Tuesday, March 26, 2013

It Seemed Like Such a Good Idea at the Time

NASA employs 118 Chinese nationals in "remotely-based" information technology jobs that may enable them to penetrate the space agency's national security database servers, The Washington Examiner has learned.

But NASA administrator Charles Bolden said nothing about these individuals during his testimony last week before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on cyber espionage threats against the space agency.

Bolden told the panel he counted 192 Chinese nationals in positions with "physical access" to NASA facilities like its Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and Ames Research Center near San Francisco.

The 118 employees with remote access were described in a sensitive but classified NASA document given to the subcommittee separately from Bolden's testimony.
WTF?  But I'm sure they've been well vetted with background checks on the records to make sure not a single one of them gathering intelligence for the the country they nominally owe allegiance to, right?  I'm sure we can count on the People's Republic of China to give us good information on their backgrounds.
Disclosure of the additional 118 Chinese nationals comes as NASA confronts a spiraling controversy over the agency's vulnerability to cyber espionage efforts by China.

FBI agents arrested Bo Jiang, a NASA Langley contractor, as he was trying to board a March 16 flight to China with a one-way ticket. He was indicted March 21 by a grand jury for making false statements to law enforcement officials.

The FBI is "investigating conspiracies and substantive violations of the Arms Export Control Act," according to the FBI's arrest warrant.
See, I told you.

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