It's still not entirely clear to me why or how Xi was being investigated in the first place. There was a mention in an earlier post on HN that he had some incidental contact with Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road.
However, the indictment gives a couple hints on this topic. There are multiple mentions of FISA and CIPA, US laws dealing with national security and spying. Perhaps the US was spying on the people Xi was communicating with?
Did they really burst into his home, armed -- arms drawn? -- and handcuff him in front of his children? Was that necessary?
I don't know enough about the case to speak to the charges themselves -- and I'm confident that, regardless of Xi's individual circumstances, there is plenty of espionage going on [1] -- but I have to wonder at yet another incident that appears to insist upon storm trooper tactics -- followed I presume by a publicity motivated perp walk.
[1] And why don't we pursue further all the production agreements where the Chinese use their economic leverage (politically prescribed and enabled cheaper production costs) to coerce domestic production as a condition of participation in their domestic sector and trade, whereupon they examine and copy the relevant technology, including supposedly restricted high technology components, wholesale.
Who's knocking on the door of e.g. the CEO of Hughes?
Who's publicly displaying those who've grossly mismanaged compromised high value information systems?
Each case like this just further disillusions me with respect to what increasingly appears to be primarily the Federal government's ongoing dog and pony show of law enforcement.
Back to the SWAT teams and perp walks. I no longer see quiet competence on display. Rather, more and more political grandstanding.
You do wonder if there is some internal university politics going on as well certainly being forced out of his job instead of being put on paid leave smells bad
I imagine after the OPM hack the government started looking at lot more closely at communications between Chinese citizens and China, just like they did with the muslims after 9/11. Why would they do that when the attack was likely to have happened remotely anyway and would have nothing to do with Chinese residents? Who knows. Maybe just because "they can", once they have such powers.
It boggles the mind that it's even possible to manufacture such a charge. In most European countries you would get the highest sentence for the biggest crime, which although wouldn't be "accurate" either, it's a whole lot closer to what the punishment should be than stacking the sentences up.
And please spare me the "but he would never get this sentence anyway!" argument. If you were in his position and the government would tell you you're risking 80 years in prison unless you fully cooperated with it, you'd shit your pants, too, and you'd probably give up any rights you have just to not risk getting anywhere close to that sentence, or you would even settle and plead guilty to avoid that.
The fact is that "pleading not guilty" is statistically the "biggest" crime you can commit in much of the US (meaning the one you are likely to be punished for most severely). Which of course makes a mockery of most of the protections of the law.
"In some jurisdictions, this gap has widened so much it has become coercive and is used to punish defendants for exercising their right to trial, some legal experts say."
> It boggles the mind that it's even possible to manufacture such a charge.
Well, y'see, you were accused of a crime. If you don't admit you are guilty and save us the trouble of due process, well, you'll be punished more severely than if you bent over nice and quick for good ol' Uncle Sam.
Its basically a way for prosecutors to pressure people into plea bargains. It helps them maintain their 90%+ conviction rates.
IIRC the federal government really doesn't offer plea bargains, right? And federal sentencing is pretty rigid, so he probably would have served ~80 years.
FISA's probably being cited there because the e-mail evidence was, in all likelihood, captured by the NSA. It turns out you don't need a dystopian future for unaccountable pervasive domestic spying to ruin lives, you just need an incompetent one.
This always happens when there is a public hysteria over a new threat. Innocent lives are very quickly ruined, charges get dropped and evidence fails to hold up in the courtroom on a frequent basis, and despite all of this the actual criminals continue to operate successfully afterwards (just as chinese espionage continues to be successful at the present).
The same type of failed wrongful convictions - typically involving people who are easy targets - as a result of rabid law enforcement and media fear mongering can be found in terrorism in 2000s, drugs in the 1980s-90s, biker gangs in the 60s-70s.
Instead of taking a logical and well-reasoned approach to the enforcement of legitimate societal problems history just keeps repeating itself.
Violating an NDA is civil, not legal FFS. The US government has no business enforcing NDAs. (It can and should enforce court orders resulting from lawsuits over NDAs.)
There are several state and federal laws that can be used to criminally prosecute NDA violations, mainly the National Stolen Property Act and the Economic Espionage Act.
[+] [-] chromaton|10 years ago|reply
However, the indictment gives a couple hints on this topic. There are multiple mentions of FISA and CIPA, US laws dealing with national security and spying. Perhaps the US was spying on the people Xi was communicating with?
You can read the indictment here: https://cryptome.org/2015/09/xiaoxing-xi-files.pdf
All of this seems like overkill for what was supposedly a violation of an NDA.
[+] [-] pasbesoin|10 years ago|reply
Did they really burst into his home, armed -- arms drawn? -- and handcuff him in front of his children? Was that necessary?
I don't know enough about the case to speak to the charges themselves -- and I'm confident that, regardless of Xi's individual circumstances, there is plenty of espionage going on [1] -- but I have to wonder at yet another incident that appears to insist upon storm trooper tactics -- followed I presume by a publicity motivated perp walk.
[1] And why don't we pursue further all the production agreements where the Chinese use their economic leverage (politically prescribed and enabled cheaper production costs) to coerce domestic production as a condition of participation in their domestic sector and trade, whereupon they examine and copy the relevant technology, including supposedly restricted high technology components, wholesale.
Who's knocking on the door of e.g. the CEO of Hughes?
Who's publicly displaying those who've grossly mismanaged compromised high value information systems?
Each case like this just further disillusions me with respect to what increasingly appears to be primarily the Federal government's ongoing dog and pony show of law enforcement.
Back to the SWAT teams and perp walks. I no longer see quiet competence on display. Rather, more and more political grandstanding.
[+] [-] revelation|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walshemj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClintEhrlich|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|10 years ago|reply
It boggles the mind that it's even possible to manufacture such a charge. In most European countries you would get the highest sentence for the biggest crime, which although wouldn't be "accurate" either, it's a whole lot closer to what the punishment should be than stacking the sentences up.
And please spare me the "but he would never get this sentence anyway!" argument. If you were in his position and the government would tell you you're risking 80 years in prison unless you fully cooperated with it, you'd shit your pants, too, and you'd probably give up any rights you have just to not risk getting anywhere close to that sentence, or you would even settle and plead guilty to avoid that.
[+] [-] mpweiher|10 years ago|reply
The fact is that "pleading not guilty" is statistically the "biggest" crime you can commit in much of the US (meaning the one you are likely to be punished for most severely). Which of course makes a mockery of most of the protections of the law.
See also:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/why-inn...
Or
"In some jurisdictions, this gap has widened so much it has become coercive and is used to punish defendants for exercising their right to trial, some legal experts say."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/us/tough-sentences-help-pr...
[+] [-] x5n1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespeech|10 years ago|reply
Well, y'see, you were accused of a crime. If you don't admit you are guilty and save us the trouble of due process, well, you'll be punished more severely than if you bent over nice and quick for good ol' Uncle Sam.
Its basically a way for prosecutors to pressure people into plea bargains. It helps them maintain their 90%+ conviction rates.
[+] [-] dogma1138|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FlannelPancake|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sigmar|10 years ago|reply
Did they see schematics in an email and then made the wild assumption that it was nefarious? That seems absurd.
[+] [-] TillE|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespeech|10 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla...
They basically accused him of being a Chinese Spy but instead charged him with Fraud. :|
[+] [-] facetube|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|10 years ago|reply
The same type of failed wrongful convictions - typically involving people who are easy targets - as a result of rabid law enforcement and media fear mongering can be found in terrorism in 2000s, drugs in the 1980s-90s, biker gangs in the 60s-70s.
Instead of taking a logical and well-reasoned approach to the enforcement of legitimate societal problems history just keeps repeating itself.
[+] [-] Tloewald|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogma1138|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yyhhsj0521|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] konamaster|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4714|10 years ago|reply