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5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
- bigcat123 5y ago
- nickff 5y agoThis kind of thing is why people were paying bribes to Chinese Paramilitary Police impersonator(s) in California: https://www.thedrive.com/news/29927/highway-patrol-arrests-driver-impersonating-chinese-paramilitary-police-with-audi-a4 https://www.thedrive.com/news/29927/highway-patrol-arrests-d...
- AlexandrB 5y agoThis is such a weird ploy. Is there any link between the impersonator and the CCP or is it just a lone scammer intimidating immigrants? It's interesting too that "impersonating a peace officer" applies in this case. > CHP officers arrested the driver under charges of forging/possessing a fraudulent public seal and impersonating a peace officer. A police official has told KTLA 5 that the man's charges will be treated with the same severity as they would if it were American officers he had impersonated.
- sudden_dystopia 5y ago
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
- orangepurple 5y agoChinese grad students have already copied all university research lab hard drive contents and sent them back to China. One of them admitted to my friend to doing it and being sent to the school by the Chinese military. Chinese grad students are a massive espionage risk, second only to Israeli nationals.
- noobermin 5y agoWhy Israeli nationals? Israel is an allied country to the US.
- mschuster91 5y agoIf there is one thing Israel is known for, it's their secret service. I'd even go and say the Mossad is miles ahead of the NSA... the NSA goes for the brute force approach: grab every piece of data they can get their hold on with enormous resources and attempt to make sense of the pile later. The Mossad is orders of magnitude more resource-efficient, they go for surgical strikes against whomever they are targeting. And they don't care at all if their target is an allied state, a neutral state or an enemy state.
- encryptluks2 5y agoYet they indiscriminately kill around the world and we support their Holy War.
- sjg007 5y agoI'm not really sure how meaningful or effective that is as a strategy .. I mean it's just data. Now exfiltrating designs of devices might be a different thing but science is more about the training and becoming an expert. Learning how to do research is the most important part. Most experiments are difficult to replicate anyway.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- president 5y agoAnd yet the US seemingly does nothing about it. Makes you think whether the US government is turning a blind eye or they believe there the benefits outweigh the costs.
- philovivero 5y agoSometimes I think this sounds conspiratorial, and surely isn't happening. Who has the time or money to pay 5 people to just go around harassing and stalking people for political gain only? Then I remember the story of the lady in East Germany who, after it fell, managed to get the Stasi records that finally proved that yes, they had been stalking her, harassing her, and spying on her. They would do things like wait until she went into a store to buy something, then let the air out of her bicycle tires. Just stupid little harassing things like that, so that if she complained about it to her family they'd think she was crazy. Next time you hear some nutcase on the street talking about things like this to whoever will listen... ponder things like this.
- daenz 5y agoReminds me of Gang stalking[0]. It always seems to happen to people who present themselves as generally not very mentally healthy, but sometimes you have to wonder. If you were the very unlucky target of some deniable, organized harassment effort, it would certainly take its toll on your mental health. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking
- brailsafe 5y agorelevant Onion https://youtu.be/FzoXQKumgCw https://youtu.be/FzoXQKumgCw
- vmception 5y agotangentially relevant Onion https://www.theonion.com/police-flip-through-unsolved-crimes-to-see-what-else-th-1848424844 https://www.theonion.com/police-flip-through-unsolved-crimes...
- kingcharles 5y agoDamn. I was in jail with a lot of very mentally sick people, and this hits too close to home!
- 5y ago
- qwertyuiop_ 5y agoNo other country has managed to accomplish what CCP has in its coordinated campaign across the globe. Covert: Inflitrate US Congress for potential blackmail - https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2df... Infitration of US Higher Ed & Supression - https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/16/how-china-infiltrated-us-classrooms-216327/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/16/how-china... Siphon off entire US Government personnel information, Probably to match it against Grindr, Tiktok and other social networks - https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/de/security/news/cyber-attacks/us-opm-hack-exposes-data-of-4-million-federal-employees https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/de/security/news/cyber-atta... Inflitrated Australian Government - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/world/australia/china-spying-wang-liqiang-nick-zhao.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/world/australia/china-spy... Infiltration of UK Higher Ed - https://felixonline.co.uk/issue/1773/news/chinese-infiltration-mi6-say-imperial-academics-could-be-arrested-in-weeks-2 https://felixonline.co.uk/issue/1773/news/chinese-infiltrati... Overt: US Newspapers - https://zeenews.india.com/world/china-daily-paid-us-newspapers-19-million-for-advertising-printing-report-2289019.html https://zeenews.india.com/world/china-daily-paid-us-newspape... Tiktok: https://www.reuters.com/technology/rubio-wants-biden-block-tiktok-after-chinese-government-takes-stake-2021-08-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/rubio-wants-biden-block-t... Zoom (potential massive spying operation) - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/18/zoom-helped-china-surveillance/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/18/zoom-he... And many more.
- ccn0p 5y agodon't forget the overt "influence the influencer" investments into organizations like the NBA, Disney, etc.
- pphysch 5y ago> No other country has managed to accomplish what CCP has in its coordinated campaign across the globe. CCP might be good at this, but this is just laughably wrong. They certainly haven't overthrown anywhere close to as many governments as Washington has since WW2.
- vjust 5y agoWhile there is some potential for over-reach, and a kind of stereotyping of Chinese academics, this is not without basis. A lot of them have abused their welcome, and done actions against USA - all while funded by US taxpayer. The Chinese govt has many people in its pay, some willing, likely most unwilling and coerced. But a spying operation is an offense.
- raxxorrax 5y agoChina is a dictatorship and any Chinese student can be put under pressure with their families at home. That said, the vast majority don't study in foreign countries to spy for the CCP. But obviously with this leverage there is a limit on what you can say in public. Especially since a lot of platforms decided that there have to be consequences for speech. Those demanding it most strongly just tend not to be the brightest stars in the night sky because that in turn has the consequence of vastly empowering repressive tactics so that people take more care of what they say.
- aussiegreenie 5y agoAustralia a country with a smaller population than Texas has about 50,000 Chinese "spies". They are not James Bond-type spies but informants on other Chinese in Australia. In East Germany, one in five people were informants for the Communists. Canada would have a similar number as well.
- alliao 5y agolocal Chinese media in NZ is 100% pro CCP, serious downer as I'm an Asian and people automatically assume I side with CCP ideologies. Didn't Australia passed some law on Espionage and Foreign Interference? From what I can tell it greatly subsided public activities over there, we need something like that in NZ to be honest...
- jfoster 5y agoDo you have a source for that? Sounds too high to be plausible. With a population of around 25 million, that would mean that 1 out of every 500 people would be an informant.
- pphysch 5y agoI'll reckon their criteria for "spy" is something like "disagrees with me politically".
- mullen 5y agoThe Chinese "Spies" are not what you think of as Spies. They are Chinese foreign college students in Australia who report back to China if any of their classmates do something that the Chinese government would not approve of. They also steal information when they can and just basically tow the party line while overseas. They all do it because the government is paying for their education and they are proven loyal to CCCP (That's why the government pays for their education overseas).
- jfoster 5y agoOK, but source? Australian population in 2016 born in China was ~500k. If you assume that the majority of this was happening within that population, if it's 50k "informants", that would mean it's 1 in every 10 people. If you further limited it to students, it would be even more than that. If this were actually known to be happening at such high frequency, I would expect that Australia would know about it & do something about it. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/6101_036 https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/get...
- milofeynman 5y agoRelated propublica reporting: https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-how-china-exports-repression-using-a-network-of-spies-hidden-in-plain-sight/amp https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-how-ch...
- ajsharp 5y agoThese details are wild, scary, and fascinating. Fascinating from the perspective of how easy it is for foreign governments on the other side of the world to try to scare the shit out of US citizens by hiring some scumbag PI for probably as little as $5k. > Beginning in September 2021, Lin hired a private investigator (the PI) in New York to disrupt the campaign of a Brooklyn resident currently running for U.S. Congress (the Victim), including by physically attacking the Victim. The Victim was a student leader of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, who later escaped to the United States, served in the U.S. military, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In September 2021, the Victim (then living in Long Island) announced his intention to run for a U.S. congressional seat on Long Island in the November 2022 general election. > In hiring the PI, Lin explained that if the Victim was selected during the June 2022 primary election, then he might be “elected to be a legislator. Right now we don’t want him to be elected.” Lin emphasized that, “Whatever price is fine. As long as you can do it.” He also promised that “we will have a lot more-more of this [work] in the future…Including right now [a] New York State legislator.” Lin explained to the PI that Lin was working with other unidentified individuals in the PRC to stop the Victim from being elected to U.S. Congress.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThat's considerably more than just "harassing a US resident".
- cwkoss 5y agoWe should all reflect on why this story is getting so little coverage in contrast to the 'Russian interference' narrative of 2017.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoAt least partly because interfering with the election of the US president is quite a bit more significant than interfering with the election of one representative.
- kelnos 5y ago
- bsdz 5y agoAnyone else curious about the ages of the defendants? 59, 73 and 62 years old respectively. Is it harder for the PRC to recruit younger "spies" or are older ones just more reliable?
- spacemanmatt 5y agoYounger spies are more careful?
- bsdz 5y agoah! indeed that's another possibility, they simply don't get caught (at least this time)
- spacemanmatt 5y agoI am totally shooting from the hip on all this, but I do wonder if/when there is a trade-off point between the expertise and energy youth can put into the trade versus the benefits and efficiencies of experience.
- dirtyid 5y agoYes, I noticed that too. Seems like they're tapping older people with connections and resources. I imagine there's going to be more younger gen assets to tap in future, a lot more nationalist PRC diaspora in west now vs older gen who fled PRC/China when it was a shitshow.
- bsdz 5y agoI've been surprised how nationalist some older Chinese expats are. In particular, I found some older HKers were very pro PRC. This was all before the Umbrella Movement. I put it down to becoming more conservative as you age (anecdotal evidence).
- dirtyid 5y agoMy feeling is older Chinese diaspora comes in roughly two flavours, dissidents who still see PRC as politically repressive shithole (fair) or economic migrants who left broke China but are now proud of rich China. I think folks intuitively group Chinese diaspora together with ex Soviet State diaspora, people who fled failing communism states that remain stagnant. But modern China is more "new country" than "old country". Combine with influence of pro PRC media ecosystem = resurging nationalism.
- alliao 5y agovery light slap on the wrist after murder of Jim Li https://queenseagle.com/all/2022/3/16/queens-atty-stabbed-to-death-in-office https://queenseagle.com/all/2022/3/16/queens-atty-stabbed-to...
- andrewzah 5y agoDid you misread the article? Says it happened two days ago (3/14/2022) and a murder charge is pending.
- yftsui 5y agoHe probably meant to say the cases are related, the suspect of the linked murder case when leaving the Flushing 109th Precinct was yelling "You are Chinese, but you want to be anti-communist" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7MbXJyxMHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7MbXJyxMHQ
- kwatsonafter 5y ago
- fractalfinity 5y ago
- euroderf 5y agoBook'em Danno.
- insaneworld 5y agoCCP is the biggest threat to democracies around the world. Russia's stupid mistake now slowed down the confrontation.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mjcohen 5y agoOnly 5?
- pipework 5y agoIt’s been 9 years since Aaron Swartz passed.
- bpiche 5y agoWell, not to the day, but it's never a bad time to remember him. Rest In Peace.
- opisthenar84 5y agoI imagine we have spies in the PRC as well... only they wouldn't be doing mundane things such as going around stalking and harassing people.
- ldoughty 5y ago> You can start thinking now, aside from violence, what other plans are there? Huh? But in the end, violence would be fine too. Huh? Beat him [chuckles], beat him until he cannot run for election. Heh, that’s the-the last resort. You-you think about it. Car accident, [he] will be completely wrecked [chuckles], right? Don’t know, eh, whatever ways from all different angles. Or, on the day of the election, he cannot make it there himself, right? Wow... If this person is indeed directed by the PRC, that's basically state-sponsored killing/maiming... I'm sure other countries (including the USA) do it.. but it's wrong on so many levels....
- chrisjc 5y agoI mentioned it the other day in another thread about Tibet where the discussion of political prisoners came up... and it seems relevant here too. Why does the CCP seem so restrained when it comes to dealing with those that they see as posing a threat. I'm not defending the CCP's actions or tactics, but surely it would be easier for them to cut to the chase and just "get rid" of those that they consider a serious threat or liability to their existence? We've seen plenty of examples of similar situations where Russia, North Korea, etc... employs a quick and cut-throat approach to foreign nationals/individuals that they identify as a threat. For the excerpt it's clear that they're willing to kill this individual... why create such risk and exposure for themselves with this drawn-out, ambiguous dubious plot?
- everybodyknows 5y ago> Lin remains at large. Bad -- maybe cover of the investigation got blown?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- adultSwim 5y agoHonest question, what does the US do in China and Russia? Do we do this? Something else?