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Feds: TVA Executive Traded Nuclear Information For Cash In Chinese Espionage Case (knoxnews.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from Knoxville News Sentinel: An East Tennessean who served as a senior manager in the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear program swapped information with one of China's top nuclear power companies in exchange for cash, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Knoxville on Thursday announced an espionage conspiracy indictment against China General Nuclear Power, Chinese nuclear engineer Szuhsiung 'Allen' Ho, and Ho's firm, Energy Technology International. Prosecutors said Ho conspired with the companies to lure nuclear experts in the U.S. into providing information to allow China to develop and produce nuclear material based on American technology and under the radar of the U.S. government. Ho was taken into custody in Atlanta on Thursday afternoon and will be returned to U.S. District Court in Knoxville to face the two-count indictment. The indictment consists of one count of conspiracy to illegally engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the U.S. and one count of conspiracy to act in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government.
Just have to think about that simpsons episode...
Let's consider that mainland China has been a nuclear weapons power since 1964 and consistently maintains a small, app. 400 warhead stockpile. (The absolute minimum needed for deterrence, in order not to let the "military-industrial complex" overburden their economy, as opposed to the 10-12.000 nuke powers of USA and USSR during the Cold War).
Therefore what is the scope of this investigation? Trying to prevent P.R.C. from extending their scope of nuclear-electric energy production, so they cannot fight coal-burning pollution and global warming? Trying to slow their nuclear-medical capability so that asian cancer patients die earlier?
Therefore the NSA and FBI need to do more of it.
For our own protection.
Constitution be damned.
Seriously. How is this not treason? Trading nuclear secrets to a foreign power sounds like treason to me. And the death penalty can legally be used in treason cases. So, I ask, why is the TVA executive not being charged with treason?
I am curious: what information did he get in return?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
He'll probably still get less time than someone who pirated a song or movie.
To clarify this is from TFA:
Among the six unidentified American co-conspirators listed in the indictment is a person labeled "U.S. Person 1," described as the TVA senior manager for the probabilistic risk assessment in the Nuclear Power Group from April 2010 to September 2014. The TVA executive was born in Taiwan and became a naturalized citizen in 1990, according to the indictment. A payment by Ho to the TVA executive was sent to Chattanooga, according to the indictment.
Silence is a state of mime.
is that when you capture German scientists to aid in the development oof nuclear weapons to kill people with, then it's fine, but when you buy information to aid in the production of electricity, then it's espionage.
Truth is pretty much every nation with ambitions is spying on US and other western military, industrial, technological secrets and stealing intellectual property. Key culprits include (but, of course, are not limited to) Russia, China, Israel, India, S.Korea. It is a long and time honored tradition.
Spying is an important business and there is competition, career, and money to be made. Spying is so prevailing, that, believe it or not,there are established MBA style, super competitive, high intensity, spying academies. Infiltration, psychology, strategic decision making, communication, surveillance evasion, recruiting are taught among many other skills. Profession is considered as highly competitive, prestigious and lucrative, plus the security of the government job, military rank, early pension and opportunity for additional high powered career after the service. Stolen technology is considered as one of the best investments, for thieving nation spends zero dollars in time, research and development, while the spy is considered more valuable with more experience under the belt. There are multiple known iconic examples, and multiple, literally, incalculable number of secrets that are being siphoned every day.
Countering such activities and catching spies is the direct function of NSA, CIA and other organizations. However spying on US is so prevailing, so ingrained, that I am sure that our intelligence officers are disillusioned and neutered, as they think they are "allowed" to work only on certain type spying which is perceived as direct threat to national security: nuclear, bio-weapons.
Somewhere in the time, focus of attention turned from surveillance of the spies and the agents of the spies, to terrorism, which is an easy hanging fruit, never ending, cheap way to ensure budgets are approved to fight terrorism. Few generations ago it was called banditism and was dealt by local sheriffs.
America is not winning anymore.
Wow, it's like our national security apparatus is doing its job. Almost as if the whole "spying on your own population" and "remote-control war by drone" and "harassing everyone who gets on a plane" and "entrapping as many people as possible" parts of their jobs were all really just silly and stupid wastes of taxpayer money to make us less safe.
A lot of good guys in intelligence. Almost as if they started down a road paved with good intentions...
This crap happens because "we", and by we I mean you, believe an "old boy network" is the way to go. Have you ever wondered why the Navy gets more espionage cases than other services? Dangit people, you are wrong, and inefficient.
Your metric for merit in organizational leadership, your whole ecosystem there, is broken. And yet you let the 0.1% keep defining it.
They only engineer the game so you lose and they win. You know that, right?
I almost always quote. Spelling nazis are annoying. Even if reporters are long-winded like in the Post, at least they have spelling editors. But it does bug me when their work is attributed to me with a "mdsolar writes" lead in here. BeauHD got it right.
Spelling nazis: you may target my journal, I may even that you there since I can make corrections.
A search for "TVA senior manager for the probabilistic risk assessment in the Nuclear Power Group from April 2010 to September 2014" returned Ching Guey. Inceed lists his work experience as "Senior Manager Nuclear Power Group - Chattanooga, TN April 2010 to September 2014 TVA" so that's almost an exact match, especially given his name. Matching the list of wikipedia to the info off NRC.gov, there is only Exelon Generation Co. LLC, or FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. Exelon owns 4 out of the 5. Then, there is the actual PDF of the indictment.
Corruption at TVA, at high positions, is nothing new.
Read up on Masoud Bajestani.
Hopefully first generation citizenship will become revokable.
Therefore what is the scope of this investigation? Trying to prevent P.R.C. from extending their scope of nuclear-electric energy production, so they cannot fight coal-burning pollution and global warming? Trying to slow their nuclear-medical capability so that asian cancer patients die earlier?
Yes, yes! All of this in sad fact... though the indictment is deliberately crafted to scare people and I'm not surprised it has become anti-nuke clickbait at Slashdot.
NO, It's certainly not a Rosenberg spy leak to bring the POWER OF DOOM to our enemies...
NO, it's not really international espionage in any sense of 'actionable' secrets...
NO, it's not even direct 'corporate' espionage... so what is it,,really? Here's the meat,
[TA] The TVA executive in 2013 used TVA ties to access the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute and provided China General with the nonprofit's reports on nuclear power that were supposed to be restricted to members of the research firm, according to the indictment.
This is a butt-hurt nonprofit suing its executive for moonlighting, and he clearly betrayed their trust by sharing proprietary information. So they have cooked up something that sounds (to gullible people, anti-nuclear activists, and hopefully a judge) as if it was a sensitive leak of critical nuclear secrets to nail the guy.
TVA wants to have their cake and eat it too. As a proponent and purveyor of civilian nuclear energy they have suffered along with the whole nuclear power industry, from the cold war fallout that confers an absurd level of oversight to the whole supply side of lightly enriched uranium fuel, which you can handle with your bare hands and for which there are NO real 'secrets' left... AND YET, they'll pander to the process by manufacturing a faux Rosenberg-style scandal if it suits them. They should be ashamed.
[TA] The indictment alleges Ho "entered into contracts with" the TVA executive and "other U.S.-based experts to provide assistance to" the Chinese-owned nuclear power company --- one of the three largest in China --- related to the "development and production of special nuclear material" in the People's Republic of China.
Gee... lemmie guess... this almost sounds like information on solid fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants, the kind China has made for decades and is also making, under license from Westinghouse and others.
I see 'plutonium' is mentioned in the article too because it is a by-product in the fission of uranium, is used in the manufacture of bombs and is on the 'special' nuclear materials list. Nice way to tie this ball-less issue to nuclear weapons. Nitroglycerin tablets are a dangerous by-product of the pharmaceutical industry and their use in controlling heart attacks is a prime example of letting corporate medical interests undermine National Security. They are not explosive themselves but with a billion dollars' worth of them (small change to Our Enemies) A Bomb Could Be Made.
[TA] According to the indictment, the TVA executive provided Ho with Florida Power & Light "information regarding nuclear power plant outage times" in 2004 for use at China General's Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant and provided consulting services to Daya Bay during that time.
Does it sound kind of fishy that leaking information on outage times--- such as those posted publicly on Nuclear Street website so that migrant nuclear workers may plan to converge on plants during refueling outages --- would be valuable enough to put someone away behind bars?
Perhaps people clicked into this story because they thought the lid was being blown off of something.
Perhaps the news wires are fronting the story without perspective because the indictment has a delicious 'Rosenberg' flavor.
If so... enjoy the rusty nail soup. There really is nothing so see here, but don't move along. It's better than TV.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Chinese medicine seems to rely on harvesting organs from political prisoners. Maybe stealing is better? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
http://www.bbc.com/news/electi...
New transmission bringing western wind power to the TVA will make their nuclear generation redundant. http://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/1...
...you have never tasted Russian Cuisine.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Because TVA is an electric utility, not a military organization, the nuclear information it possesses is purely for civilian use. If it allows China to emit less carbon by closing more coal plants, the net effect will be beneficial for everyone.
The crime here is not espionage, but theft of TVA's intellectual property.
for life, before he moves back to China, with all that experience and knowledge he has. Any accusation or made-up case will do, as long as he remains in prison until he dies.
I wonder if and how the declining middle class and income inequality play into espionage of all types.
Does it just lower the price or does it increase the number of people who are willing to be bought?