government anticipates that the defendant may claim that the current classification system is overly inclusive and protects too much information. Alternatively, the defendant may claim that the current classification system is ineffectual or i...

Large Scale Organ Harvesting in China Each year 1.5 million people in China need an organ transplant, but no one wants to donate. This was shown in a recent study reported by the Yangtse Evening Post. After one year, a pilot organ donation program in Nanjing City found zero volunteers. The Feb. 24 piece in the Post said Nanjing was one of the ten cities chosen for the 2010 pilot because of its rapidly expanding population of 6.3 million. Not only were there no takers last year, but over the past 20 years there were only three voluntary donations, the article said. Beijing Evening News also reported in August 2009: According to incomplete statistics, since the first organ donations in 2003, there were only 131 organ donations from those who passed away between 2003 and May, 2009. Major Obstacle The Yangtse Evening Post listed several examples to indicate that the major obstacles to organ donations are caused by traditional Chinese customs and mentality. One exam...

The number of private security contractors employed by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan has reached a new record high, according to DoD statistics in a recently updated report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service. In Afghanistan, as of December 2010, there were 18,919 private security contractor (PSC) personnel working for DOD, the highest number since DOD started tracking the data in September 2007. The number of PSC personnel in Afghanistan has more than tripled since June 2009, the CRS report said. The United States relies on contractors to provide a wide variety of services in Afghanistan and Iraq, including armed security. While DOD has previously contracted for security in Bosnia and elsewhere, it appears that in Afghanistan and Iraq DOD is for the first time relying so heavily on armed contractors to provide security during combat or stability operations. Much of the attention given to private security contractors (PSCs) by Congress and the media is a result of...

Zhao Wei's corpse in the morgue in funerary vestments. A coin is in his mouth with a red string protruding, part of Chinese funerary traditions. The images, taken by the parents and distributed online, have triggered enormous indignation with the authorities. (Courtesy of victim's family) The friends and family of Chinese college student Zhao Wei do not know exactly what happened to him between 3am and 7:20am on Jan. 23 this year, but they believe authorities murdered him. So too do Chinese netizens; a Hong Kong media research group says it's "very possible." His friend last saw him alive at 3am. At 8am Zhaos parents got a call from police telling them that their son was dead. The case has begun attracting attention on the Chinese Internet, and authorities have been fast in clamping down on the news spread. Similar cases of mysterious deaths of young peopleoften later discovered to have been murders by the authoritieshave in the past resulted in mass r...

Police keep watch along the Wanfujing shopping street in Beijing after protesters gathered on February 20, 2011. A website claiming to represent China's homegrown Jasmine Revolution has called on the populace to take to the streets, every Saturday at 6:00pm. (Peter Parks/Getty Images) A website claiming to represent Chinas homegrown Jasmine Revolution has called on the populace to take to the streets, every Saturday at 6 p.m. They sign their posts with Chinese Jasmine Revolution Initiators, and give regular updates with ultra-specific instructions on locale, protest etiquette, and an evolving political stance. They say that everyone should simply turn up and walk around, smiling. The impact such actions may have is ambiguous, say dissidents and observers. I see it as a small activity, said China scholar Perry Link in a phone interview. Staying on the move prevents police from forcing you to go on the move. I think thats the reason they walk around. But I don...

In June 2009, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked the Obama Administration to rescind certain classified legal opinions issued by the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that asserted legal justifications for the Bush Administrations warrantless wiretapping program. But more than a year and a half later, those OLC opinions remain under review and no action has been taken to invalidate them, the Justice Department indicated in a newly published hearing volume. I just want to reiterate how important it is for the legal justifications for this program to be withdrawn, said Sen. Feingold at a June 17, 2009 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, referring to the warrantless wiretapping program. I am concerned these memos that make unsupportable claims of executive power will come back to haunt us if they remain in effect. And if you believe, as I think the President [Obama] has indicated in the past, that the program was illegal, they cannot stand. Attorney General Eric Hol...