Title
Feds: U.S. defense analyst leaked secrets to China
Link
Feds: U.S. defense analyst leaked secrets to China - CNN.com
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Excerpt
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. Defense Department analyst has been arrested and charged with espionage, accused of passing American military secrets to the Chinese government.
Court documents unsealed Monday following arrests in two states identify the defense worker as Gregg William Bergersen, 51, of Alexandria, Virginia.
Bergersen is a weapons systems policy analyst at the Defense Department's Defense Security Cooperation Agency in Arlington, Virginia. He is charged with conspiracy to disclose national defense information illegally to unauthorized individuals.
In an unrelated espionage case, federal authorities in California arrested a former Boeing Co. engineer and charged him with working as an unregistered agent and stealing trade secrets for the Chinese government.
"These two cases plainly represent the magnitude of the threat we face," said Kenneth Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security.
"It's a threat to our national security and to our economic position in the world," he added, "a threat that is posed by the relentless efforts by foreign intelligence services to penetrate our security systems."
Wainstein said the Chinese government is among the most aggressive of foreign powers seeking access to U.S. military and economic secrets.
Also in the Virginia case, two Chinese immigrants -- Tai Shen Kuo, 58, and Yu Xin Kang, 33, both of New Orleans, Louisiana -- were charged with conspiracy to disclose national defense information to a foreign government.
Bergersen and Kuo, a naturalized U.S. citizen, are scheduled to appear later Monday in federal court in Alexandria. Kang, a permanent U.S. resident, will make her initial appearance Monday in a federal court in New Orleans.
Justice Department officials said Kuo cultivated friendships with Bergersen and others at the direction of an unidentified official of the Beijing government. Kuo allegedly "gathered national defense information on behalf of the government" of China from January 2006 to this month.
Separately, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, California, plans to announce charges in another Chinese espionage case. A former Boeing engineer was arrested after he was indicted on charges of economic espionage and acting as an agent of China.
Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 72, a Chinese native who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, had been an employee of Rockwell International for more than 30 years. He was arrested at his home in Orange County, California.
Reached by phone, a woman who identified herself as Chung's wife said that she had no comment.
Chung will appear in a federal court in Santa Ana, California, to face charges of providing to China secrets relating to the U.S. space shuttle, the C-17 military aircraft and the Delta IV rocket, a Justice Department official in California said.
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Comment:
Wow! How could someone betray their country like this.
