WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday signed an executive order restricting American government use of a class of powerful surveillance tools that have been abused by both autocracies and democracies around the world to spy on political dissidents, journalists and human rights activists. The tools in question, known as commercial spyware, give governments the power […]
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The platforms are so powerful, their names are verbs: Google, Uber, Instagram, Netflix. For years, the dominance of American tech companies has brought economic benefits to the United States. It has also offered an advantage in a less obvious area — national security. Tech companies gather incredible amounts of data about their users. They know […]
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In the summer of 2020, in full re-election mode and looking for new ways to punish China, President Donald J. Trump threatened to cut off TikTok from the phones of millions of Americans unless its parent company agreed to sell all of its U.S. operations to American owners. The effort collapsed. Now, more than two […]
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A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta’s security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and officials with knowledge of the case. The disclosure is […]
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Banning TikTok won’t keep us safe. As you may have heard, the United States government is in the midst of a full-on panic about TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app best known for its ability to inspire teens to try out new dance moves. Last week, the White House reportedly demanded that TikTok’s owners sell or […]
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WASHINGTON — A month before President George W. Bush first sent American troops into Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was warned that the war might end up costing the United States billions of dollars. Mr. Rumsfeld’s reply to retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the American tasked with overseeing Iraq’s postwar reconstruction, would constitute a […]
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OTTAWA — The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy. But as two prominent Canadian […]
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There’s growing momentum in Congress to ban TikTok, the social media app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, for reasons of national security. Last week, the White House expressed support for a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would give President Biden the power to ban the app, and the White House is also reportedly […]
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WASHINGTON — Long after the Covid pandemic emerged from Wuhan, the origin of the coronavirus remains a subject of intense scientific scrutiny, and even more intense political debate. A team of researchers has added fuel to the bonfire by presenting data at a World Health Organization meeting suggesting a wild animal known as a raccoon […]
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WASHINGTON — China’s government is increasingly convinced it can only make itself the pre-eminent power in Asia, and a major power globally, by diminishing American influence, the top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday. The goal of weakening U.S. power and influence is one reason China has continued to pursue a deepening partnership with Russia, according […]
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WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday will dig into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in a hearing that promises to be filled with political theater alongside substantive questions about laboratory safety and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the worst public health crisis in a century. The hearing of the Select […]
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WASHINGTON — New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months. U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President […]
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MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s armed forces spied on a human rights defender and journalists who were investigating allegations that soldiers had gunned down innocent people, documents show, providing clear evidence of the military’s illegal use of surveillance tools against civilians. The government has been embroiled in scandal for years over the use of sophisticated spyware against […]
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The invitation seemed like an exciting honor. Hua, as The New York Times is referring to him, was an engineer at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, and a Chinese aeronautical university had asked him to come back to China in 2017 to deliver a lecture about his field. But Hua knew that GE might deny him […]
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During a two-week trial in Cincinnati that began in October 2021 — more than three years after Xu’s extradition to the United States — federal prosecutors laid out their case. Xu was represented by a team that included five attorneys from Taft, Stettinius and Hollister, a leading Midwest law firm, which suggests that the hundreds […]
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The three espionage suspects — two Russians and one Ukrainian — were hardly discreet. They arrived at the derelict Albanian weapons factory in a bright orange Chevrolet Camaro in broad daylight. After they clambered over a back wall in full view of nearby houses, one of them was spotted by military guards and asked what […]
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WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that a foreign adversary is “very unlikely” to be responsible for the mysterious ailments known as Havana syndrome that American spies and diplomats have reported experiencing at missions around the world since 2016, officials announced on Wednesday. The assessment builds on interim findings from the Central Intelligence Agency […]
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration urged Congress on Tuesday to renew a controversial warrantless surveillance law, emphasizing that security officials use it for a broad range of foreign policy and national security goals like detecting espionage by countries like China and Iran or stopping hackers. The administration’s effort is likely to face particularly steep headwinds […]
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WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s conclusion, with “low confidence,” that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic has renewed questions about what sparked the worst public health crisis in a century — and whether the virus at the heart of it was somehow connected to scientific research. Scientists and spy agencies […]
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is expected this week to ramp up a political battle over a high-profile warrantless surveillance program that traces back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A 2008 statute that legalized the program, known as Section 702, will expire at the end of December unless Congress votes to […]
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China accused the United States of politicizing the coronavirus pandemic again on Monday, in response to reports that the Energy Department had concluded that an accidental laboratory leak had likely triggered the spread of Covid worldwide. The rebuke marks the latest salvo in a running war of words between the two countries over the origins […]
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WASHINGTON — New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, though American spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said on Sunday. The conclusion was a change from the department’s earlier position that it was undecided […]
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WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats are pressing for major legislation to counter rising threats from China, but mere weeks into the new Congress, a bipartisan consensus is at risk of dissipating amid disputes about what steps to take and a desire among many Republicans to wield the issue as a weapon against President Biden. In […]
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GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Over the years, the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in its secret overseas prisons after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been revealed in government leaks, testimony and a damning Senate investigation. But an expert’s testimony this week in pretrial hearings at Guantánamo Bay offered […]
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WASHINGTON — A year ago, the United States did something extraordinary — it released previously classified intelligence that exposed Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. Last week, Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, made a similar move when he warned China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, against providing weapons to Russia. In a previous […]
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On Feb. 5, after President Biden ordered a Chinese balloon that had violated American airspace to be shot down, a Navy photographer took several extraordinary photographs of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 as it collected some of the debris off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C. In one of the images, which has been widely […]
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“The Chinese military has written about a range of potential applications for balloons and drones in near space,” he added. “You can intercept communications that you can’t capture from space. You can loiter for longer periods of time over targets, study or interfere with an adversary’s radar, target enemy satellites and help guide strategic weapons.” […]
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A few days before Christmas, a convoy of security vehicles invaded a quiet corner of Weilheim, a quaint Bavarian town of pastel squares and fastidiously kept cobblestone streets. Their target seemed as unassuming as the setting: a local children’s soccer coach. Before then, nothing had stood out about the man, fellow coaches recalled. He was […]
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American authorities are still examining the remains of the Chinese spy balloon, which fell into the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast, while American and Canadian authorities are still trying to reach the remote areas of Alaska, the Yukon Territory and Lake Huron. The three most recent objects shot down by the Air Force were […]
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WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a pair of resolutions condemning China for sending a surveillance balloon over the United States, joining the House in formally decrying an incident that has prompted a bipartisan chorus of demands for accountability on Capitol Hill. The first of the two measures, written by Senator Josh Hawley, […]
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Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible […]
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