Texas Man Sentenced to 16 Months in Prison for Stealing US Technology to Benefit China

Afghanistan Reconstruction Programs Suffered More Than 5,000 Casualties in 16 Years

More than 5,100 casualties were inflicted among the Americans, Afghans, and allies working on U.S.-funded reconstructions programs in Afghanistan, according to the first-ever official count. “For years, SIGAR has spent considerable effort to track the financial costs of reconstruction and stabilization activities in Afghanistan,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko told Department of Defense officials in a report made public Tuesday. “However, little effort has been made up to track the human costs—the number of people killed, wounded, or kidnapped—to accomplish these activities. This has left policy makers with an incomplete picture of the true cost of our efforts in Afghanistan,” Sopko said. The U.S. military entered Afghanistan in 2001 after it was learned the radical Islamic Taliban government that then controlled the country had given sanctuary…

A Chinese national convicted of stealing U.S. marine technology to benefit China has been sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment.

Shi Shan, 55, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Texas, was convicted in July last year of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets. In addition to the prison term, Shan was ordered to forfeit $342,426.96, according to a Feb. 11 press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The Court made clear that the defendant knew or intended that the offense would benefit the People’s Republic of China,” said U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Shea for the District of Columbia, according to the press release.

Shea added: “To those who would steal proprietary information from U.S. companies and provide it to a foreign government, our message is that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Shi made an agreement with Chinese company CBM Future New Material Science and Technology Corp. (CBMF) to help it develop a syntactic foam, which is a strong, lightweight material that has both commercial and military applications, such as deep-sea oil and gas drilling.

According to the press release, Shi promised to develop the foam by “moving to ‘digest/absorb” relevant U.S. technology.

Subsequently, Shi went on to establish a U.S.-based subsidiary of the Chinese company, CBM International (CBMI). He then led a scheme to hire former and current employees at the Houston-based Trelleborg Offshore, and entice them into stealing the latter’s trade secrets relating to syntactic foam.

This was partly done through the U.S. subsidiary attempting business relationships with Trelleborg and other U.S. firms.

Shi took the stolen technology and opened a factory in China that manufactured syntactic foam based on Trelleborg’s technology, according to the press release.

Shi tried to sell syntactic foam based on the stolen technology to state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). Shi and five others were arrested in the United States after they tried to market related-technology in Washington D.C.

In May last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce blacklisted CBMF from doing business with U.S. companies because it participated in the “prohibited export of controlled technology concerning the manufacture of syntactic foam and supplying syntactic foam to PRC [People’s Republic of China] state-owned enterprises, PRC defense industrial corporations, and PRC military-related academic institutions.”

Both CBMI and CBMF were indicted on three charges: conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, and money laundering.

In another case of theft of trade secrets, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted four members of the Chinese military on Feb. 10 hacking the online systems of U.S. credit-reporting agency Equifax. The hackers also stole sensitive data belonging to 145 million Americans.

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‘I’d Like It to Start Over’: Justice Ginsburg Says Deadline for Equal Rights Amendment Has Passed

As states try to force the United States to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has weighed in again on the issue, reiterating her position that she thinks the ratification process needs to “start over.” “I would like to see a new beginning. I’d like it to start over,” Ginsburg, who has been a strong advocate for the ERA, said during a talk at Georgetown Law on Monday. “There’s too much controversy about latecomers. Virginia [came] long after the deadline passed. Plus a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said we’ve changed our minds,” she added. The ERA seeks to ban discrimination on the basis of sex, with…