The US Department of Justice has revealed that American agents have been charged with spying for China after sharing activists’ private information, including the passport information of one man’s daughter.
The fact that the Chinese government is expanding its intelligence gathering and misinformation strategies within the US may not come as a surprise to many. After all, there are probably more anti-communist and anti-socialist people in the US than anywhere else in the world (living side by side with extreme leftists, of course). Up until recently, Chinese dissidents could express their criticism of the CCP in a relatively safe environment in the US.
Official indictments against at least three other defendants, including an active DHS agent and a Department of Human Services agent, allege that they “acted as Chinese agents” while snooping on CCP critics and dissidents in the US. Agents revealed activists’ private information, including the passport information of one man’s daughter.
The Department of Justice first revealed the case in May, but the more extensive information wasn’t made public until recently.
The news comes just after the US government reaffirmed its efforts to get Tik Tok removed from Big Tech app stores due to the CCP’s repeated access to data on American citizens. China’s 4th Generation warfare tactics are becoming more sophisticated, and they have a particular interest in influencing western public opinion.
One is reminded of the Chinese disinformation campaign that sought to link the Covid-19 virus and the pandemic to Fort Detrick and the United States. Despite the fact that there was overwhelming evidence that the area close to the Wuhan Virology Lab was the source and that there was no evidence to support Fort Detrick as the source, many Americans (and perhaps hired disinformation operatives) were spreading the propaganda. Even though US sponsors, including as the NIH, supported gain of function studies on covid viruses, the Wuhan lab is still a focus of attention in inquiries into the origin of the outbreak.
One has to wonder if these actions are a prelude to some other purpose given that the rise of Chinese information warfare implies the CCP is pursuing a global reach rather than only remaining isolated from the west. In the past two years, China’s desire to annex Taiwan has only gotten stronger, and Joe Biden has warned that the US would retaliate militarily if Taiwan were invaded. Additionally, a hidden economic conflict between China and the US is raging as China fully supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through its trade.
The Chinese have been heavily experimenting with “social credit systems” and the use of social media as a tool to keep an eye on and manage their own population. Obviously, the US is also testing this theory, but there seems to be a growing overlap between US government surveillance and the surveillance of Americans by foreign entities.
The objective is to silence dissent, and it makes perfect strategic sense to use American citizens and American government employees to suppress activists. The message is that even in the “land of the free,” you are not free from us.
The unsettling trend could foreshadow the rise of digital hitmen who hunt political adversaries and try to ruin their lives. The notion of the threat, rather than the actual threat, predominates in the target’s mind regardless of whether they actually try to hurt them or not.
In the meantime, Americans must pay much closer attention to the caliber of candidates accepted for government bureaucratic positions. Or perhaps we should consider if the bureaucracy is really necessary. This most recent incident serves as a reminder that Americans need to be concerned about both internal and external corruption.
Support GreatGameIndia
This link is an interview with a PhD Tech expert from India who clearly runs down the extent of privacy invasion and concomitant privacy jeopardy now in play via smartphone use.