Tag: Espionage and Intelligence Services

China Targeted State Department Emails in Microsoft Hack, U.S. Officials Say

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Chinese hackers tried to penetrate specific State Department email accounts in the weeks before Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to Beijing in June, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The investigation of the efforts by the Chinese hackers, who likely are affiliated with China’s military or spy services, is ongoing, American officials said. But U.S. officials have downplayed the idea that the hackers stole sensitive information, insisting that no classified email or cloud systems were penetrated. The State Department’s cybersecurity team first discovered the intrusion. Multiple officials said the…

Chinese Hackers Gained Access to Government Email Accounts, Microsoft Says

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Chinese hackers intent on collecting intelligence on the United States gained access to government email accounts, Microsoft disclosed on Tuesday night. In a blog post, Microsoft said about 25 organizations, including government agencies, had been compromised by the hacking group, which used forged authentication tokens to get access to individual email accounts. Hackers had access to at least some of the accounts for a month before the breach was detected, Microsoft said. It did not identify the organizations and agencies affected. The new breach does not appear to be of…

Intelligence Agencies Remain Divided Over Covid Lab Leak Theory

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Intelligence agencies do not believe the case of three workers from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, who became ill in 2019 can help shed light on whether the Covid-19 pandemic originated from an accidental lab leak, according to a report made public Friday. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a long-awaited declassified report, which included spy agencies’ findings on the so-called lab leak theory, but the material is unlikely to satisfy many people who have been wrestling with the unanswered questions on the origins of the Covid…

U.S. Intelligence Agencies May Never Find Covid’s Origins, Officials Say

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For three years, the U.S. government has been tied in knots over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, frustrated that China’s hindrance of investigations and unwillingness to look critically at its own research have obscured what intelligence agencies can learn about whether the virus escaped from a lab. Inquiries during the Trump and Biden administrations have yielded no definitive answers. The Energy Department and the F.B.I. favored the theory that a laboratory leak may have caused the pandemic. Five intelligence bodies considered theories of natural transmission — that the coronavirus…

3 Convicted of Harassing Family on Behalf of China’s Government

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Three men were convicted in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday of stalking a family in the New Jersey suburbs on behalf of the Chinese government. The defendants, Michael McMahon, 55, Zhu Yong, 66, and Zheng Congying, 27, were found guilty of stalking and a related conspiracy charge. Mr. Zhu and Mr. McMahon were also found guilty of acting as unregistered foreign agents, and Mr. Zhu was convicted on a second conspiracy charge. Speaking outside the courthouse on Tuesday, Mr. McMahon, a retired New York Police Department sergeant turned private investigator,…

Why Daniel Ellsberg Tried to Get Prosecuted Near His Life’s End

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In the last years of his long and remarkable life, Daniel Ellsberg, the disenchanted military analyst who famously leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers in 1971, wanted to be prosecuted. And he hoped I would help pave the way. The charge he coveted was mishandling national security secrets under the Espionage Act, and his plan was to give me another classified document he had taken decades ago that he had held onto without authorization all this time. He wanted to mount a defense in a way that would offer the Supreme…

Republicans Attack Blinken for China Trip, Threatening Subpoena

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The News Leading congressional Republicans excoriated Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday for traveling to China this weekend, accusing him of undermining national security by attempting to normalize diplomatic relations with Beijing as they press for a more hard-line approach. Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, threatened to subpoena Mr. Blinken if he failed to produce documents by Friday evening detailing the list of retaliatory actions the U.S. government has considered against China, and when they were applied. “The Biden…

Blinken Plans to Meet With Top Chinese Officials in Beijing

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The News The State Department announced on Wednesday that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken planned to leave on Friday for a visit to Beijing to stress to Chinese officials “the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage” the relationship between the two nations. Mr. Blinken also plans to “raise bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters, and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges,” the State Department said. The trip is one that Mr. Blinken had to reschedule after canceling a planned visit on the day…

China Has Had a Spy Base in Cuba for Years, U.S. Official Says

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A Chinese spy base in Cuba that could intercept electronic signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial buildings has been up and running since or before 2019, when the Chinese base was upgraded, according to a Biden administration official. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said the spy base was an issue that the Biden administration had inherited from former President Donald J. Trump. After Mr. Biden took office, his administration was briefed about the base in Cuba as well as plans China was…

China to Build Station That Could Spy on U.S. from Cuba, Officials Say

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China is planning to build a facility in Cuba that U.S. officials are concerned could be capable of spying on the United States by intercepting electronic signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial facilities, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the agreement. Beijing has built listening outposts elsewhere and has a military presence in Cuba, but an eavesdropping station could give China a foothold about 100 miles from the Florida coastline, from which it could potentially conduct surveillance operations against the United States. The proximity of the planned facility…