USA Busted Trying to Bug China's Presidential 767

morcheeba writes "A new Boeing 767-300ER was refitted to become China's presidental aircraft. What goes into a plane like this? Besides the bedroom, sitting room, bath with a shower, there was a 48" TV, satellite communications, anti-missile defense systems and advanced avionics. And oh yeah, numerous high-tech listening devices. Wonder how those got in. Read the article at washingtonpost.com." CD: The question is, what was the bug in the headboard for?

Pillow talk, obviously.

[Russ Nelson]

The bug in the headboard? For picking up pillow talk, obviously.
-russ

What saddens me the most about this. . .

[Cyberllama]

Is how the description of the plane makes it sound so extravagant while clearly most of the people in China do not even have houses that nice. China gives communism a bad name...to many people have learned to associate "communism" with the countries who exemplify it the least. Whatever happened to "No man should have two overcoats until every man has one?"

I thought communists were supposed to be smart...

[bluntmanspam]

I mean, good grief, if Karl Marx wasn't already spinning like a gyroscope in his grave over running 'the people' over with tanks and the like, he would have to going nuts over the general downfall of genius-communism exhibited by the Chinese government here. The U.S. spys on everybody, including friends, so how did they think they would send an airplane back to the U.S. and not have the CIA get their hands on it?

From Lenin to Jiang Zemin is obviously not progress.

Not Neccesarily the USA

[dragons_flight]

Okay, it's certainly the most likely scenario that the CIA would bug this plane, but I can't help but wonder if it isn't too obvious? Besides isn't 20+ bugs a little overkill? With that many you're almost certain to get caught and the you'd have to really want the intelligence enough that you'd hope a few wouldn't get found.

So what are the alternatives? I suppose there are a few other countries with the technology, and a few that might want to spy on China. India might be the next most likely, but they still seem pretty unlikely to be in a position to pull it off. Perhaps it was an inside job then? Maybe China wants a diplomatic incident? Or, maybe their spy agency would be interested in bugging their own president?

Since no one ever confesses in these situations, and it's unlikely that there will ever be enough proof to really say who accomplished this or how. My money is still on the CIA though, but it forces me to wonder whether the administration is a bit more frightened than they let on? I mean what does it really say if the intelligence is so valuable that they'd risk an almost certain diplomatic incident by using so many bugs on the hope a few bugs would remain undiscovered.

On the other hand, it's equally fair to wonder whether the US wants a diplomatic incident? But I have a hard time justifying that one in these times. Isn't terrorism a good enough evil for the 21st century?

Trust them !

[TenPin22]

Typical American.

Re:Everybody spies on everybody

[Jeremi]

China shouldn't take it personally--we spy on everyone.

Then we should stop whining when we find out that other countries have been spying on us. It makes us look like a bunch of hypocritical crybabies.

It's not the bugs, it's the insult.

[Kwil]

Heck, it's not the spying they're taking personally. It's the insult of not bothering to cover your tracks well enough.

To put 20+ bugs in a plane and assume that the Chinese won't find them is simply insulting the Chinese intelligence community and via them, the Chinese government. That's what they're taking personally. It's kind of a "Just how stupid do you think we are?" personal.

Re:My favorite quote

[Anonymous Pancake]

hi anonymous brother

my karma is quite low now

I'd like to thank the following people who put me on their foes list:

NonSequor
AtariDatacenter
nsebban
whiteranger99x
prizog
Grape Shasta
Sloppy
KuRL
GreatUnknown
jeffy124
Spooge Demon
Echelon309
jlemmerer
evilviper
roystgnr
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thank you all of you, expect a gift of feces in the mail

Re:A matter of trust

[Cato the Elder]

I don't know if it would be all that bad. Remember, this isn't some random plane, this is one specifically retrofitted for high-level Chinese government officials. It's a matter of respect for our spooks to bug it--shows we're taking them seriously. Then their spooks comb the plane, trying to find _all_ the bugs we planted. The Russians did the same thing with the embassy they built for us, I'm sure we did the same for them.

Facts..

[DAldredge]

We have these things called Facts...

1: The American spy plane was in international waters (as recognized by the rest of the world save China)

2: The pilot of the Chinese plan was killed because he flew too close to a larger plane and ran into it

Re:A matter of trust

[hs81]

Maybe I'm getting more cynical as I get older but spying is just a fact of life. The US spies on even its friends in Europe and the Europeans are happy to return the favour. Even as individuals we are guilty of the same impulse to watch our neighbours simply out of curiousity. Spying is, and always will be, a fact of life and frankly I'm surprised that the Chinese expected anything less. The only way that this could have been avoided would have been to make it explicit in the contact that once the aircraft was delivered it would be stripped down to search for such devices.

Re:A matter of trust

[SectoidRandom]

Argh, why does this article come as a supprise to people? I mean, you can be absolutly sure that the moment the Chinese got the plane they had their best people combing the thing for bugs!

It is ABSOLUTLY EXPECTED that there would be bugs in the thing! That's why this _incident_ will blow over in a second, and i guarantee there will be no consequences for US companies! Frankly the only thing that would supprise me (although not too much) is if Boeing _actually_ knew what the CIA was doing!

As I can remember it being said in at least one movie: "We bug them, they bug us. That's how it works."

For another example, when that US spy plane made an emergency landing on Chinese territory early last year, sure some feathers were ruffled when the chinese basically pulled the thing apart for technology secrets, but as you may have read, back in the late 80's i believe, when a Soviet MIG made a similar emergency landing in Germany (i think it was) the United States sent the plane back AFTER 6 months, IN BOXES! In other words, it is expected, and accounted for _always_.

I believe it's called "intelligence" or "Spying".

That's why China doesn't like US-equipment

[GauteL]

.. even software.

Any manufactured item which doesn't have it's guts wide open always have the possibility of stuff like this.
It is actually rather impossible to know wether for instance MS-software does not have government requested back doors.
Free software probably also have some risk, because it would be impossible for someone to be sure that the millions of lines of source code, some which are rather difficult to understand, could not have some small back door.

Re:Pillow talk, obviously.

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking genius you! How the hell is this insightful?

Re:Facts..

[ArsSineArtificio]

Oh, come on. That's like saying that a dump truck swerved suddenly into a Porsche.

More likely that the Porsche driver wasn't watching where he was going.

Bush's special interests

[gad_zuki!]

First off two wrongs don't make a right. The bigger question to me is why would the US do this to a plane that will be examined from the top down the second it gets delivered? The mostly likely conclusion is to generate more tensions between the US and China.

From the get-go the bush administration has been very adamant on trying to create a new red-scare ostensibly to help defense contracts get through. Think back before 9/11 and look at the various games of cat and mouse the US has been playing with China.

The sad part is that there is lots of trade to be lost by being percieved as the world's biggest spy. Look at the European take on MS and government collusion, Echelon, etc.

In the end this kind of strategy will cost companies revenues, jobs, and negatively affect the economy just to appease the military-industrial complex. In a slumping economy pissing off your potential customers is very bad business and I doubt the big defense contracts are going to make up for what the US is going to lose in trade by its reputation. Even if they did the money comes from American taxes, so its a no-win situation.

This is cold war politics at action. The Russians took this kind of thing as par for the course, but our current administration does not have a firm grasp on how important perception is in the 21st century. The old cold war games may now not be non-event exchanges but could cost us dearly.

Spying is Business as Usual

[cryptochrome]

They spy on us, we spy on them, and generally it's not a bad thing because it gives insight into whether those you are spying on are posing a real threat or just being belligerent, and prevents either side from preparing surprise attacks. The diplomats know this, which is why you rarely hear of spying - it's just business.

The question you should be asking is, why is China making such a big deal out of this now, when they haven't before? Why were they so aggressive towards that EP-3, and more recently the P-3? What might they have up their sleeve - an actual push on Taiwan, or a military challenge to the US in the Pacific? You should read Jane's [google.com] and Stratfor's [google.com] reports on the subject before you go crying on how unfair this is, particularly when the US has strong alliances with South Korea, Taiwan, and the Phillipines, and an obligation to defend Japan.