Chinese intelligence responds to reports it penetrated NSA listening post in Hawaii
A Chinese intelligence expert was quoted in China’s government-controlled media last week as warning that the National Security Agency is spying on China’s electronic communications.
Entrance to an underground NSA facility in Kunia, Hawaii.
The unidentified expert sought to refute a report in The Washington Times that Chinese intelligence penetrated that National Security Agency’s Kunia listening post in Hawaii through a translation service.
The report in the Hong Kong Zhongguo Tongxun She, or China News Agency, a PRC-owned press service, quoted the Beijing Qingnian Cankao (Elite Reference) as stating that the Kunia listening post in Hawaii is steadily growing in size and power.
“The implication is that the intelligence threat from the United States is also rising by the day,” the report said.
The unnamed expert, who the report said studied U.S. intelligence agencies and counter-espionage operations, said that NSA handles its intelligence through “extremely stringent procedures.”
The expert said the reported use of ethnic Chinese-Americans to “spy for China” also “flies in the face of the basic principle of espionage work.”
“Since Americans of Chinese descent, especially those engaged in sensitive work, are already under close surveillance by U.S. counter-espionage services, how then could China's intelligence service be so brazen as to openly invite these people to China by offering them free visits and then recruit them as spies?” the expert said. “I don't think U.S. intelligence services are this stupid when they recruit spies.”
