Crime and Punishment
Remember the old MasterCard commercials that started out by listing two items and their cost, followed by a third thing that was “priceless”? Well, how about this one:
- Engineering Doctorate: about $60,000
- Two Round Trip Tickets to China: around $3,000
- Unauthorized Disclosure of Defense Technical Information Without Authorization: 5 years
That’s what Sixing Liu – a permanent legal resident of the US – found out the hard way. Liu had obtained a doctorate in engineering and was working as a contractor for a division of L3 Corporation. He was working on numerous military projects.
In 2009 and 2010, he took technical data concerning his work with him to conferences in China. At those conferences, he gave presentations regarding his current work assignments.
Liu was working on defense-related weapons programs. He did not have prior authorization to release the data in question.
Liu ‘s attorney claimed that Liu had made a “grave error”, but had never intended to pass secrets to the Chinese government. Yeah, right. Did Liu really think no one at his presentation might be from the Chinese government or military? Or that no one in Chinese industry would pass the information along to the Chinese government? If so, he has to be the dumbest SOB on earth with a doctorate in engineering.
Liu was arrested at his home in Deerfield, IL, in 2011. He was found guilty last fall on six counts of exporting defense data without permission, as well as on charges of possessing stolen trade secrets and lying to authorities.
On Monday, 25 March 2013, Liu was sentenced to 5 years in prison plus a $15,000 fine. The government has 90 days to determine whether it will ask the judge to order Liu to pay restitution for any economic damages caused by his crimes.
I wish he’d have gotten more time. But I can probably live with this.
Category: Foreign Policy, Military issues, Shitbags
Hondo, you’d be amazed at how colossally lacking PhDs are in the realm of common sense. My father, PhD in theater and voice, brilliant teacher, loved by his students, couldn’t open a box of crackers without destroying the box. He would also open kitchen drawers completely and then half shut them, and then walk into them in the dark and complain about it.
I’m sure Liu is technically brilliant, but 180 the opposite in real-world stuff that would never occur to you or anyone else to do. (sarc in part)
5 years? Chinese get special deals. Spies for Israel get life without parole plus. Spies for the Soviet Union get more time than 5 years.
Ex-PH2: guys/gals with doctorates in engineering and the physical sciences generally can tell up from down, and have common sense. Now, if you start talking the liberal arts or social sciences, you have a point – as IMO do many of those “Doctors'” heads.
And don’t get me started on those having a doctorate in “education”. (smile)
DaveO: in this case, the data Liu disclosed was likely not classified but rather sensitive/not for public release. Unclassified does not equal publicly releasable when it comes to DoD data. The government probably didn’t have proof that he was working for the Chinese government, either. And disclosing something at a public event isn’t exactly how most spies work.
That’s my guess as to why he got only 5 years.
“GRAVE ERROR”
No sh1t really?
He’s lucky they could not connect the dots to anything more nefarious or it would a much longer time for Mr. Liu to become acquainted with the intimate ways of federal prison….
Hondo, I have to disagree a little bit. I just got done working 20 years with rocket scientists and other engineering disciplines in the launch industry. These folks are brilliant, but take them out of their speciality and they are completely lost. Literally.
Seadog: launch industry? Perhaps that explains why your scientists were a bit “off”. Some of the fumes from propellants/oxidizers and/or combustion gases will make you see visions and hear voices! (smile)
Seriously – as a DoD contractor, this guy had to have received the standard annual briefings and/or training concerning releaseability of information, OPSEC, and SAEDA. If he ignored those briefings/classes, he wasn’t naive – he was willfully ignoring what he knew/should have known to be law.
Not buying the argument that he was “naive”. I might buy a clumsy attempt at creating an alibi and/or creating doubt – but not naivety.
“And disclosing something at a public event isn’t exactly how most spies work.” Funny that you should mention that. Many spies glean a tremendous amount of information from Congress, the eateries frequented by congressional staffers, and, of course, reading bills and the Congressional Record. As for this fellow, was there no requirement that he submit his prepared stuff prior to delivering it at a foreign conference? Somebody dropped the ball–inaddition to Louie.
Probably, as Hondo suggested, released dual use technology info, trade secrets, and or restricted information in violation of DoD and Commerce Department regulations.
Bottom line is this: If you are going overseas on business, you better know what you are doing.
Federal employees and contractors be policy and practice do not take cell phones, computers, and the like to China. Because they (the Chinese) will clone you wares in the middle of the night while your dick skinners are wrapped around your money maker. Yes ….
Sh*t now I am pissed! OK …. Breath 2, 3, 4. Breath 2, 3, 4.
In this case, it is my opinion that the feds did not develop a spy case of this sh*t bird, but easily busted him on simple rules of the road!
Oh … one other thing: CHINA IS OUR ENEMY and we are at WAR with them NOW!
If you don’t believe me, ask the DoD who our biggest military threat is today … and what is the weapon that is being used?
For those playing at home and keeping score, the answers are:
1. China
2. Computer (cyber warfare)
Any questions?
2/17 Air Cav: if his management knew he was going to make the presentation – yes, someone else screwed up. If all they knew was that he was going to China on “vacation” (or to attend the conference as an attendee vice to give a presentation), not necessarily.
Frankly, I’m wondering if his employer even knew he was going to China at all. I’m guessing he’d have been required to get some country threat briefings if they’d known.
On the other hand, maybe that’s how he got caught. Maybe he told his employer he was going to the conference as an attendee and actually got the required briefings and OKs – then ended up doing a “spontaneous” presentation in a small room while there. If word about the latter got back to the US somehow, that would explain much.
Hondo, got to disagree with you on Ph.D.s in Engineering and physical sciences having more common sense. As someone who has worked twice for/with NASA, worked at a DoD R&D center, and in academia, I can state that outside of their own, often narrow, area — not so much. Understanding concepts and rammifications of security? Not so much.
That said, I do agree that he had to get the standard briefings (though I wonder if he like so many I met at NASA/DoD/elsewhere ignored them as pointless and not applicable); and, that if these were planned presentations someone at L3 massively screwed the pooch.
Maybe, just maybe, he is as innocent (and clueless) as the lawyer claims. Doesn’t matter — he disclosed the information and frankly deserves far more time than he got. Maybe some of the other rather insulated boffins out there will get the hint and realize that security is real, for a reason, and has real consequences.
Hondo,
There’s classification by compilation. The larger issue is the on-going problem with PRC nationals working in US facilities on projects that are secret and higher, and our government sponsors these scientists and engineers (and with light sentences, actively condones their spying).
Following WWII, America grabbed up all the Nazi scientists/engineers it could grab and brought them to America to work on the space program, advance flight, and their military applications. These scientists had unfettered access to information.
During the Cold War, scientists/engineers from the USSR and Warsaw Pact were treated with suspicion, and generally left out. A big reason was each scientist/engineer still had family back in the old country – hostages to manipulate those scientist/engineers.
Nowadays, the scientists and engineers, under the same protocol of hostages/family members back in China, are given unfettered access to America’s high-tech, defense-oriented facilities.
People are noticing, even in Congress, but government regulations permit this:
http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Huawei-ZTE%20Investigative%20Report%20(FINAL).pdf
http://freebeacon.com/fbi-arrests-chinese-national/
http://www.bis.doc.gov/deemedexports/deemedexportsfaqs.html#18
I’d say the Chinese are getting special deals.
DavidO: I’m well aware of the aggregation problem. This almost certainly isn’t a case thereof. Rather, it’s a straightforward case of sensitive but unclassified data and/or trade secrets being released without authority in contravention of US law.
Even unclassified defense information is controlled and cannot be released without prior approval. That is particularly true if the information is weapons-related, as much of that falls under export controls.
Liu is apparently not a US citizen; he’s a Chinese citizen. That, plus the fact that he was presumably briefed on security requirements repeatedly as a DoD contractor, makes me very reluctant to buy any claim of “he didn’t know” relating to his conduct here.
Laughing Wolf: perhaps. But for the reasons in my previous comment, I actually find a claim of “I didn’t intend to give the information to China” quite hard to believe.
IMO this was not a case of being dumb, maybe playing dumb after the fact. Jon, you may be able to live with a five year sentence, but here’s to hoping he doesn’t. With a little luck, his lawyers words of “a grave error” prove to be prophetic.
I’m not condoning his actions, and personally think the punishment should be more. But, I’ve been around enough of them to know that they lack the capacity to think like “normal” people. They are so singularly focused, it’s scary and comical at the same time.
Hondo,
Larger point: giving sensitive, and classified information to the PRC is a matter of US government policy.
The only grave error Liu made was not appealing to AG Holder for assistance.
D’OH! (Homer Simpson palm slap)
DaveO: arguably true, at least during the Clinton and current Administrations. Both have been criticized for allowing commercial firms to share way too much data with China.
@11: Having worked in many of the same areas, yet knowing a bit about security, I absolutely concur. The things people don’t know about security, especially with their computers, is amazing.
If you’re doing anything even remotely secure, don’t use public kiosks, don’t let your laptop out of your sight, don’t do things without a VPN or other secure methods of communication, don’t use common passwords you already use for things you have to sign up for there, .. boy, I could go on and on. The amount of unintentional (on our part) industrial espionage that occurs in some of these meetings is staggering.
That said, while his sharing might have been overt yet accidental, I’m not sure where I stand on punishment. If we punish him, do we punish all the people who unwittingly give away information by not knowing enough about computer security, even if they didn’t overtly share data? If your laptop is stolen and you didn’t encrypt things and have sensitive information, do you deserve jail time? What if you did, but your password was ‘password’? Is there a line where your responsibility ends?
How do you think China made a virtually identical fighter to the F-22? Because of jackwagons like this guy.
From what my sources told me, the project he leaked was a guidance system for drone hellfires that did not require satellite guidance, but were guided directly from the drone, itself. Literally, monkey push button, missile does work.
It’s amazing that ESPIONAGE is rewarded with only five years when the Russian spy back in the 80’s will never see the light of day ever again.
Guys … the open sourcing of our dual use technologies started with Clinton/Gore and Ron Brown the Commerce Secretary. It was in the early 1990’s when China first learned of the toilet tank float and auto fill valve. Since then it has been all up hill.
LOOK IT UP!
I am still pissed!
I don’t think we can call him a “permanent resident” any more. Once he does the 5 years he will be a rather impermanent resident. Wash his brain and deport his sorry butt.
@#3, Hondo, Given the brainless PC CRAP emanating from the top echelons of our publik shcool systems these days, I’m convinced that just having a PhD (IMO, Piled higher and Deeper)in Public Education causes brain damage, let alone the reams of liberal indoctrination one has to go through to get one!