Researcher who sold medical technology to China sentenced to 33 months prison - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Crime and prevention thereof. Loopholes, grey areas and the letter of the law.
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#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.
#15168684
late wrote:What would be the point in spending millions developing something if you knew you would gain nothing from the effort.

That's what patents are for.

Explain why this new law is needed.


Automatically conflating this new type of law to common-sense protections of intellectual property, just like laws that have always existed, is a logical fallacy.
Last edited by Puffer Fish on 23 Apr 2021 03:46, edited 1 time in total.
#15168700
Unthinking Majority wrote:For every 1 China thief the US catches they probably miss 30 more.


It's likely worse than that.

The good news is that most of that theft isn't super consequential, but they only have to steal something really critical once. That's the game they are playing. Steal as much shit as you can, and hopefully one of them is a big fish.
#15168702
Rancid wrote:It's likely worse than that.

The good news is that most of that theft isn't super consequential, but they only have to steal something really critical once. That's the game they are playing. Steal as much shit as you can, and hopefully one of them is a big fish.


I went to a Chinese mall in my town and most of the goods were counterfeit. This is their economic model. Cheap Chinese knockoffs are going corporate, that's the only change.
#15168708
Communist China is dispatching spies to Western countries, disguising them as graduate students or researchers. Upon arriving in the U.S., they are legally obliged to share trade secrets with their mother country since it has become their patriotic duty under President Xi. Hundreds of NGOs urged the U.S. attorney general to designate the Chinese Communist Party a “transnational criminal organization.”

Dear General Barr:

This letter is written as an urgent entreaty to you as America’s chief law enforcement officer with the authority to declare the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a “transnational criminal organization (TCO).” The evidence of the CCP’s global criminality is overwhelming and proliferating throughout the United States. The CCP’s lethality and criminal sophistication demonstrates that this lawless CCP poses a clear and present danger to the health, security, and prosperity of America.

The CCP transnational criminal organization designation is clearly justified by the epidemic of American citizens victimized and killed by the Chinese manufactured and transmitted lethal synthetic drug, Fentanyl. According to the CDC, deaths involving other synthetic narcotics, including fentanyl and fentanyl analogs continued to rise with more than 31,335 overdose deaths reported in 2018.

This is not the only criminal enterprise epidemic generated by the CCP and killing Americans.

The United States continues to suffer the debilitating health and economic effects of the Chinese corona virus epidemic as it ravages our families and society. The damning evidence points to the CCP which knowingly and maliciously failed to warn the world about the grave health danger generated by China Wuhan lab Covid-19 virus and covered up its transmission and lethality, causing over 140,000 deaths in the United States.

Additionally, for decades, the CCP perpetrated and proliferated IP embezzlement and economic espionage on Americans and U.S. businesses, resulting in theft and loss of vast wealth and prosperity. The extent and breadth of the criminal reach of the CCP knows no bounds.

The time is now to designate the Chinese Communist Party as a “transnational criminal organization.”

President Trump’s Executive Order 13773 entitled, “Enforcing Federal Law With Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking,” authorized by the executive branch “to strengthen federal law enforcement to thwart transnational criminal organizations that present a threat to public safety and national security.”

Accordingly, on October 15, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions designated 5 criminal groups as transnational organized crime threats. General Sessions also charged the FBI, DEA, OCDETF, and the Department’s Criminal Division to identify top transnational criminal groups that threaten the safety and prosperity of the United States and its allies and to vigorously investigate and prosecute these transnational crime organizations with all the available federal resources.

It is exceedingly evident that the list of transnational criminal organizations should include the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The pattern of the CCP criminality in the U.S. and around the world demonstrates a clear and present threat “to public safety and national security.”

https://form.jotform.com/201978800692059
#15168774
ThirdTerm wrote:Communist China is dispatching spies to Western countries, disguising them as graduate students or researchers. Upon arriving in the U.S., they are legally obliged to share trade secrets with their mother country since it has become their patriotic duty under President Xi. Hundreds of NGOs urged the U.S. attorney general to designate the Chinese Communist Party a “transnational criminal organization.”


They should be labeled that.

China has been exploiting the openness of western research institutions for far too long. They are a bad faith participant in the system. It's time to clamp down and shut them out. I know that anyone with direct ties to the PLA is already not allowed to participate in University research. However, I would argue that we need to go farther than that. It might be time to basically ban or severely limit all students from China. It sucks for the students that genuinely just want to study and don't necessarily align with the CCPs goals and ideology, but fuck, what else can we do?

If they can't play nice, why should we extend any courtesies?
#15168792
Rancid wrote:They should be labeled that.

China has been exploiting the openness of western research institutions for far too long. They are a bad faith participant in the system. It's time to clamp down and shut them out. I know that anyone with direct ties to the PLA is already not allowed to participate in University research. However, I would argue that we need to go farther than that. It might be time to basically ban or severely limit all students from China. It sucks for the students that genuinely just want to study and don't necessarily align with the CCPs goals and ideology, but fuck, what else can we do?

If they can't play nice, why should we extend any courtesies?


The whole thing has been hacked Rancid. I doubt the USA can put the lid back on at this time Rancid.
#15168816
Tainari88 wrote:The whole thing has been hacked Rancid. I doubt the USA can put the lid back on at this time Rancid.


I agree.

I know I'll sound like a Trumpian, but big tech would resist any efforts to do anything meaningful. The irony is when you look at a company like Google. Their employees protested Google taking on US government contracts (and were successful to a large degree). Yet, have no problems with Google actively working with CCP on AI tech THEY KNOW is being funneled into military applications and for suppression of free expression in China. Why aren't the employees concerned about that? Fucking morons.

This is where I have respect for Microsoft. They accepted government contracts, and when employees protested, they basically said "The US is the government that affords us the freedom to do business, speak our minds, and protect our rights, if you have a problem with that, go look for another job." Satya Nadella understands what's at stake here.
#15168837
Rancid wrote:I agree.

I know I'll sound like a Trumpian, but big tech would resist any efforts to do anything meaningful. The irony is when you look at a company like Google. Their employees protested Google taking on US government contracts (and were successful to a large degree). Yet, have no problems with Google actively working with CCP on AI tech THEY KNOW is being funneled into military applications and for suppression of free expression in China. Why aren't the employees concerned about that? Fucking morons.

This is where I have respect for Microsoft. They accepted government contracts, and when employees protested, they basically said "The US is the government that affords us the freedom to do business, speak our minds, and protect our rights, if you have a problem with that, go look for another job." Satya Nadella understands what's at stake here.


Google wants the 1+ billion Chinese market.
#15168840
Tainari88 wrote:Google wants the 1+ billion Chinese market.


Of course, but it's doomed to failure. The MO for the CCP is to basically invite companies, steal their tech, and then create domestic companies to push out the foreign ones. That's what happened to all the cell companies that moved to China. It's happened in many other industries.

I also understand that there is an element of "we'll they are doing to steal our tech anyway, so we might as well get something for it by kowtowing to the CCP." I get that, but that's also a very shitty position to take. Ultimately the solution is to decouple, and let others get buttfucked by the CCP.
#15168846
Rancid wrote:Of course, but it's doomed to failure. The MO for the CCP is to basically invite companies, steal their tech, and then create domestic companies to push out the foreign ones. That's what happened to all the cell companies that moved to China. It's happened in many other industries.

I also understand that there is an element of "we'll they are doing to steal our tech anyway, so we might as well get something for it by kowtowing to the CCP." I get that, but that's also a very shitty position to take. Ultimately the solution is to decouple, and let others get buttfucked by the CCP.


Greed empire Rancid. That is why the wages have been flat and the lobbyists manipulated all the outcomes in the USA. Greed. No principles about national security. They are sellouts. That is the reality.
#15168874
China should label the US gov't an international terror organisation due to it's assassination campaign conducted by drone, extraordinary rendition (i.e kidnapping) of 'suspects' and torture at Guantanamo Bay and numerous blacksites.

China isn't weak and poor anymore. You can't bully it and pretend to have the moral authority to make your actions justified.
#15168894
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.


Anyone who steals this kind of information and makes it more widely available is a hero in my eyes.
#15274259
US passed a law to regulate giving technology

This has big free speech, First and Second Amendment, as well as general Constitutional implications.

In 2018, the US passed a law granting power to the President and State Department to control transfer of missile technology and certain other weapons.

The law refers to "transfer of items" but the word "item" is defined as including "technology"... which is just a form of information.

It's perfectly normal for the federal level of government to regulate sale of physical things, or transfer of money, but transfer of technology?


If the Secretary of State decides to put any foreign country or group on a "terrorist list", then a license is required to share that technology.
Note that this is a very different legal bar from just making it illegal to give help to terrorists. A person could still be convicted even if they could prove the group or country they sent information to had nothing to do with terrorism.

The law also empowers the President to impose vague punishments on US citizens for violations of this order, no matter what part of the world they are in.


This is yet another example of the type of laws that have been getting passed in the US in recent times.

Technology is just a form of information, and information has a huge overlap with free speech issues. To pass a law delegating powers to individual government officials to exert legal control over information, that is the first step towards a totalitarian system. This sort of thing is going to be a huge slippery slope, and things like this are just becoming normalized.


The law in question is the Export Controls Act (2018 )
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