Tag Archives: FBI Director Christopher Wray

FBI claims China is engaging in both traditional, economic espionage, and more

FBI Wray

Important Takeaways:

  • FBI says China is ‘defining threat of our generation’ with hackers ready to ‘wreak havoc’ in US
  • FBI Director Christopher Wray has said the national security threats in the US are ‘more complex and sophisticated than ever’ as he claimed China is ‘becoming more aggressive’
  • He said: “Today’s national security threats are more complex and sophisticated than ever. We’re seeing hostile nation-states becoming more aggressive in their efforts to steal our secrets and our innovation, target our critical infrastructure, and export their repression to our shores.
  • “Front and center is China—the defining threat of our generation. To put it simply, the CCP [Communist Party of China] is throwing its whole government at undermining the security and economy of the rule-of-law world.”
  • Wray warned officials that “China’s hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation combined.”
  • “If each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1”, he added.
  • In the alarming speech, the FBI claimed China is engaging in “traditional espionage and economic espionage, foreign malign influence, election interference, and transnational repression—often working in tandem.”

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FBI Director warns of dangerous threats coming from the border

Biden-Border-Control

Important Takeaways:

  • FBI Director Wray warns of ‘wide array’ of dangerous threats stemming from border
  • FBI Director Christopher Wray testified on Monday about a range of threats that he said were “emanating from” the southern border, which has been plagued by record surges of illegal migration during the Biden administration.
  • “From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border, and that includes everything from the drug trafficking, and the FBI alone sees enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people,” Wray said. “That’s just on the fentanyl side. An awful lot of violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl.”
  • “The vast majority of the fentanyl that’s killing Americans is of course coming from Mexico, and the vast majority of the precursors for that fentanyl is coming from China,” Wray said.
  • This fiscal year, officials have so far encountered 58 immigrants at the southern border whose names appeared on a terrorist watchlist, according to federal data. That figure coincides with border officials estimating last year that since President Joe Biden took office, more than 1.7 million immigrants have crossed into the country entirely
  • Cornyn also pointed to border officials encountering tens of thousands of nationals from the U.S.’s top adversary, China, in 2023, noting that the number represented a sharp increase over the previous year.

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U.S. Justice Department unveils reforms for FBI wiretap applications

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it was implementing new compliance reforms at the FBI to minimize errors when it applies for wiretaps, following revelations it made numerous mistakes during its probe into President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

Attorney General William Barr released two new memos outlining sweeping changes, including the creation of a new internal auditing office as well as a list of additional steps the FBI must undertake before filing an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Under the new protocol, if the FBI is seeking to monitor communications of an elected official or candidate, the director must first consider offering the target a defensive briefing, and the wiretap application must be approved by the Attorney General.

“The additional reforms announced today, which we worked on closely with the Attorney General’s office, will build on the FBI’s efforts to bolster its compliance program,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

The reforms could help take some heat off the bureau, which has been under fire for missteps in its early-stage investigation known as “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia.

In December, the department’s inspector released a major report scrutinizing the FBI’s FISA applications to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

He uncovered 17 major mistakes in the FBI’s applications – errors that were so substantial, they prompted a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to issue a rare public rebuke of the FBI.

His findings have also since led to criminal charges against former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who in August pleaded guilty to doctoring in email used as a basis to renew an application to monitor Page.