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FBI Investigating Multiple NASA Centers To Counter Growing Space Espionage Threat

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Photo Credit: AP

Federal law enforcement officials are mounting anti-espionage investigations at multiple NASA facilities to counter what FBI Director Robert Mueller believes is a growing threat against U.S. space technology.

“If anything, I would say that the threat is – is more substantial than perhaps it was 10, 15 years ago,” Mueller said yesterday during a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees both NASA and the FBI.

The subcommittee’s chairman if Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA. Mueller told Wolf’s panel that foreign nationals targeting NASA for espionage purposes are a “significant threat,” and disclosed for the first time that the bureau has “a number of investigations ongoing” at several facilities within the space agency.

He declined to identify the NASA facilities involved or to say how many investigations are being conducted. Mueller’s comments followed the weekend arrest by FBI agents at Dulles Airport of Bo Jiang, a Chinese National who was trying to board a one-way flight to China.

Jiang was employed as a scientist by the National Institute for Aerospace, a contractor at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Jiang was arraigned Tuesday in federal court.

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FBI Arrests NASA Contractor Employee Trying To Flee To China

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Photo Credit: AP

Bo Jiang, the Chinese national scientist employed by a NASA contractor for work at the space agency’s Langley Research Center, was arrested Sunday by the FBI at Dulles International Airport as he tried to flee to China, according to Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA.

Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that Jiang’s work at the NASA facility had given him access to information that “would be of the greatest interest to foreign spies, including China.”

Wolf is chairman of a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that has budget oversight authority for NASA.

He made Jiang’s name public for the first time last week during a subcommittee hearing where he also charged that Jiang had taken “voluminous sensitive” NASA documents back to China on a trip in 2012.

Jiang was employed by the National Institute of Aerospace, a Hampton, VA-based NASA contractor. The position afforded Jiang virtually unlimited, unescorted access to the NASA Langley facility, which is the location for classified research programs related to U.S. space defense technologies.

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Google: FBI Spying On Thousands Of Users

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Photo Credit: dannysullivanIn a Google report released Tuesday, the tech giant revealed that thousands of inquiries have been made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the personal information of its users.

The document, entitled “Transparency Report: Shedding more light on National Security Letters,” was posted by Richard Salgado, the legal director of law enforcement and information security at Google.

“The FBI can seek the ‘name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records’ of a subscriber to a wire or electronic communications service” by filing a National Security Letter (NSL), the report said. Google has received as many as 4,000 NSLs since 2009, requesting information for as many as 10,000 accounts.

In a 2010 report by the Congressional Research Service, NSLs were described as “comparable to administrative subpoenas,” and could also be directed toward credit agencies, in addition to “communications providers [and] financial institutions.” The report said the applicable scenarios for filing NSLs were broadened under the Patriot Act.

According to the Google report, for information to be released, the NSL must be “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

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Wolf Says NASA Prompted Hiring Of Person Linked To Chinese Espionage; May Be Dozens More In Agency

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Photo Credit: APOfficials at NASA’s Langley Research Center permitted a contractor to hire a Chinese national affiliated with an organization designated by U.S. national security agencies as an “entity of concern,” and then allowed the individual access to classified information, according to Rep. Frank Wolf.

The as-yet unidentified individual was permitted to take that information back home to China, according to Wolf, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA.

Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that “at least several dozen other Chinese nationals,” are employed at Langley, and he charged that they are employed in a manner to “circumvent” congressional bans on Chinese involvement at NASA facilities.

Wolf said he has talked with FBI Director Robert Mueller and the Neil H. MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia about the alleged national security violations at Langley, which is located in Hampton, Virginia.

He said he first heard the allegations from numerous whistleblowers who were career NASA employes and met with them about two weeks ago. He said he turned over information and documents to the FBI.

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Report: FBI Benghazi Survivor Interviews Delivered To Senate Intel Committee

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Photo Credit: APA source told CBS News that FBI transcripts of interviews with Benghazi survivors were turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Along with the transcripts, were other documents relating to the deadly September 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi. Members of the committee have not examined the material yet.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R – S.C.) initially called for the FBI transcripts of Benghazi survivors back in December. Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R – UT) told Breitbart News that the State Department was not allowing members of Congress to see those who survived the attack.

The documents that came from the White House is the second set to be sent to Congress. The initial set of documents related to the attack were considered “insufficient” due to massive redactions:

“It was so redacted that there was no information whatsoever,” said the source, who spoke to Fox on the condition they not be identified. “There were some documents that were 100 pages with every word on the page redacted. They were worthless.”

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DOJ Spends Millions On ‘Nonmission’ Luxury Travel For Attorney Generals, FBI Director

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A Government Accountability Office report reveals that the Justice Department has spent $11.4 million to fly the Attorney General and FBI director on FBI luxury jets for travel unrelated to the agency’s mission.

Iowa Republican and ranking judiciary committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley — who requested GAO look into Justice Department aircraft being used to for “nonmission” reasons — released the report Thursday.

“These luxury jets were supposedly needed for counterterrorism, but it turns out that they were used almost two-thirds of the time for jet-setting executive travel instead,” Grassley said. “Nobody disputes that the Attorney General and the FBI Director should have access to the secure communications, but, for instance, there’s no reason they can’t take a less expensive mode of transportation, or cut their personal travel.”

The GAO looked at nonmission jet use from 2007-2011. In that timeframe, the report explains, the “three individuals who served as Attorney General (AG) and the Director of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) accounted for 95 percent (659 out of 697 flights) of all Department of Justice (DOJ) executive nonmission flights using DOJ aircraft at a total cost of $11.4 million.”

According to the report, personal flights accounted for 24 percent of nonmission flights and that the AGs and FBI director reimbursed that travel “in accordance with federal requirements.” Yet, as the report notes, that reimbursement “is generally less than the cost of operating a government aircraft” as it is largely reimbursed at the cost of a commercial rate.

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FBI Agents Caught Sexting And Dating Drug Dealers

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Photo credit: ALAMYDisciplinary files from the Bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility record an extraordinary range of transgressions that reveal the chaotic personal lives of some of America’s top law enforcers.

One male agent was sacked after police were called to his mistress’s house following reports of domestic incident. When officers arrived they found the agent “drunk and uncooperative” and eventually had to physically subdue him and wrestle away his loaded gun.

A woman e-mailed a “nude photograph of herself to her ex-boyfriend’s wife” and then continued to harass the couple despite two warnings from senior officials. The Bureau concluded she was suffering from depression related to the break-up and allowed her to return to work after 10 days.

But the sexually explicit picture was only one of what FBI assistant director Candice Will described to CNN as a “rash of sexting cases”. The network was the first to obtain the logs.

Two other employees, whose genders were not specified, sent sexually explicit messages to fellow members of the Bureau, one a work Blackberry during office hours.

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FBI Probe Of Defense Tech Allegedly Leaked From NASA Stonewalled, Sources Say

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Photo Credit: NASAA four-year FBI investigation into the transfer of classified weapons technology to China and other countries from NASA’s Ames Research Center is being stonewalled by government officials, sources tell FoxNews.com.

Documents obtained by FoxNews.com, which summarize these and other allegations and were given to congressional sources last week by a whistle-blower, described how a “secret grand jury” was to be convened in February 2011 to hear testimony from informants in the case, including a senior NASA engineer. But federal prosecutor Gary Fry was removed from the case, which was then transferred from one office in the Northern District of California to another where, according to the documents, “this case now appears to be stalled.”

“The information is staggering,” the whistle-blower told FoxNews.com. A Justice Department spokesman on Thursday told FoxNews.com it “does not comment on grand jury proceedings,” as a matter of longstanding policy. Fry, reached for comment late Thursday, also would not confirm or deny the claim.

The claims originate with several past and current NASA employees concerned with the systemic leak of highly sensitive information relating to missile defense systems, as well as what they call a troubled investigation into the leak.

The documents claim the FBI has been working with other agencies since 2009 on an investigation into foreign nationals working at Ames. This follows allegations by two Republican lawmakers earlier this month that the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern California district was ultimately denied by the Justice Department when it tried to proceed with indictments.

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Harvard, Yale Deny Connection To Controversial Democratic Donor Under Scrutiny

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Photo Credit: APA controversial donor with ties to prominent Democrats who is under investigation by the FBI may not have the qualifications he claims.

The resume of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida-based ophthalmologist and controversial Democratic donor, boasts medical education and experience at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Missouri.

But none of those schools says it can find any record of Melgen, who claims to be a Harvard alumnus, the former chief resident of the University of Missouri’s ophthalmology department, and a former Yale intern.

Melgen is at the center of a Senate panel probing potential ethics violations by Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), who may have used his official position to benefit Melgen, a major campaign contributor.

Menendez is also under scrutiny for failing to disclose his use of Melgen’s private jet to take trips to the Dominican Republic in 2010. Menendez denied wrongdoing but in January of this year wrote Melgen a personal check for $58,500 to cover the cost of the flights.

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ObamaLeaks in the White House

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After highly classified details of a U.S. cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear program were made public, President Obama went to the White House press room to denounce those who suggested the leaks were coming from his top national security aides. “The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive [and] it is wrong,” the president declared.

Well, the Federal Bureau of Investigation may disagree. The Post broke the news Sunday that the FBI has launched an “aggressive” investigation into “current and former senior officials suspected of involvement” in the leak that Obama personally ordered cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear program using a computer virus called Stuxnet. The New York Times story which first revealed the details of the cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear program cited as sources “members of the president’s national security team who were in the [Situation Room]” and even quoted the president asking during a top secret meeting: “Should we shut this thing down?” Only Obama’s most trusted national security advisers would have been present when he uttered those words.

Now several members of that inner circle are receiving promotions. Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough has just been named the new White House chief of staff. And John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism adviser, has been nominated to be next director of the CIA. With the investigation reaching the top echelons of the administration, it is time for the White House to come clean and tell the American people which of Obama’s senior advisers is under investigation. There are no confirmation hearings for the chief of staff post, but Brennan will soon appear before the Senate on Feb. 7 for his confirmation hearings. If confirmed, he will be responsible for protecting our nation’s secrets. Congress has a right to know what he knows — and if he is being questioned by the FBI in the leak probe.

And the Stuxnet inquiry is only the beginning. The Justice Department is also investigating the disclosure of the role played by a double agent, recruited in London by British intelligence, in breaking up a new underwear bomb plot in Yemen. How far up the chain of command has that investigation gone? And how about the disclosure of classified details of the CIA drone campaign, including the fact that Obama personally selects the names on a terrorist “kill list”? Or leak to the New York Times of classified details of yet another covert operation in which “C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government”? Or the revelation last summer that the U.S. was considering launching secret joint U.S.-Afghan commando raids into Pakistan against the Haqqani network? Or the disclosure of classified operational details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden — which prompted then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to visit Obama National Security Adviser Tom Donilon in the West Wing and advise the White House to “Shut the [expletive] up”?

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