In a development that I think many media outlets did not mention, a “mole” for the Chinese government was recently discovered inside the US State Department. This spy had been hired during the Clinton administration, and had been on the Chinese payroll for years. She also had a “top-secret” security clearance and spoke Chinese and other languages (first link). One can only wonder what American secrets were leaked to the Chinese via this person. The second link reports that another Chinese mole was discovered inside the FBI last summer.
The problem of China penetrating the US government with spies has been noticed even by the liberal media. The third link is a report by the left-wing media source, Newsweek, about the dangers of Chinese spies inside the US government. In combining the information in the three links, it is clear that while China is targeting Chinese-Americans for enlistment as spies, the danger is not limited to Chinese-Americans. Indeed, people of all races and backgrounds are susceptible to becoming spies due to bribery, “honey-traps”, blackmail, etc. Some spies, of course, are deep-cover spies who have been agents of foreign governments for a very long time.
I believe it is obvious that the matter of placing spies for foreign governments inside the US government is hardly limited to China. Russia, Iran and various other governments would also be keenly interested in placing spies inside US governmental agencies and departments to glean all the intelligence they can gather. I think that such agencies as the US Defense Department, DARPA, the NSA, CIA, etc. that also handle secret and sensitive information would also be prime targets for penetration by foreign spies. I hope all such agencies will be successful in uncovering and identifying the spies that have not yet been identified. With all the meta-data being accumulated by the NSA, CIA, FBI, DIA, DHS and various other agencies, well-placed foreign spied could accumulate much sensitive information about the private information pertaining to all highly-placed US government officials with an eye to seeing who they can “turn” via some of the above-mentioned spy craft methods. Even seemingly innocuous information such as US payroll records could be used to locate the home addresses of many US government and military leaders and key personnel such military pilots, ship captains, etc. If a war broke out, Chinese agents would surely try to assassinate as many such personnel as possible in order to decapitate the US government and cripple any US war effort. It’s just my opinion of course, but I think it would be wise to have all key US national security, military and diplomatic staff change their physical addresses and be paid henceforth via accounts that do not list or reveal their new domiciles to any possible spying efforts.
This is a short post, but I thought readers would like to know that spies inside the US government is a very real issue about which to be concerned.
- http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/top-secret-state-dept-employee-charged-concealing-contacts-chinese
- http://observer.com/2016/08/breaking-chinese-mole-uncovered-inside-the-fbi/
- http://www.newsweek.com/cia-chinese-moles-beijing-spies-577442
