Foreign-Born Civilian Navy Engineer . . . and Apparent Spy
Seems that a foreign-born, 35-year-old engineer has been arrested by the FBI. The charge; attempting to provide design and vulnerability information concerning the Navy’s most advanced carrier currently under construction to a foreign government.
It gets even better. The guy apparently immigrated and became a citizen fairly recently – he appears to have begun the process of attaining US citizenship in 2007. But it looks like he must have worked fast; he apparently was granted a security clearance fairly recently.
Luckily, the “foreign agent” to whom the guy provided the info he’d obtained was an FBI undercover agent. So perhaps we dodged a proverbial bullet here.
Unfortunately, the bastard isn’t facing the death penalty. He’s facing two charges, each of which have a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison. That’s . . . unfortunate. IMO, he should be looking at hanging – but I’d have settled for a needle instead.
Both Fox News and the Washington Times have articles giving more details. They’re IMO worth reading.
Interestingly, I’m not finding much else about this in the rest of the media. I wonder if the fact that the guy was born in Saudi Arabia – and was trying to provide the information to the government of Egypt – might have something to do with that?
I guess spying on behalf of an Islamic nation must not be news. And that a recently-naturalized individual from a country with a huge Islamic extremist population applying for a security clearance during a time when we’re at war with Islamic extremists doesn’t merit enhanced scrutiny. Even if he’s from the country that, well, provided almost all of the terrorist bastards that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.
I swear, at times I think some folks working for the Five Sided Asylum really are crazy. Or perhaps simply have the intellect of a rock with lips.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Military issues, Navy
Hey, they’re all just here to do the jobs Americans won’t do, we need to open the door wider! /sarc
Apparently, the USA has a shortage of traitors, so they have to be recruited elsewhere.
This is not a guest worker program I can support.
Time to bring back keelhauling. And that’s some serious shit on a carrier!
I got a Secret clearance after only twelve years of honorable service, including time in TOG and on recruiting duty. Even then, I had to sit down with an interviewer for four hours and explain some affiliations I had as a teenager in an area I avoid whenever possible. That said my family has only resided in this country since the 1600’s. Glad the screening process is so thorough for native-born citizens…
That’s my main beef with this situation, fm2176.
I don’t much care where the guy came from, or how he prays. But these days, ANYONE who recently immigrated from or who has relatives in an Islamic nation should received enhanced scrutiny when applying for citizenship. Radical Islam is at war with us, and we need to take that fact seriously.
And getting a security clearance? Microscope, hell – given his background, this guy should have been examined so closely he’d wonder if they were using a freaking proctoscope before he got a clearance. That obviously didn’t happen.
Hondo,
We live in a world where such “profiling” is not only frowned upon, but downright “unethical” and “illegal”. After all, we’re not at war with Islam, are we? Never mind the fact that Islamist nations and parties have been at war with us for the past 35 or so years. Iran, Iraq, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, etc.
It’s funny how much has changed in this country. I kid about joining the Communist Party below, but you can bet that no one did during the height of the Cold War. Our government wasn’t always right when dealing with Communists, but they did at least recognize that we were at war
Oops, accidentally clicked “Post”…
To finish the above comment:
Our government wasn’t always right when dealing with Communists, but they did at least recognize that we were at war with Communist nations. Anyone supporting this political party/concept was treated with suspicion. Religion or not, Islam should be treated the same. We’ve seen far too many converts and born Muslims carry out attacks against fellow Americans, not to mention countless “allies” attacking our troops overseas. When individuals answer to an entity which considers itself contrary to American values–be it political or religious–they should be subject to increased examination. Not saying that Islam itself is anti-American, but it seems that many practitioners feel that way.
Actually, fm2176, I’m surprised that you were grilled so hard. Those must have been SOME affiliations! Secret clearances usually consist of a records check and, voila, you’re cleared for Secret. The paperwork probably takes longer than the actual process of checking your records.
Now, something like an SSBI is a completely different animal. My first clearance for TS/SCI took 18 months. Those foreign born parents and all the relatives in the old country probably contributed to that.
Truth be told, much of that time was spent updating the SF86; four years after resubmitting it (for the third time) for recruiting duty, my division clearance personnel finally got the ball rolling. The last hour was spent answering questions about a loose affiliation I had with a (non-criminal, non-gang, non-political) organization years earlier.
I guess that making an ignorant choice as a kid is a higher security risk than being a recent immigrant from an Islamic nation. Maybe I should have joined the Communist Party instead–that would probably net me a TS-SCI in today’s world!
Joining the CPUSA probably wouldn’t have helped, fm. However, given the prevailing attitude at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and at the DoS, being a Sunni or Shiite would have certainly helped you in your career and in obtaining clearances.
We’re even outsourcing our spies at this time?
Once again proving in our bid to never, ever, risk offending the tender sensibilities of a “perceived to be persecuted “minority we can’t even run tighter security on people who come from areas that host those trying to kill all non-believing infidels.
It’s why we screen the disabled WW2 vet at the airport instead of the guys in the red and white checkered headcloths…(saw this myself)….maybe it’s time we stop pretending that the terrorists aren’t muslims because good muslims don’t cause problems and start calling it what it is. Not all muslims are necessarily terrorists but currently all of these terrorists are muslims. Therefore if you come from a country with a history of contributing personnel to the wide variety of muslim murdering terrorists scum you can expect a delay at the airport trying to enter the US.
If you can’t understand that, or don’t like it I don’t care it’s not about you it’s about preserving the safety of my fellow Americans. To that end I don’t care what foreign nationals are offended by the steps we take to protect ourselves. We should not be asking foreign nationals if they might be offended by being screened more closely due to country of origin, entering the US is a privilege not a right guaranteed to non US Citizens in our constitution.
This is what comes of a PC environment run amok.
Word
As soon as the fuckstick got naturalized, he upgraded from espionage to treason. He really should be the guest of honor at a neck-tyin’ party.
In the common vernacular, Other Whitey – yes. In the legal sense, almost certainly not. Espionage activities almost never meet the Constitutional definition of treason. And there hasn’t been a successful prosecution for treason outside a declared war since the early 1900s.
Also very unfortunately, for civilians espionage outside a declared war doesn’t typically carry the death penalty, either. The Rosenbergs were the last US civilians executed for espionage – and theirs occurred during World War II.
Hondo: Did you mean “WW III” or the Korean War? The Rosenbergs were executed in ’53.
World War II. The Rosenbergs’ espionage concerned the development of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos prior to the end of World War II – plus numerous other wartime projects.
The Rosenbergs were tried and executed during the Korean War because it took a number of years to glean enough from Venona to eventually identify Klaus Fuchs, their main source of Manhattan Project inside info. Information obtained while questioning Fuchs in early 1950 led to the identification of Harry Gold – the Rosenberg’s courier. Investigating Gold then led to the discovery of David Greenglass (Ethyl’s brother – also involved in the espionage ring). Greenglass corroborated (and added to) other info that had been developed from Gold and Fuch, leading to the Rosenbergs’ arrests in mid-1950.
Ah, OK I must have misread your comment – I thought you were saying the execution occurred during WWII which of course it didn’t.
Although I would think that the time when the espionage happened was not as relevant to the execution as the conflict that was going on at the time of the execution, i.e. not just the Korean war but also the paranoia (some of it justified, some of it not) about the “Worldwide Communist Conspiracy.”
After all, while it’s true that much of the Rosenbergs espionage occurred during WWII, that espionage was not on behalf of our declared enemies, the Axis nations, but rather was done for the benefit of our erstwhile “ally”, the USSR. 😉
The fact that the USSR was at that time an ally is irrelevant. Espionage during wartime carried the death penalty under Federal law (I believe that it still does). So regardless of the fact that the USSR was technically an ally, they were still subject to the death penalty.
The reason for no caveat in Federal law regarding wartime espionage requiring that crime to be “on behalf of an enemy of the United States” to allow the death penalty should be fairly obvious. As the case of the USSR shows, today’s ally can tomorrow become one’s mortal enemy.
The inmates may very well be running the asylum.
jedipsycho (Certified Space Shuttle Door Gunner)…Hopefully the inmates where he’ll be going will “love him long time” and many times, before and after each meal.
I served with a guy at Kunsan Air Base in 1990-91. He had a follow on assignment to work on the F-117 Stealth Fighters. He fell in love with, and subsequently married a Korean girl. As soon as he was married, his assignment to the Stealth was canceled. The folks that worked those jets were not even allowed to talk about it to their wives, yet his assignment was canceled because she was a foreign national. How the hell did this guy get clearance to even look at those blueprints. Doesn’t pass the common sense test!
In 1965 the Army security Agency was growing exponentially. Every member needed a T/S clearance before being allowed to start school. We were placed in a casual holding company until our provisional clearance was granted. A buddy of mine was the grandson of an Italian immigrant who arrived in the 1920’s, obtained citizenship, worked here for forty years and returned to Sicily for his retirement. Mike was stuck in the casual company for about six months while the FBI tried to track his US citizen grandpa down in Sicily. The reason; Italy had not outlawed the Communist Party and they had to insure that old Giuseppe was neither a communist or a Mafia don. They finally tracked him down in some one mule village and Mike was granted his clearance.
If you had ANY relatives, no matter how far removed you were almost never granted a clearance. So how does this gemoke get one? Could it Political Correctness? That’s my best guess.
FWIW, a lot of us who went through DLI didn’t go through the holding company process. Instead, you spent the first six months trying to parse stuff like “human wave attack” in Hanoi dialect, and one day you would bump into the company clerk who would by-the-way mention that your clearance had come through. I remember also finding it strange at the time that the Army would have you sign a multipage form listing hundreds of weird political groups that you swore you or your relatives had never had any part of. Apparently your TS could get bounced if your great-aunt Gertrude had once attended a meeting of the Friends of German Bakers Society, or whatever, in Los Angeles in 1936.
If you consider even the limited facts available, it seems to me that red flags should have gone off on Mostafa Ahmed Awwad on multiple levels. I mean, here’s a guy who wants to put in jeopardy a $12.9 Billion aircraft carrier and roughly 5000 of her crew for a bargain price of $3000, brags about putting malware on a Navy computer system so he won’t get caught stealing stuff, and then cries like a little girl when his pathetic ass is dragged into court.
One of the lizard people.
“If you had ANY relatives, no matter how far removed, living behind the Iron Curtain, you were almost never granted a clearance.”