90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Biden DOJ ends Trump-era China spy initiative

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Joe Biden announced Wednesday it is shutting down a China-focused national security initiative it started under President Donald Trump to counter spying. The department said it will instead take a “broader approach” to countering “nation-state threats.”

In a speech at George Mason University on Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen cited past complaints of the so-called “China Initiative” the DOJ first opened in 2018 and announced it would be replaced by the new “Strategy for Countering Nation-State Threats.” Olsen said the new strategy expands the focus from China to countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea.

“We have heard concerns from the civil rights community that the ‘China Initiative’ fueled a narrative of intolerance and bias,” Olsen said. “To many, that narrative suggests that the Justice Department treats people from China or of Chinese descent differently. The rise in anti-Asian hate crime and hate incidents only heightens these concerns. The Department is keenly aware of this threat and is enhancing efforts to combat acts of hate. These efforts are reflected in the Attorney General’s memorandum issued last year following the enactment of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.”

Olsen said efforts the Trump-era China Initiative took to pursue cases against Chinese actors taking part in research grant fraud were also a cause for concern. He said such cases “can lead to a chilling atmosphere for scientists and scholars that damages the scientific enterprise in this country.”

Olsen said protecting against fraud and espionage at U.S. research institutions is still a matter of national security, “But so is ensuring that we continue to attract the best and the brightest researchers and scholars to our country from all around the world — and that we all continue to honor our tradition of academic openness and collaboration.”

A group of 200 Yale professors recently added to the complaints from academia about the China Initiative, sending a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on him to end the initiative.

“By grouping cases under the China Initiative rubric, we helped give rise to a harmful perception that the department applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct related to that country or that we in some way view people with racial, ethnic or familial ties to China differently,” Olsen added.

In light of the complaints about bias from the China Initiative, Olsen said he began a review of the initiative as soon as he...

Hunter Biden's Ex-Girlfriend Turns on Him Before Grand Jury, Spills the Tea on Lavish Spending: Report

With Hunter Biden, there was a lot of lavish spending, according to his ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan, as she reportedly testified for almost five hours on Feb. 15 before a grand jury probing Biden’s taxes.

Testifying at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, Kestan, 28, said the 52-year-old son of President Joe Biden in 2018 repeatedly directed her to withdraw “thousands of dollars at a time” from ATMs, according to the New York Post, which cited a source familiar with the secret grand jury proceedings.

From the ATM withdrawals, Kestan said, Hunter Biden gave her money for meals, clothes and more, but she testified she did not know where the money came from.

On Dec. 9, 2020, just after the presidential election and before his father took office, Hunter Biden issued a statement saying that federal officials were “investigating my tax affairs,” Politico reported.

Politico reported that same day that the investigation went beyond Biden’s taxes into potential money laundering and his overseas business activities.

A partial copy of a subpoena revealed JPMorgan Chase Bank being ordered to produce any records of Biden interacting with the Bank of China, the Post reported on Jan. 30.

Also subpoenaed were transactions involving James Biden, who is Hunter Biden’s uncle, along with former business partners Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin, the report said.

While unable to say where Biden’s money came from, Zestan’s testimony revealed a high-flying lifestyle.

Responding to questions about hotels at which the couple stayed, Zestan said they included the lavish Four Seasons, Mercer, SIXTY SoHo and SoHo Grand in New York and the Hollywood Roosevelt, NoMad and Jeremy West Hollywood in Los Angeles, the Post reported.

Zestan also said she stayed with Biden at the celebrity-oriented Chateau Marmont in LA for a month, according to the report. That hotel is where the president’s son said in his memoir that he learned how to cook crack cocaine, the Post reported.

She reportedly testified that she believes she was the one who persuaded Biden to get off drugs and pursue a career as an artist.

But Zestan said she felt “super-crazy” upon learning Biden had suddenly married for a second time — he and Melissa Cohen wed in May 2019 just 10 days after they met, according to the Post.

Also seen emerging from the federal courthouse in Delaware on Feb. 15 was another Hunter Biden ex-girlfriend, Lunden Roberts, who testified before the grand jury for several hours, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported.

She earlier had filed a paternity suit against Biden for her 3-year-old daughter. The president’s son had denied being the child’s father and that he had a relationship with Roberts until proven wrong by a DNA test, according to...

A new Chinese law allows for vessels to turn off their transponders in some of the world's most densely trafficked and tense waterways.

A large number of China's "little blue men," the irregular maritime militia forces that receive support and training from the Chinese government, have gone dark on traditional maritime tracking systems thanks to a new law. The inability to track these ships is worrisome given the role many Chinese fishing and commercial vessels play in Beijing’s plans to assert itself in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, some of the most hotly contested areas of the Pacific.

A new report underscores the safety and intelligence gaps caused by a cybersecurity and data privacy law passed by China last year which caused a large number of Chinese vessels operating in or near the country’s territorial waters to disappear from global tracking systems. The new data detailing the scope of China’s fleet was published by commercial satellite firm Unseen Labs, which specializes in tracking and identifying radiofrequency (RF) transmissions from space.

In a February 18 press release, the company writes that “most ships are not visible from traditional surveillance systems once they get close to Chinese shores” and that “more than 60% of ships in the area have disappeared” from the automatic identification system, or AIS, the global standard for tracking and identifying ships at sea.

UNSEEN LABS

A graphic showing vessels detected by radiofrequency emissions, white, and vessels broadcasting AIS data, red.

AIS data includes a vessel's identity and type, its position, course, speed, navigational status, and other safety and positioning-related information. AIS systems were made mandatory for most ships by the International Maritime Organization in 2004, but included provisions that nations “may exempt certain ships from carrying an AIS.”

Ships that are required to transmit AIS include cargo ships weighing 300 gross tons or more engaged on international voyages, cargo ships weighing 500 gross tons not engaged on international voyages, and all passenger ships. Individual nations also have their own AIS laws that pertain to their waters; in the United States, all commercial self-propelled fishing vessels of 65 feet or more in length must broadcast an AIS signal at all times. Most military vessels are not required to transmit AIS signals and do not regularly do so under low-threat conditions, although the U.S. Navy mandated that ships use the system while transiting congested waters after a pair of damaging collisions in 2017. Currently, most AIS systems are radiofrequency based, meaning they only work ship-to-ship or near coastlines. Multiple nations have been launching satellites since the early 2000s to expand the reach of AIS services, which help offer coverage in areas of the open sea far from shore.

USCG

A U.S. Coast Guard specialist monitors AIS signals in New York Harbor.

To calculate the lack of AIS signals in Chinese waters, Unseen Labs used satellites to detect the RF emissions from ships operating in Chinese waters, and found during one eight-day period that the vast majority of ships operating in the East China Sea were not broadcasting an AIS signal. “As a result, most ships are not visible from traditional surveillance systems once they get close to Chinese shores. In this new context, the AIS system doesn’t provide an accurate picture of...