Tag: espionage

Google imports ex-Israeli spies who automated Gaza genocide

On Mar. 18, Google bought Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion. The acquisition will mark the single largest transfer of former Israeli spies into an American company. This is because Wiz is run and staffed by dozens of ex Unit 8200 members, the specialist cyber-spying arm of the IDF.

Unit 8200 wrote the programming and designed the algorithms that automated the genocide of Gaza and was also responsible for the pager attack in Lebanon. Now the men and women who helped design the architecture of apartheid are being swallowed by the US tech-surveillance complex.

The identity of the Wiz founders, all former Unit 8200, is fairly well-documented (by Israeli media at least). One of the founders, Ami Luttwak, boasts on his LinkedIn profile that he led a “mission critical R&D team” for Unit 8200 which won them the “Israel Defence Award 2012.” Less well-documented, however, is the fact that a huge chunk of the Wiz workforce, from office managers, to software engineers to product analysts, are also former Unit 8200. Following my investigation earlier this year into the former Unit 8200 members working in key AI positions for tech companies, I have identified nearly fifty Wiz employees as being ex Unit 8200 operatives.

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Professor at Center of Columbia University Deportation Scandal is Former Israeli Spy

The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal.

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.

Spooks in Our Midst

Before entering academia, Dr. Yarhi-Milo served as an officer and an intelligence analyst with the Israeli Defense Forces. Given that she was recruited into the intelligence services because of her ability to speak Arabic fluently, her job likely entailed surveilling the Arab population.

After leaving the world of intelligence, she worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. While there, she met and married her husband, Israel’s official United Nations spokesperson.

Although she is now an academic, she has never left the world of international security, making the subject her area of expertise. She has made a point of trying to lift women’s voices in the field. One of these was the then-U.S. Director of National Security, Avril Haines, whom she spoke with in 2023. But even though Khalil was a student in her school, she had nothing to say about his arrest. Indeed, rather than speak out on the issue (as activists have demanded), she instead chose this week to invite Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022, to speak at Columbia. Students protesting Tuesday’s event were condemned by university authorities for “harassing” Yarhi-Milo.

Unprecedented Protests, Unprecedented Repression

Columbia was the epicenter of a massive protest movement across university campuses nationwide last year. It is estimated that at least eight percent of all American college students participated in demonstrations denouncing the genocidal attack on Gaza and calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel. The response was equally vast in its scale. Well over 3,000 protestors were arrested, including faculty members themselves.

The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.

“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Trump stated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s ominous threat, announcing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” In another clear threat, the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University, citing the institution’s failure to sufficiently crack down on “antisemitic” incidents on campus.

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Chinese Spy Ring busted At Ft. Lewis, Washington

It looks like this is the tip of the Iceberg – and this is what happens when DEI takes over counterintelligence.

Counterintelligence is a vital but weird career field. I always say that “Jesus James Angleton was wrong. There wasn’t a spy inside the CIA. There were actually four”. Those four were Aldrich Ames, Larry Wu-tai Chin, Robert Hanssen, and Ana Montes. The last two were FBI and DIA, but were inside the intelligence community and part of the problem.

Ever since Jesus James Angleton, the MAGA Spy Catcher inside CIA, retired, counterintelligence has become a cesspool of dysfunction with extreme over reliance on the cult of the polygraph.

The poster children in the failure of the polygraph and the victory of DEI is NSA’s Reality Winner and CIA’s Asif Rahman. They passed their full scope polygraphs, yet had deep seated anti-Americanism in their blood. But they passed and immediately started spilling Top Secret information.

Now at Ft. Lewis Washington we have a serious problem.

“Sgt. Jian Zhao and Lt. Li Tian are soldiers based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, and Ruoyu Duan is a former U.S. soldier who was active between 2013 and 2017, according to federal court documents. All three were arrested this week on charges of handing over classified information to Chinese agents for as much as $50,000.”

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FBI Arrests Three U.S. Service Members for Treason, Allegedly Selling Military Secrets to China

The FBI made a major announcement on Friday, revealing that three U.S. service members have been arrested and charged with treason for allegedly attempting to sell classified military intelligence to agents of the Chinese government. 

Two active-duty U.S. Army soldiers and a former soldier were arrested after they were accused of conspiring to transmit sensitive national defense information to Chinese agents, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 

The DOJ identified the suspects as Jian Zhao and Li Tian, both active-duty soldiers stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Ruoyu Duan, a former U.S. Army soldier. The three were accused of conspiring to transmit sensitive national defense information to Chinese agents, endangering U.S. national security.

The indictment alleges that Zhao began planning to sell classified intelligence in July 2024. He is accused of transmitting “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” materials to individuals connected to China, including sensitive data related to U.S. military capabilities. 

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Hochul’s Former Aide Faces New Charges In Chinese Spy Case

Linda Sun, former deputy chief of staff to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and Sun’s husband, Chris Hu, are facing additional charges in a case that alleges they acted as agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Sun and Hu were arrested and charged in September 2024 in a case that is part of the Department of Justice’s broader effort to root out communist China’s secret agents, who U.S. officials say are covertly advancing the CCP’s interests and targeting Chinese dissidents on U.S. soil in an effort known as transnational repression.

On Feb. 11, Sun and Hu pleaded not guilty at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said, adding that the money laundering charge against the two had been amended to include additional legal statutes.

Hu also pleaded not guilty to three additional money laundering counts, according to prosecutors.

A superseding indictment filed on Feb. 4 didn’t provide more details other than saying that Hu’s charges were connected to three separate financial transactions totaling $1.5 million in 2020.

A spokesperson for federal prosecutors declined to comment beyond what was stated in the superseding indictment.

Jarrod Schaeffer, one of Sun’s attorneys, said the revised indictment also does not “remedy critical errors identified in the prior indictment.”

Sun and Hu remain free on bond and are scheduled to return to court on April 23.

Last year, Sun was charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), visa fraud, alien smuggling, and money laundering conspiracy. Hu was charged with money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and misuse of means of identification.

Sun, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, worked for the New York state government under Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for about 15 years. During her political career, she held various posts, including deputy superintendent for intergovernmental affairs, chief diversity officer at the state’s Department of Financial Services, deputy chief diversity officer and director of Asian American Affairs for the state’s Executive Chamber, and director of external affairs for Global NY at Empire State Development.

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Former Federal Reserve Adviser Arrested For Passing Trade Secrets To China

John Harold Rogers, 63, of Vienna, Virginia, a former Senior Adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB), was arrested today on charges that he conspired to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

            In furtherance of the conspiracy, Rogers allegedly made false statements to the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General, and those false statements had a material impact on its investigation.

            The indictment, unsealed today, was announced by U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr.,  FBI Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the Washington Field Office, and John T. Perez, Special Agent in Charge, Headquarters Operations, Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (FRB-CFPB OIG).

            “President Trump tasks us with protecting our fellow Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As alleged in the indictment, this defendant leveraged his position within the Federal Reserve to pass sensitive financial information to the Chinese government, a designated foreign adversary,” said U.S. Attorney Martin. “Let this indictment serve as a warning to all who seek to betray or exploit the United States: law enforcement will find you and hold you accountable.”

            “The Chinese Communist Party has expanded its economic espionage campaign to target U.S. government financial policies and trade secrets in an effort to undermine the U.S. and become the sole superpower,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg. “Today’s indictment represents the FBI’s unwavering commitment to protect U.S. national security interests and U.S. jobs and to bring to justice those who are willing to betray their country for personal gain.”

            “This indictment sends a clear message that those who deliberately misuse sensitive Federal Reserve information for their own personal gain and lie about it to investigators will be held accountable for their actions,” said John T. Perez, Special Agent in Charge of Headquarters Operations FRB-CFPB OIG.

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A Republic of Spies

In 2021, to his credit, President Joe Biden warned the American public against the dangers of zero-click spyware manufactured by an Israeli corporation. Zero-click is unwanted software that can expose the entire contents of one’s mobile or desktop device to prying eyes without tricking one into clicking on to a link. Biden banned its importation and use in the United States.

Last week, as an inducement to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the Israel/Hamas ceasefire agreement, President Donald Trump secretly agreed to lift the embargo on zero-click.

Here is the backstory.

Though America has employed spies since the Revolutionary War, until the modern era, spying was largely limited to wartime. That changed when America became a surveillance state in 1947 with the public establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency and the secret creation of its counterparts.

The CIA’s stated public task at its inception was to spy on the Soviet Union and its satellite countries so that American officials could prepare for any adverse actions by them. This was the time of the Red Scare, in which both Republicans and Democrats fostered the Orwellian belief that America needed a foreign adversary.

We had just helped the Russians defeat Germany in World War II, and our Russian ally – which was bankrupt and had just lost 27 million troops and civilians – suddenly became so strong it needed to be kept in check. The opening salvo in this absurd argument was fired by President Harry Truman in August 1945 when he used nuclear bombs intentionally to target civilians of an already defeated Japan. One of his targets was a Roman Catholic cathedral.

But his real target – so to speak – was his new friend, Joe Stalin.

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Suspected Chinese Spy Is Fiancé of California Councilwoman

A California councilwoman is the fiancée of a man accused of peddling political influence on behalf of the Chinese regime, court records show.

The man, Mike Sun, has allegedly worked with a recently sentenced Chinese agent to advance the Chinese regime’s political interests in Los Angeles. Court documents suggest the two have worked closely for years to align U.S. policy interests with Beijing on sensitive issues, with the Chinese agent Chen Jun telling Chinese officials that Sun—and the councilwoman—were part of a “basic team dedicated for us.”

Sun is also known as Sun Yaoning. Court records show that he is a former Chinese army member. He was the campaign manager for Eileen Wang in 2022, the year she won the city council seat for Arcadia in Los Angeles County with nearly two-thirds of the vote, prosecutors said.

Helping Wang win the midterm election, Sun said in a draft report to Chinese officials, was his proudest achievement as someone who “persist[s] in resisting any hostile forces that undermine the friendship of US-China relations, and Chinese secessionist forces,” according to federal prosecutors.

A review of the court records, public information, and business filings reveals the personal connections between Wang and Sun, who have engaged in several ventures together, including a U.S.-based media group, business entities, and multiple pro-Beijing organizations.

One of them is the American Southwest Chamber of Commerce, a Los Angeles nonprofit Wang founded in 2018 that purports to “promote communication of American southwest people of China,” according to business filings.

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It Turns Out Fang Fang Wasn’t the Only Chi Com Spy in California Politics

California is fertile ground for what the Chinese Communist Party spies call “elite capture” of American politicians. It didn’t begin or end with California Congressman Eric Swalwell’s Fang Fang, either, not by a long shot. 

There’s Joe and Hunter Biden’s cozy relationship and payoffs from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-connected corporations; California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s 20-year-long relationship with her aide and chauffeur, the Chinese spy; California Congressman Eric Swalwell’s paramour and political advisor Fang Fang; a former anti-Second Amendment California state senator who brokered guns to the underworld; and now this. 

Now, a campaign manager for a 2022 California city council candidate is in the FBI crosshairs. 

The FBI reported that an unnamed city council member in an undesignated city won office in 2022 with the help of a Chinese spy. Reading the entrails left behind in the somewhat cryptic 24-page indictment, the effort shows the spying happened in San Bernardino’s Chino Hills —since the spy claimed to have lived with the council member. 

The unidentified Chino Hills 2022 City Council candidate, who was an apparent pawn of the Chi-Coms whether he knew it or not, was not indicted. The FBI says the investigation continues.

The council member’s campaign manager, who claimed to live at the candidate’s home, is Mr. Yaoning “Mike” Sun. Sun worked with his PRC handler in L.A., John Chen, and a “Big Boss” in the PRC and acted as unregistered foreign agents in the U.S. 

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PRC Espionage: Are Chinese Americans Their Top Recruitment Targets?

On November 1, 2018 then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the launch of the “China Initiative” – a whole-of-government effort ostensibly designed to thwart espionage and technology theft by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Chinese American groups and activists immediately denounced the program as racially biased and its investigations improperly predicated, and in 2021 two studies provided them with ample proof that their allegations were correct.

The first was a study showing how rare it was for Chinese Americans to actually engage in espionage on behalf of the PRC. The second study chronicled the extremely high number of “China Initiative” cases that resulted in acquittals or dismissed cases. In late February 2022, the Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen announced the Department was ending the program, with Olsen telling a George Mason University crowd that he had “concluded that this initiative was not the right approach” to combatting PRC espionage and technology theft.

Three months later, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued a report that dealt in part with the question of whether or not PRC intelligence organizations prioritized the recruitment of Chinese Americans for spying or tech theft. That report, which was mandated by Congress, made a categorical statement about PRC intelligence asset targeting and recruitment strategy:

“It is the IC’s assessment that while the PRC promotes the false narrative that individuals of Chinese descent owe some allegiance to the PRC, neither race nor ethnicity is the primary criterion utilized by the PRC’s intelligence services in their recruitment of intelligence assets.”

But is this true? A recent trove of documents released to the Cato Institute via a Freedom of Information Act request leaves the question of whether the PRC targets Chinese Americans as potential agents.

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