China :: Exposé

Chinese dissident Liu Gang is pictured on May 3, 1999 in Cambridge, Mass., after he received permission to stay in the United States. Liu had served a six-year prison term in China for his involvement in the Tiananmen Square democracy movement. (John Mottern/AFP/Getty Images) A former leader of the 1989 Tiananmen student movement has accused his wife of being a spy for the Chinese Communist Party in a series of Twitter posts and online blog entries over the weekend. His wife denies the accusation. Liu Gang lives in exile in the United States and is a member of the overseas Chinese democracy movement. He met his wife four years ago online, and in their first face-to-face meeting she proposed marriage. Since she was young, pretty, a graduate from a top business school in the United States, and a manager in a major firm, he agreedhe later said he thought her sudden proposal to him was the American way. Her name is Guo Yinghua, but in his Twitter messages Liu now calls her Offi...

The precise number of persons who hold security clearances for access to classified information was supposed to be reported to Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the first time in February 2011. But that total number, which is believed to be around 2.5 million, remains elusive and it still has not been provided. At a December 1, 2010 hearing of a House Intelligence Subcommittee, John Fitzpatrick, director of the ODNI Special Security Center, told Rep. Anna Eshoo that the precise number of clearances would be revealed early this year. We have a special data collection to provide a definitive answer on that in the February 2011 IRTPA report, he said , referring to a report required under the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. ( How Many People Have Security Clearances? , Secrecy News, December 14, 2010). But when the February 2011 IRTPA report (pdf) was publicly released this month, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request,...

The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has named two new federal district court judges to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to replace two others whose term had expired. The FIS Court is responsible for reviewing government applications for electronic surveillance and physical search under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act . The new appointments are Judge Jennifer B. Coffman of the Eastern District of Kentucky, and Judge F. Dennis Saylor of the District of Massachusetts. Both judges were appointed for a seven year term effective May 19, 2011, said Sheldon L. Snook, Esq., the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. They replace outgoing FIS Court members Judge Dee Benson and Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr. whose term on the Court ended May 18. At least one of these [FIS Court] judges is available at all times24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a yearfor the purpose of reviewing government applicati...

The Pentagon Papers that were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg four decades ago have been formally declassified and will be released in their entirety next month except for eleven words that remain classified. David S. Ferriero , the Archivist of the United States, announced the surprising exception to the upcoming release of the Papers at a meeting of the Public Interest Declassification Board on May 26. The nature of the censored words was not described, but the National Declassification Center said on its blog that all eleven of them appeared on a single page. The Center also said that the release next month will present the American public with the first real look at this historic document, because it will be more complete and accurate than any prior edition of the Papers. From a security policy point of view, the decision to maintain the classification of eleven words is questionable because it invites attention and speculation, not to mention ridicule, focused precisely on that which ...

An amendment offered on May 24 by Sen. Ron Wyden would have challenged the Administrations reliance on what he called secret law and required the Attorney General to explain the legal basis for its intelligence collection activities under the USA PATRIOT Act. But that and other proposed amendments to the PATRIOT Act have been blocked in the Senate. The public will be surprised when they learn about some of the interpretations of the PATRIOT Act, Sen. Wyden said , based on his access to classified correspondence between the Justice Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee. U.S. Government officials should not secretly reinterpret public laws and statutes in a manner that is inconsistent with the publics understanding of these laws or describe the execution of these laws in a way that misinforms or misleads the public. We can have honest and legitimate disagreements about exactly how broad intelligence collection authorities ought to be, and members of the public do not expect to...

Instead of imposing mandatory new legal restrictions on publication of sensitive information, the nation would be better off if scientists, journalists and others adopted an ethic of self-restraint in what they choose to publish, a provocative new paper suggests. An abundance of information that could be useful to terrorists is available in the open literature, wrote analyst Dallas Boyd. But that doesnt mean it should be censored by law. A soft consensus seems to have formed that airing this information does not subtract from national security to such an extent as to justify the extraordinary powers that would be required to suppress it. An alternative to draconian restrictions on speech entails fostering a culture of voluntary restraint, in which citizens refrain from inappropriate revelations out of a sense of civic duty. Its enforcement would depend not on government coercion but on individuals and institutions supplying disapproval of irresponsible discussion, he suggested . Stigm...

Family Says Charges AgBeijing finally laid charges against prominent Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei on May 20, accusing him of tax evasion over a month after his abduction from the Beijing International Airport. Ais family responded that the charges are arbitrary and illegal. The Communist Party mouthpiece Xinhua published a brief report on Friday, saying that Preliminary investigation shows, Beijing Fa-Ke Cultural Development Ltd, controlled by Ai is involved in evading huge amounts of taxes and destroying accounting records. Ais family said that police had never informed them about the charges before the Xinhua report. Ais sister, Gao Ge, said, Fa-Ke Cultural is not Ai Weiweis company, and the police have not met with the companys legal representative. According to Hong Kong media Apple Daily, the company is registered and belongs to Ais wife, Lu Qing. Referring to her brothers abduction, Gao asked, How could an illegal starting point lead to a legal conclusion? The Xinhua rep...

A new counterintelligence directive (pdf) requires all Department of Defense personnel to report a wide range of suspicious activities and behavior to counterintelligence officials. The directive effectively deputizes millions of military and civilian employees of the Department as counterintelligence agents or informants. If they do not report any of the specified activities, they themselves could be subject to punitive action. Potential FIE [Foreign Intelligence Entity] threats to the DoD, its personnel, information, materiel, facilities, and activities, or to U.S. national security shall be reported by DoD personnel, the new directive states. DoD personnel who fail to report information as required may be subject to judicial or administrative action, or both, pursuant to applicable law and regulation, it says. See DoD Directive 5240.06, Counterintelligence Awareness and Reporting, May 17, 2011. The directive lists numerous actions that are subject to mandatory reporting including ...

No matter how her appearance has changed, in my heart my Mom is the most beautiful mother in the world. Distant stars, silent in the dark sky, a little child, missing his mother Whenever I hear this famous Chinese song from the 90s, even though it may be freezing winter, I feel like I am surrounded by fluffy wool. Taking a deep breath, it feels like I am surrounded by the special aroma of wool, and it warmly fills my heart. When I was a child, I never needed to worry about the bitter cold in North Chinas winters. Mother would knit me woolen sweater and woolen pants before winter set in. All my friends envied me because I had several warm, woolen sweaters colorfully decorated with cute rabbits or deer to change into. My mother would stay up late into the night in order to knit me a sweater. In the lamps light, her needles slowly flowed. When I was young, mother sent me to learn drawing, dancing, and the piano. She wanted her daughter to be excellent. However I always es...

Prosecutors in the case of Jeffrey A. Sterling , a former CIA officer who is accused of leaking classified information to the press, asked a court (pdf) this week to provide 50 blank subpoenas requiring testimony at a September 12 hearing in the case. The intended recipients were not identified. 50 subpoenas seems like a hell of a lot, said an attorney who has been an observer of the case. I know who some of the witnesses likely could be, but it doesnt amount to 50! Of course, [the subpoenas] could also be used for documents. Last week prosecutors also filed a mysterious motion (pdf) to depose an unidentified prospective witness. After the sealed motion was filed on May 12, the court issued an order (pdf) affirming that it was sufficiently sensitive that it should not be part of the public record. However, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema added that there is no reason why defendant or defense counsel should be prevented from viewing [it]. Yesterday, the government abruptly withdrew (pdf)...

Baidu Inc., owner of China's biggest search engine, was sued on Wednesday by eight New York residents for conspiring with the Chinese regime to censor pro-democracy speech. (The Epoch Times) Related Articles US Companies Lose $48 Billion in 2009 From Chinese Piracy Baidu Inc., owner of Chinas biggest search engine, was sued in a U.S. court on Wednesday for conspiring with the Chinese regime to censor pro-democracy speech on the Internet. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, eight Chinese residents in New York seek $16 million in damages from the company and the Chinese regime after their writing, publications, and coverage of pro-democracy events were banned from the search engine, according to Bloomberg News. The complaint said that the defendants violate the U.S. Constitution because the censorship also affects search results in the United States. The plaintiffs, who are pro-democracy activists, also charge Baidu and the Chinese regime for violatin...

Government attorneys this week asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by author Anthony Shaffer who claimed that his freedom to publish a memoir of his military service in Afghanistan had been violated. The government said that Mr. Shaffers book, Operation Dark Heart, which appeared last September in censored form, contained properly classified information which the author has no right to publish. What makes the case doubly strange is that uncensored review copies of the book are in circulation, along with the redacted version that has become a best seller. As a result, the case provides a unique opportunity for the public to assess the quality of official classification practices in real time by comparing the two (pdf). The government has unlawfully imposed a prior restraint upon the plaintiff by obstructing and infringing on his right to publish unclassified information, author Shaffer stated in his December 14, 2010 complaint (pdf) against the Department of Defense and the C...

Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei poses in front of his sculpture 'Template'. Weiwei disappeared by the authorities on April 3, and is reported to have confessed to charges of tax evasion after being tortured in custody. (Simon/Getty Images) The wife of prominent Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, Lu Qing, was allowed to meet her husband under tense and highly controlled conditions on Sunday. Both Lu Qing and Ais sister, Gao Ge, gave interviews with foreign media saying that he was in good health but that they know little more. Authorities arrived at Lu Qings home unannounced on May 15 and told her that she was permitted a visit. They escorted her to an investigative office, according to Liu Yanping, who works at Ai Weiweis art studio, writing on her microblog. There, a Domestic Security officer demanded that the conversation be limited to Ais healththe status of the investigation into Ais alleged economic crimes or whether Ai made forced confessions under torture, we...

An expanded role for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in oversight of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) may soon become a reality as the result of an official directive that requires intelligence agencies to work with auditors from the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. It is IC policy to cooperate with the Comptroller General, through the GAO, to the fullest extent possible, and to provide timely responses to requests for information, affirmed Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper in the new Intelligence Community Directive 114 on Comptroller General Access to Intelligence Community Information (pdf). The Comptroller General is the director of the GAO. Generally, IC elements shall cooperate with GAO audits or reviews and make information available to appropriately cleared GAO personnel, the directive added. The directive was developed in response to a requirement in the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News. There are...

A police station chief in Hunan Province was shot to death after having his gun snatched from him on May 13, according to Chinese media reports. Boxun, a dissident website, said the killing occurred in the context of a mass incident in Dao County after the policeman had fired his gun into the air in an attempt to warn the crowd. Other reports said the police chief was attempting to mediate a civil dispute and was killed by the male party. Reports were consistent that, after killing the police chief, the man trained his weapon on the director of Justice Bureau and a driver on the scene, wounding them both. A local police officer told The Epoch Times that a couple was fighting on the noon of May 13 near a highway that was under construction. The husband is an irascible man who often menaces his wife, the man said. The chief of the Xianglinpu Police Station and director of Justice Bureau arrived at the scene to resolve the conflict after receiving a call. "The ma...

A firefighter from Wuhan, China, was sent to a mental hospital for four years after he sought legal assistance to settle a dispute over wages at his work place. His attempt to escape finally on April 19, to prove his sanity, was only short lived. His case illustrates how Chinese authorities use mental hospitals and charges of insanity to punish people who fight for their rights. 43-year- old Xu Wu is from Qingshan District, Wuhan City. He used to work for fire department of security section of Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation. According to Xu, the work unit didnt pay him the proper wages, and did not give him the same compensation as others who were doing the same work. He then brought a lawsuit against the work unit, which took over two years to process. When the case was dismissed by the court without any compensation, Xu went to Beijing to appeal further. One day in December 2006, when he was in the midst of legal consultation at Beijing Universitys Legal Assistan...

The government is seeking to limit the disclosure of unclassified information as well as classified information about the National Security Agency at the upcoming trial of former NSA official Thomas A. Drake , who is accused of unlawful retention of classified documents that were allegedly provided to a reporter. Under the provisions (pdf) of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), as expected, prosecutors have asked the court to protect certain classified information from disclosure at trial by proposing substitutions, subject to court approval. But in an unprecedented legal maneuver, they said that some un classified information concerning NSA should also be kept off the record. Defense attorneys told the court that the move was outrageous. One month from trial, and one year after the Indictment issued in this case, the government has asserted, for the first time, an evidentiary privilege under the National Security Agency Act of 1959 that it claims authorizes the Court to...

Forty years after they were famously leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, the Pentagon Papers will be officially released next month at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. The National Archives announced this week that it has identified, inventoried, and prepared for public access the Vietnam Task Force study, United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967, informally known as the Pentagon Papers. As a result, 3.7 cubic feet of previously restricted textual materials will be made officially available at the Nixon Library on June 13, the Archives said in a May 10 Federal Register notice . While any release of historical records is welcome, the official disclosure of the Pentagon Papers is in fact a sign of disarray in the government secrecy system. The fact that portions of the half-century old Papers remained classified until this year is a reminder that classification policy today is often completely untethered from genuine national security concerns. On March 28, 2011 the National Dec...

PLAIN TALK: Dozens of copies of the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," produced by a materials site in Shijiazhuang, China, are arrayed on a bed. They will be slipped into mailboxes in the dead of night by Falun Gong practitioners. (The Epoch Times) For a decade in China millions of ordinary citizens, undaunted by the possibility of arrest and torture, have turned their homes into bases for what Chinese authorities regard as reactionary propaganda, and what everyone else regards as simple truths about the right to faith and freedom from persecution. These bases, termed materials sites by their operators, produce fliers, booklets, and informational CD-ROMs. The wares are then slipped surreptitiously under doorsteps or nestled in mailboxes by practitioners of Falun Gong (also know as Falun Dafa), who travel at night alone or in pairs, in cities, towns, and villages across China. Despite the breadth, penetration, and longevity of the campaign, many in the ...

An eye-opening report on corruption in the Afghan Central Bank that was issued last March by the Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development was recently removed from the USAID web site after the Agency decided to classify some of its published contents. The now-classified IG report focused on the failure to discover a widespread pattern of fraudulent loans at the Kabul Bank which led to the diversion of $850 million, the near collapse in 2009 of the bank, and an ensuing national crisis. Employees of the Deloitte accounting firm, who were serving as advisers to the bank under contract to USAID, could and should have alerted the U.S. government to early signs of fraud, the Inspector General found, but they did not. (Instead, the U.S. government learned of the bank corruption thanks to a February 22, 2010 story in the Washington Post.) But in the past week or so, the March 16, 2011 USAID Inspector General report (pdf) was abruptly withdrawn from the Agencys webs...

Police cars and bus are parked near Shouwang Church worship site in Beijing, ready to take church members away, April 24. (Photo provided by an anonymous insider) Chinese authorities continued their raids during outdoor worship services of an underground Christian house church in Beijing the first Sunday in May. The arrests show the intention of Chinas newly appointed Secretary of Religious Affairs to break up and crush all house churches and bring them under the mantle of government control, a member of the church told The Epoch Times. At least 31 Christians of Beijings Shouwang Church were taken away from their outdoors worshipping site by police on May 1 according to China Aid Association. People were sent to different Public Security Bureaus or police stations, among them a minister from Beijings New Tree Church who had joined the service of Shouwang Church. He was held by police for two full days. This latest crackdown on Shouwang Church followed earlier police rai...

By every available measure, the level of domestic intelligence surveillance activity in 2010 increased from the year before, according to a new Justice Department report to Congress on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. During calendar year 2010, the Government made 1,579 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (hereinafter FISC) for authority to conduct electronic surveillance and/or physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, according to the new report (pdf). This compares to a reported 1,376 applications in 2009 . (In 2008 , however, the reported figure 2,082 was quite a bit higher.) In 2010 , the government made 96 applications for access to business records (and tangible things) for foreign intelligence purposes, up from 21 applications in 2009 . And in 2010 , the FBI made 24,287 national security letter requests for information pertaining to 14,212 different U.S. persons, a substantial increase from the 2009 level of 14,788 NSL requests c...

Two prominent defenders of the public interest in China have disappeared this past week. Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese regime to release the location and current status of a prominent Beijing human rights lawyer, Li Xiongbing, and a journalist, Zhang Jialong; both are believed to be in police custody. Li has been missing since Wednesday, when it appears he was arrested after receiving a telephone call from police, Amnesty said. Li is well known for taking on politically sensitive cases such as those of Chinese AIDS NGO Aizhixing, and cases with the legal aid organization Gongmeng, which fights sensitive cases pro bono. Zhang, 23, who previously worked as a journalist with the Beijing-based finance magazine Caijing, and wrote on the recent detention of artist Ai Weiwei, went missing April 28 after being approached by Beijing police. In 2008, Zhang reported on the Sanlu milk scandal. The scandal put a spotlight on government corruption after infant formu...

The House Intelligence Committee this week called on the Director of National Intelligence to establish an automated insider threat detection program to deter and detect unauthorized access to, or use of, classified intelligence networks. Incidents like the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by Wikileaks show us that despite the tremendous progress made since 9/11 in information sharing, we still need to have systems in place that can detect unauthorized activities by those who would do our country harm from the inside, the Committee said in its May 3 report on the FY 2011 Intelligence Authorization Act. Curiously, the Committee conveyed no great urgency concerning its proposal. It said the DNI did not have to demonstrate an initial operating capability for insider threat detection until October 1, 2012. Full operating capability would not be required until October 1, 2013. In fact, however, executive branch officials are not waiting for congressional guidance to improv...

The rise in national security secrecy in the first year of the Obama Administration was matched by a sharp increase in the financial costs of the classification system, according to a new report to the President (pdf). The estimated costs of the national security classification system grew by 15% last year to reach $10.17 billion, according to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). It was the first time that annual secrecy costs in government were reported to exceed $10 billion. An additional $1.25 billion was incurred within industry to protect classified information, for a grand total of $11.42 in classification-related costs, also a new record high. The cost estimates, based on the classification-related activities of 41 executive branch agencies, were reported to the President by ISOO on April 29 and released yesterday. They include the estimated costs of personnel security (clearances), physical security, information systems security, as well as classification managem...

Influential human right lawyers who have become the Chinese authorities' primary targets of recent crackdowns. Upper, left to right: Jiang Tianyong, Teng Biao, Tang Jitian; lower, left to right: Jin Guanghong, Liu Shihui, Li Tiantian. (The Epoch Times archive) Since the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the Chinese regime has been in extreme fear of a possible Jasmine Revolution in China. China's human rights lawyers have become the authorities primary targets of crackdown. A large number of outspoken human rights lawyers have been disappeared without any explanation. Following two days of human rights talks in Beijing between China and the U.S., that included the slew of forced disappearances of human rights lawyers, human rights attorney Teng Biao, who had disappeared for 70 days, was released on April 29. On the same day, however, Li Fangping, another human rights attorney, was taken away. Li is known for his anti-discrimination advocacy. He has fou...

U.S. Special Operations Forces continue to experience rapid post-9/11 growth, with swelling ranks, rising budgets and a new set of missions. Special operations forces were reportedly involved along with CIA personnel in the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1. Special operations are defined (pdf) as military operations that are conducted in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to achieve military, diplomatic, informational, and/or economic objectives employing military capabilities for which there is no broad conventional force requirement. These operations often require covert, clandestine, or low visibility capabilities. Special operations differ from conventional operations in degree of physical and political risk, operational techniques, mode of employment, independence from friendly support, and dependence on detailed operational intelligence and indigenous assets. Special Operations Forces operate from the tropics to the Arctic regions, from under ...