12 ms·

Ex-CIA Officer Suspected of Compromising Chinese Informants Is Arrested

130 points by ryanlol 9y ago

ryanlol 9y ago
(Apparently) previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385359
propman 9y ago
Life in prison. If it risks the lives and sometimes costs the lives of Americans performing a highly dangerous mission for America, I support life in prison even if the name of just 1 informant is given
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way when the countries are switched?
  - throwwwwaway9 9y ago
    That's treason, so it's fair for me. Russians and Chinese probably shoot betraying spies after being debriefed and tortured. It's part of the equation, that's why they should ask for millions and millions, risk vs reward. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381 Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined...
- saagarjha 9y ago
  It's interesting that you've mentioned "America" twice in this sentence. What are your thoughts on this if it was another country?
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Is it really news to you that life, politics, and international relations have tribal and competitive aspects to them? You can be superrational, but that will cause you to lose horribly to the rest of the players. Unless you believe that China would be especially magnanimous in reversed circumstances, what is your point?
    - beisner 9y ago
      Being superrational would allow you to predict the irrationality of the irrationality of other players, and update your strategy accordingly.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  > If it risks the lives and sometimes costs the lives of Americans performing a highly dangerous mission for America Granted it probably risked the lives of non-Americans even more performing a dangerous mission for America. American agents are usually not harmed, it would be a major fuck up from the Chinese side to knowingly assassinating CIA agents. But what they would not think twice about executing Chinese agents who supplied information to the Americans.
rdtsc 9y ago
This combined with the OPM hack should make us very worried about China. The OPM hack is probably the single most damaging hack to the US intelligence community. CIA info was safe from what I understood, except maybe those who switched agencies. However this individual leaked a large number of CIA agents, that added on top puts China at a tremendous advantage.
- jorblumesea 9y ago
  CIA also recruits from governmental agencies, so it's a really big deal. Basically means if you currently for the government and not already in "in the black", your future employment opportunities in intelligence are nil for fear of compromise.
- nihonde 9y ago
  It’s far more dire than some spy agency slapfighting. Look at the other headline today about proud, patriotic Americans kow-towing to Foxconn for the political sleight of hand of a few jobs. And yet another headline is about court martialing top brass in the US Navy because the “world police” can’t navigate peacetime waters in Asia without causing fatalities. Meanwhile, a new class of Chinese nuke sub is spotted openly flying a Chinese flag off the Senkaku islands in brazen defiance of the American protection racket in Asia. No one will be more pleased than Okinawa to see their supposed protectors go away. They’ve been hostages since before WWII. Japan is getting squeezed from the North by Russia. Indonesia is openly talking about joining China’s team. African kids are learning Chinese in school. And in Hawaii, the sloppy, lazy ineptitude and panicky fear-mongering are on full display. Who in their right mind would trust such people as stewards of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal? The game is up, but no one in America seems to know it yet. Those who are paying attention are just hoping America doesn’t take everyone else down with them.
  - IBM 9y ago
    American Declinism has been a popular meme since the 50s, some day it will be true I guess [1]: >Twenty-two years ago, in a refreshingly clear-sighted article for Foreign Affairs, Harvard’s Samuel P. Huntington noted that the theme of "America’s decline" had in fact been a constant in American culture and politics since at least the late 1950s. It had come, he wrote, in several distinct waves: in reaction to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik; to the Vietnam War; to the oil shock of 1973; to Soviet aggression in the late 1970s; and to the general unease that accompanied the end of the Cold War. Since Huntington wrote, we can add at least two more waves: in reaction to 9/11, and to the current "Great Recession."…. >What the long history of American "declinism" — as opposed to America’s actual possible decline — suggests is that these anxieties have an existence of their own that is quite distinct from the actual geopolitical position of our country; that they arise as much from something deeply rooted in the collective psyche of our chattering classes as from sober political and economic analyses. >For whatever reason, it is clear that for more than half a century, many of America’s leading commentators have had a powerful impulse consistently to see the United States as a weak, "bred out" basket case that will fall to stronger rivals as inevitably as Rome fell to the barbarians, or France to Henry V at Agincourt. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/78216/america-in-decline-thomas-friedman https://newrepublic.com/article/78216/america-in-decline-tho...
c3534l 9y ago
If you're living in Hong Kong and you've been paid to oust US spies, why on Earth would you ever set foot in America again? Especially after you've already been investigated by the FBI for what you were doing.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Former intelligence officials said that the F.B.I. lured Mr. Lee back to the United States as part of a ruse It's not mentioned what happened here, but it looks like he was tricked into coming.
- IBM 9y ago
  Maybe he was kidnapped by the CIA or a friendly intelligence agency and brought back covertly to avoid a diplomatic incident with China. https://youtu.be/-u2TLXEJJpA?t=3m https://youtu.be/-u2TLXEJJpA?t=3m
- throwwwwaway9 9y ago
  Money, it says he was offered a CIA contract, apparently many retired agents work as independent contractors after retiring. His mistake was not asking for FU money from China, considering the great service he performed. It's not China doesn't have the money
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  He was obviously not aware the FBI looked at his journals containing the names of the CIA moles - what's really weird is the FBI did not arrest him immediately afterwards instead of waiting five years for his next trip to the USA.
Top19 9y ago
For reference, they’re saying it’s worse than anything that occurred during the Cold War in terms of informants lost/killed, including more than lost via Aldrich Ames (he was eventually arrested in 1994).
Gustomaximus 9y ago
I'm amazed a naturalised citizen would be given so much information access. There must be significantly higher risk of naturalised citizens having loyalty to their former country or ties that can be used to manipulate them. And while these people must be valuable for their insight it seems amazing he would not be kept in more of an information bubble. Almost everything I read abut the CIA seems incompetent to some level. I know they use that line 'you only hear about our failures' but things where you see a large proportion of their actions (successful or not) like all the coups, it seems there is no oversight to quality of their work and I'm guessing decision makers are selected on confidence and ego rather than ability. I genuinely wonder if the world would be a better place, if they were scaled back and reorganised to purely focus on their primary purpose only of being intelligence source only for the president and other elected policy makers.
- outworlder 9y ago
  What I am amazed at is that a naturalized citizen would run the citizenship gauntlet, actually become a citizen, and then go and betray the country they presumably worked for. On the other hand, there's no effort or merit in being born at a particular geographical location.
  - taneq 9y ago
    So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? Just have them enter the country on a tourist visa, walk up to the front door and ask for launch codes?
    - EthanHeilman 9y ago
      >So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? A better strategy would be to recruit someone who already has access to the information you want. Consider the difficulty in "placing a loyal agent": 1. Getting them into the country setting up a life for them, 2. Getting them through citizenship (might take five-twenty years, might never happen), 3. Getting them hired at the CIA and hoping they get sufficient clearance, 4. Getting them moved in to a role with access to the information you want. 2,3,4 all require a number of things going right, nothing going wrong and each would take many years. Success would require a large number of attempts and the successful attempts might take over a decade before you get useful intelligence. I'm not sure anything like what you suggest has ever happened, the closest I can think of is the technique of placing agents in a foreign country and having them associate with targets of interest or report back intelligence[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program
rdl 9y ago
People complain about racism whenever ethnically Chinese or in this case a naturalized Chinese citizen within the IC is subjected to extra security scrutiny, but China has a very effective intelligence program taking advantage of these people, and is very aggressive at pursuing espionage against the US. This is probably not sustainable.
- throwwwwaway9 9y ago
  Racism or not it's reality IMO. Blackmail or patriotism does wonders to "help" your old country. FBI can threaten you or your brother in law with jail for x, y and Z unless you help them. So can the Chinese
  - rdl 9y ago
    I think it has to be done, but it should be done respectfully and proportionately — a high ranking CIA case officer merits much more scrutiny than a NASA scientist, etc. I think we have seen enough serious counterintelligence failures over the past decade that something has to be done culturally and technically.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      It's unclear what it is you think needs to be done here, and since the preceding post seems to suggest that our government persecute the families of those suspected to be involved in espionage, some clarity would be welcome.
      - rdl 9y ago
        I assume he was pointing out why having family or close connections overseas and in a potentially hostile or at least adversarial nation has long been a factor in clearance investigations.
      - whatyoucantsay 9y ago
        Interesting. Would you then see refusing top secret security clearance to a spouse or sibling of a spy to be "persecution"?
znfi 9y ago
One thing I find rather odd is how noone raises an eyebrow that apparently the US happily admitts to having some enormous spy network in China. It is especially puzzeling if one compares it with the reaction to foreign countries supposedly making posts or buying ads on Facebook or Youtube with the intent of influencing elections in the US.
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  How was it reported in China?
- knz 9y ago
  Would you be surprised if China had an intelligence network in the US? I don't think any major country would be surprised - the "great game" is as active as ever...
  - jjcc 9y ago
    I guess the argument is not just about US "happily admitts to having some enormous spy network in China", but about accuse other countries spy on US as if its a crime while US is very happy to do the same thing to other countries. As analogy, you can accuse others stealing when yourself can stand on a moral ground of not stealing. Or you can steal but then don't accuse others. That's fine because you don't see stealing is a crime based on your value. "great game" is as active as ever, every body is doing this. But if you accuse others stealing while happily admit you steal all the time and in very large scale, then there will be surprise, not for every body but for some body. "you" means anybody, could be "me", "s/he". No offense
    - knz 9y ago
      Espionage is a crime in most (all?) countries though? Part of the "game" is pretending that you're not involved in espionage despite all players knowing that it occurs. Morals don't really come into it, since there is no reward for having the most "fair" intelligence agencies.
- nl 9y ago
jjcc 9y ago
May I have a pure theoretical argument about high order spying based on a naive moral principle, i.e. Treat the others the way you like to be treated. 1.I don't like to be spied. So I don't spy anybody not spying on me. First order spy is not good. Don't do it. 2.If I found I'm spied by a notorious group(Maybe CIA), then I have to find out how I'm spied. I'll use spy method which the other group is using, bribery, steal etc. to get the information of the informant stealing my secret. Because this spying is high order spying, i.e. spy on spy, then it is justified. Does that make sense?
- toyg 9y ago
  It makes sense but it’s naive, you’ve basically tied an arm behind your back before going into the savagest fight of your life. Information is the lifeblood of policy, so you want as much as possible, all the time, regardless of how it’s gathered. You can make exceptions towards your citizens because of some high ideal (or more prosaic needs for social peace), but everyone else is a natural target and fair game. Even allies spy on each other, just a bit less because there is often no need (information will be willingly provided). This is why we need supranational orgs (UN, WTO etc): because foreign relationships, left to their natural state, are a lawless Far West.
UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
I always suspected that the Obama Administration DOJ 'discrimination' lawsuit against Palintir had ulterior motives. A company which employees close to 40% Asians. I suspect someone's infiltration project went awry. "How could they possibly reject these candidates whose resume's we carefully tailored to be hired... Must be discrimination." --- Shadowy Data-Mining Firm Palantir Hit With Discrimination Suit Palantir is accused by the Department of Labor of discriminating against Asian job applicant https://www.pcmag.com/news/348234/shadowy-data-mining-firm-palantir-hit-with-discrimination-su https://www.pcmag.com/news/348234/shadowy-data-mining-firm-p... Obama Admin Sues CIA-Funded Counter-Espionaged Firm Palantir for Only Hiring 44% Asians http://www.unz.com/isteve/obama-admin-sues-cia-funded-palantir-for-only-hiring-44-asians/ http://www.unz.com/isteve/obama-admin-sues-cia-funded-palant... The whole thing sounded absurd from the beginning. Do Asians even suffer discrimination in the United States? Honestly, the only organizations I know of actively discriminating against Asians, are Ivy League Universities.
- Clanan 9y ago
  > The whole thing sounded absurd from the beginning. Do Asians even suffer discrimination in the United States? Honestly, the only organizations I know of actively discriminating against Asians, are Ivy League Universities. That's... sort of a huge amount of discrimination.
  - ythn 9y ago
    Well, somehow we've decided "positive discrimination" aka "affirmative action" is a "good" form of discrimination, otherwise there would be less diversity (which would be "bad")
    - UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
      I agree with both of you, so it's interesting Obama DOJ chose to tackle this 'discrimination' vs the kind they enable in our Universities.
- gcb0 9y ago
  if palantir needed to protect data from espionage, they should have incorporated as a defense contractor company, which can only hire citzens, etc. its a solved problem. but as with anything goophalbet, they wanted to have and eat the cake.
throwacide 9y ago
Scumbag fucks! Phewww! Do we kill spies? We’re the good guys and our wrath shall be quick and merciful, if need be. God bless America and peace be with you.

130 points by ryanlol 9y ago

(Apparently) previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385359

propman 9y ago

Life in prison. If it risks the lives and sometimes costs the lives of Americans performing a highly dangerous mission for America, I support life in prison even if the name of just 1 informant is given

ceejayoz 9y ago
Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way when the countries are switched?
- throwwwwaway9 9y ago
  That's treason, so it's fair for me. Russians and Chinese probably shoot betraying spies after being debriefed and tortured. It's part of the equation, that's why they should ask for millions and millions, risk vs reward. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381 Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined...
saagarjha 9y ago
It's interesting that you've mentioned "America" twice in this sentence. What are your thoughts on this if it was another country?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Is it really news to you that life, politics, and international relations have tribal and competitive aspects to them? You can be superrational, but that will cause you to lose horribly to the rest of the players. Unless you believe that China would be especially magnanimous in reversed circumstances, what is your point?
  - beisner 9y ago
    Being superrational would allow you to predict the irrationality of the irrationality of other players, and update your strategy accordingly.
rdtsc 9y ago
> If it risks the lives and sometimes costs the lives of Americans performing a highly dangerous mission for America Granted it probably risked the lives of non-Americans even more performing a dangerous mission for America. American agents are usually not harmed, it would be a major fuck up from the Chinese side to knowingly assassinating CIA agents. But what they would not think twice about executing Chinese agents who supplied information to the Americans.

rdtsc 9y ago

This combined with the OPM hack should make us very worried about China. The OPM hack is probably the single most damaging hack to the US intelligence community. CIA info was safe from what I understood, except maybe those who switched agencies. However this individual leaked a large number of CIA agents, that added on top puts China at a tremendous advantage.

jorblumesea 9y ago
CIA also recruits from governmental agencies, so it's a really big deal. Basically means if you currently for the government and not already in "in the black", your future employment opportunities in intelligence are nil for fear of compromise.
nihonde 9y ago
It’s far more dire than some spy agency slapfighting. Look at the other headline today about proud, patriotic Americans kow-towing to Foxconn for the political sleight of hand of a few jobs. And yet another headline is about court martialing top brass in the US Navy because the “world police” can’t navigate peacetime waters in Asia without causing fatalities. Meanwhile, a new class of Chinese nuke sub is spotted openly flying a Chinese flag off the Senkaku islands in brazen defiance of the American protection racket in Asia. No one will be more pleased than Okinawa to see their supposed protectors go away. They’ve been hostages since before WWII. Japan is getting squeezed from the North by Russia. Indonesia is openly talking about joining China’s team. African kids are learning Chinese in school. And in Hawaii, the sloppy, lazy ineptitude and panicky fear-mongering are on full display. Who in their right mind would trust such people as stewards of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal? The game is up, but no one in America seems to know it yet. Those who are paying attention are just hoping America doesn’t take everyone else down with them.
- IBM 9y ago
  American Declinism has been a popular meme since the 50s, some day it will be true I guess [1]: >Twenty-two years ago, in a refreshingly clear-sighted article for Foreign Affairs, Harvard’s Samuel P. Huntington noted that the theme of "America’s decline" had in fact been a constant in American culture and politics since at least the late 1950s. It had come, he wrote, in several distinct waves: in reaction to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik; to the Vietnam War; to the oil shock of 1973; to Soviet aggression in the late 1970s; and to the general unease that accompanied the end of the Cold War. Since Huntington wrote, we can add at least two more waves: in reaction to 9/11, and to the current "Great Recession."…. >What the long history of American "declinism" — as opposed to America’s actual possible decline — suggests is that these anxieties have an existence of their own that is quite distinct from the actual geopolitical position of our country; that they arise as much from something deeply rooted in the collective psyche of our chattering classes as from sober political and economic analyses. >For whatever reason, it is clear that for more than half a century, many of America’s leading commentators have had a powerful impulse consistently to see the United States as a weak, "bred out" basket case that will fall to stronger rivals as inevitably as Rome fell to the barbarians, or France to Henry V at Agincourt. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/78216/america-in-decline-thomas-friedman https://newrepublic.com/article/78216/america-in-decline-tho...

c3534l 9y ago

If you're living in Hong Kong and you've been paid to oust US spies, why on Earth would you ever set foot in America again? Especially after you've already been investigated by the FBI for what you were doing.

saagarjha 9y ago
> Former intelligence officials said that the F.B.I. lured Mr. Lee back to the United States as part of a ruse It's not mentioned what happened here, but it looks like he was tricked into coming.
IBM 9y ago
Maybe he was kidnapped by the CIA or a friendly intelligence agency and brought back covertly to avoid a diplomatic incident with China. https://youtu.be/-u2TLXEJJpA?t=3m https://youtu.be/-u2TLXEJJpA?t=3m
throwwwwaway9 9y ago
Money, it says he was offered a CIA contract, apparently many retired agents work as independent contractors after retiring. His mistake was not asking for FU money from China, considering the great service he performed. It's not China doesn't have the money
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
stevenwoo 9y ago
He was obviously not aware the FBI looked at his journals containing the names of the CIA moles - what's really weird is the FBI did not arrest him immediately afterwards instead of waiting five years for his next trip to the USA.

Top19 9y ago

For reference, they’re saying it’s worse than anything that occurred during the Cold War in terms of informants lost/killed, including more than lost via Aldrich Ames (he was eventually arrested in 1994).

Gustomaximus 9y ago

I'm amazed a naturalised citizen would be given so much information access. There must be significantly higher risk of naturalised citizens having loyalty to their former country or ties that can be used to manipulate them. And while these people must be valuable for their insight it seems amazing he would not be kept in more of an information bubble. Almost everything I read abut the CIA seems incompetent to some level. I know they use that line 'you only hear about our failures' but things where you see a large proportion of their actions (successful or not) like all the coups, it seems there is no oversight to quality of their work and I'm guessing decision makers are selected on confidence and ego rather than ability. I genuinely wonder if the world would be a better place, if they were scaled back and reorganised to purely focus on their primary purpose only of being intelligence source only for the president and other elected policy makers.

outworlder 9y ago
What I am amazed at is that a naturalized citizen would run the citizenship gauntlet, actually become a citizen, and then go and betray the country they presumably worked for. On the other hand, there's no effort or merit in being born at a particular geographical location.
- taneq 9y ago
  So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? Just have them enter the country on a tourist visa, walk up to the front door and ask for launch codes?
  - EthanHeilman 9y ago
    >So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? A better strategy would be to recruit someone who already has access to the information you want. Consider the difficulty in "placing a loyal agent": 1. Getting them into the country setting up a life for them, 2. Getting them through citizenship (might take five-twenty years, might never happen), 3. Getting them hired at the CIA and hoping they get sufficient clearance, 4. Getting them moved in to a role with access to the information you want. 2,3,4 all require a number of things going right, nothing going wrong and each would take many years. Success would require a large number of attempts and the successful attempts might take over a decade before you get useful intelligence. I'm not sure anything like what you suggest has ever happened, the closest I can think of is the technique of placing agents in a foreign country and having them associate with targets of interest or report back intelligence[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program

rdl 9y ago

People complain about racism whenever ethnically Chinese or in this case a naturalized Chinese citizen within the IC is subjected to extra security scrutiny, but China has a very effective intelligence program taking advantage of these people, and is very aggressive at pursuing espionage against the US. This is probably not sustainable.

throwwwwaway9 9y ago
Racism or not it's reality IMO. Blackmail or patriotism does wonders to "help" your old country. FBI can threaten you or your brother in law with jail for x, y and Z unless you help them. So can the Chinese
- rdl 9y ago
  I think it has to be done, but it should be done respectfully and proportionately — a high ranking CIA case officer merits much more scrutiny than a NASA scientist, etc. I think we have seen enough serious counterintelligence failures over the past decade that something has to be done culturally and technically.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    It's unclear what it is you think needs to be done here, and since the preceding post seems to suggest that our government persecute the families of those suspected to be involved in espionage, some clarity would be welcome.
    - rdl 9y ago
      I assume he was pointing out why having family or close connections overseas and in a potentially hostile or at least adversarial nation has long been a factor in clearance investigations.
    - whatyoucantsay 9y ago
      Interesting. Would you then see refusing top secret security clearance to a spouse or sibling of a spy to be "persecution"?

znfi 9y ago

One thing I find rather odd is how noone raises an eyebrow that apparently the US happily admitts to having some enormous spy network in China. It is especially puzzeling if one compares it with the reaction to foreign countries supposedly making posts or buying ads on Facebook or Youtube with the intent of influencing elections in the US.

jackvalentine 9y ago
How was it reported in China?
knz 9y ago
Would you be surprised if China had an intelligence network in the US? I don't think any major country would be surprised - the "great game" is as active as ever...
- jjcc 9y ago
  I guess the argument is not just about US "happily admitts to having some enormous spy network in China", but about accuse other countries spy on US as if its a crime while US is very happy to do the same thing to other countries. As analogy, you can accuse others stealing when yourself can stand on a moral ground of not stealing. Or you can steal but then don't accuse others. That's fine because you don't see stealing is a crime based on your value. "great game" is as active as ever, every body is doing this. But if you accuse others stealing while happily admit you steal all the time and in very large scale, then there will be surprise, not for every body but for some body. "you" means anybody, could be "me", "s/he". No offense
  - knz 9y ago
    Espionage is a crime in most (all?) countries though? Part of the "game" is pretending that you're not involved in espionage despite all players knowing that it occurs. Morals don't really come into it, since there is no reward for having the most "fair" intelligence agencies.
nl 9y ago

jjcc 9y ago

May I have a pure theoretical argument about high order spying based on a naive moral principle, i.e. Treat the others the way you like to be treated. 1.I don't like to be spied. So I don't spy anybody not spying on me. First order spy is not good. Don't do it. 2.If I found I'm spied by a notorious group(Maybe CIA), then I have to find out how I'm spied. I'll use spy method which the other group is using, bribery, steal etc. to get the information of the informant stealing my secret. Because this spying is high order spying, i.e. spy on spy, then it is justified. Does that make sense?

toyg 9y ago
It makes sense but it’s naive, you’ve basically tied an arm behind your back before going into the savagest fight of your life. Information is the lifeblood of policy, so you want as much as possible, all the time, regardless of how it’s gathered. You can make exceptions towards your citizens because of some high ideal (or more prosaic needs for social peace), but everyone else is a natural target and fair game. Even allies spy on each other, just a bit less because there is often no need (information will be willingly provided). This is why we need supranational orgs (UN, WTO etc): because foreign relationships, left to their natural state, are a lawless Far West.

UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago

I always suspected that the Obama Administration DOJ 'discrimination' lawsuit against Palintir had ulterior motives. A company which employees close to 40% Asians. I suspect someone's infiltration project went awry. "How could they possibly reject these candidates whose resume's we carefully tailored to be hired... Must be discrimination." --- Shadowy Data-Mining Firm Palantir Hit With Discrimination Suit Palantir is accused by the Department of Labor of discriminating against Asian job applicant https://www.pcmag.com/news/348234/shadowy-data-mining-firm-palantir-hit-with-discrimination-su https://www.pcmag.com/news/348234/shadowy-data-mining-firm-p... Obama Admin Sues CIA-Funded Counter-Espionaged Firm Palantir for Only Hiring 44% Asians http://www.unz.com/isteve/obama-admin-sues-cia-funded-palantir-for-only-hiring-44-asians/ http://www.unz.com/isteve/obama-admin-sues-cia-funded-palant... The whole thing sounded absurd from the beginning. Do Asians even suffer discrimination in the United States? Honestly, the only organizations I know of actively discriminating against Asians, are Ivy League Universities.

Clanan 9y ago
> The whole thing sounded absurd from the beginning. Do Asians even suffer discrimination in the United States? Honestly, the only organizations I know of actively discriminating against Asians, are Ivy League Universities. That's... sort of a huge amount of discrimination.
- ythn 9y ago
  Well, somehow we've decided "positive discrimination" aka "affirmative action" is a "good" form of discrimination, otherwise there would be less diversity (which would be "bad")
  - UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
    I agree with both of you, so it's interesting Obama DOJ chose to tackle this 'discrimination' vs the kind they enable in our Universities.
gcb0 9y ago
if palantir needed to protect data from espionage, they should have incorporated as a defense contractor company, which can only hire citzens, etc. its a solved problem. but as with anything goophalbet, they wanted to have and eat the cake.

throwacide 9y ago

Scumbag fucks! Phewww! Do we kill spies? We’re the good guys and our wrath shall be quick and merciful, if need be. God bless America and peace be with you.