- 20 Apr 2021 18:50
#15168120
A former researcher at an Ohio children’s hospital has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for conspiring to steal trade secrets and sell them in China.
Yu Zhou, 51, was sentenced Monday. Federal authorities say he and his wife Li Chen, 48, who formerly lived in the Columbus suburb of Dublin, further agreed to pay $2.6 million in restitution and forfeit additional assets as a result of their convictions.
The pair conducted research in separate laboratories at Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio, each for ten years.
Both have admitted to conspiring to steal exosome-related trade secrets and illegally transferring the information to China. Exosomes play a role in the research, identification and treatment of a range of medical conditions, including liver fibrosis, liver cancer and a condition found in premature babies known as necrotizing enterocolitis.
Chen received a 30-month prison sentence in February, 2021.
Researcher who sold trade secrets to China gets 33 months (msn.com) Associated Press
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/re ... d=msedgntp
The law under which this Chinese researcher was convicted of was only passed in 2016.
This is all part of a move towards what some have called "the criminalization of information". (That is where the transfer of information becomes against the law, setting a somewhat concerning civil liberties precedent)
This is also part of a trend of China stealing and obtaining American technology, something that has also very much been a problem to the US.
So there is an issue here which many people do not see, an inherent tension between not having totalitarian laws, and addressing a very real economic (and national security) problem.
I am just afraid these type of laws and situations, once they become normalized in the consciousness of society, will just be used as a precedent in the future for implementing more laws for the control of information.
Yu Zhou, 51, was sentenced Monday. Federal authorities say he and his wife Li Chen, 48, who formerly lived in the Columbus suburb of Dublin, further agreed to pay $2.6 million in restitution and forfeit additional assets as a result of their convictions.
The pair conducted research in separate laboratories at Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio, each for ten years.
Both have admitted to conspiring to steal exosome-related trade secrets and illegally transferring the information to China. Exosomes play a role in the research, identification and treatment of a range of medical conditions, including liver fibrosis, liver cancer and a condition found in premature babies known as necrotizing enterocolitis.
Chen received a 30-month prison sentence in February, 2021.
Researcher who sold trade secrets to China gets 33 months (msn.com) Associated Press
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/re ... d=msedgntp
The law under which this Chinese researcher was convicted of was only passed in 2016.
This is all part of a move towards what some have called "the criminalization of information". (That is where the transfer of information becomes against the law, setting a somewhat concerning civil liberties precedent)
This is also part of a trend of China stealing and obtaining American technology, something that has also very much been a problem to the US.
So there is an issue here which many people do not see, an inherent tension between not having totalitarian laws, and addressing a very real economic (and national security) problem.
I am just afraid these type of laws and situations, once they become normalized in the consciousness of society, will just be used as a precedent in the future for implementing more laws for the control of information.