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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

What if these were Russians and the title was "FBI Says Russian Operatives..." would you have said it's straight up racist fear-mongering?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

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Not technically "racist" but in my opinion much of the treatment of Russia in the media is highly prejudiced.

It's getting embarrassing at this point. It was a good PR campaign, but it has run its course by now it seems.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewar...

as somebody whose country has been a puppet state of moscow for 50-ish years, the media is nowhere close to having the full picture, but in the opposite direction.

tl;dr: please.

I wasn't just reacting to the title, but the body too. If the whole article was just s/China/Russia/g I would react the same way. On a geopolitical scale China is probably a bigger threat to the United States than Russia these days anyway.

Indeed, I'm frustrated in any of these situations where ambiguity seems purposeful. Is it "The Chinese" government? citizens? race? The article begins with Chinese government-sponsored operatives, which is OK, because at least it is a specific accusation that can be discussed. But then it immediately generalizes to list the number of Chinese nationals enrolled, perhaps to allude to the potential scale. (Your classmate or colleague could be a Chinese spy!) That to me seems a few steps away from "Well, I've read these reports about how the Chinese want to steal everything, so I'm going to pass on hiring this guy with the funny Asian name." or more extremely, "Well, we know that not that everyone is a bad guy, but for security, let's round them up into camps, just in case."

"Xenophobic" is probably a better word than "racist" in both cases, but yes, if it's about students it's fearmongering.

The OPM problem was not about students, and in one case it was about people physically located in China, unlike students who are visiting the US. If you're giving unrestricted access to a database of personal info on Americans to grad students, you have bigger problems regardless of their nationality. Find people where you have a documented history of them being trustworthy. And if necessary, require them to get clearance, that's what clearance is for.

(Edit: My comment is about the fear-mongering part, not the racist part).

>What if these were Russians and the title was "FBI Says Russian Operatives..." would you have said it's straight up racist fear-mongering?

Yes, I would call it fear mongering. What exactly have these operatives done? What can these operatives do?

International students are required to be registered full time, or they'll be in violation of their visa, and since 2001, universities are proactive in flagging these people down. They are only allowed to work 20 hours a week, and only on campus. Internships are allowed if part of their degree program. So it's not as if they are coming in and then running around doing heavy subversive stuff.

As foreign students, they do not have accessive to anything any other student has access to. If a professor is doing anything classified, they need to get clearance for their students, and likely are not allowed Chinese/Russian students at all.

In terms of their promoting their values/culture aggressively: Well join the club! They're doing exactly what every other group on campus is doing (many with support from their embassies).

But to get to the original statement: Yes, it is fear mongering because the article failed to indicate any kind of damage being caused that is beyond the norm for groups on campus. Industrial espionage? Show me some proof or examples. This is pretty much the same as saying "Beware! Commies on campus!" Or "Beware! Muslims on campus!" or "Beware! Abortionists on campus!"

You know spies generally don't fill in tax returns - though one Russian illegal in the UK ran a very successful one armed bandit / pinball company as part of his cover.

Failing to see the relevance of tax returns not being filled.

I'll ask my original question.

Have these "operatives" done anything that is not particularly unusual compared to other student groups? Until they have, this fits the very description of fear mongering.

You don't magically have access to anything just by entering the US.

Economic and other open source info is much easier to get at and also interesting research in universities. Spying on expat groups is another favorite.

What if they were israelis? China, russia, britain and israel run the largest espionage rings in the US. If the FBI called out israel, I bet the media would call it racist.

Probably the phrase “McCarthyism” would be used instead.

Yap, agree, that's more appropriate perhaps. This whole "everything I don't agree with is racist" and anyone I don't agree with is a "nazi" is very easy to take too far.

One one hand they have to be suspicious, because counterintelligence it's one of their duties. Especially after the OPM breach.

On the other hand, there is a danger of them going overboard. This is a great example of that:

http://www.latimes.com/local/orangecounty/la-me-muslim-fbi-2...

They send an undercover informant to a mosque in Irvine, CA. Undercover informant instead of listening and observing, starts spewing radical crap and recruiting people. The mosque reports him to the FBI. That was an awkward Monday morning meeting I bet. Or maybe business as usual, who knows...

There is a long tradition, specially by the CIA, of creating their next enemy while fighting the current one.

I'm thinking, for instance, in the freedom fighters against the Russian invasion in Afghanistan, Noriega, weaponization of Iraq against Iran... we could keep going.

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