Ex-CIA Agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee Admits Spying for China

1. Ex-CIA Agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee
Admits Spying for China –
May 2, 2019
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48130068
Vocabularies:
1. Conspiracy (n.) the act of secretly planning to do something that is
harmful or illegal.
ex. They were accused of conspiracy to commit murder.
2. Unallocated (adj.) – not reserved
Ex. The secret document was found in the unallocated part of the disk.
3. Covert (adj.) - secret or hidden
Ex. He has taken part in a number of covert military operations.
4. Dry up (phrasal verb) - to go away or disappear completely
ex. After several months, new leads in the murder investigation dried up.
5. Mole (n.) - a spy who works inside an organization and gives secret
information to another organization or country.
Ex. A mole from China has been arrested in India.
ARTICLE : Ex-CIA Agent Jerry Chun Shing Lee Admits Spying for China
Lee, who worked for the CIA between 1994 and 2007, pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to deliver national defence information to aid a foreign government,
in a court in Virginia on Wednesday, the justice department said in a
statement.
It said Lee was contacted by the Chinese intelligence agents in 2010. They offered
him money, promising to take care of him "for life" in exchange for the
required secret information. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were deposited
in his Hong Kong bank account between May 2010 and December 2013.

2. Mr Lee created a document containing information about CIA activities,
including locations to which US agents would be assigned. In 2012, FBI
agents searched a hotel room in Hawaii registered in Mr Lee's name and
found a USB drive. Investigators found the document on unallocated space in
the drive, suggesting it had been deleted.
The search also revealed Lee to have a day planner and address book
containing notes of intelligence provided by CIA agents, their true identities,
operational meeting locations and phone numbers, and information about
covert facilities.
Lee was interviewed by CIA officers in 2012 during which he said he had met
Chinese intelligence officers but concealed the fact that they had set him
tasks, the justice department said. In 2013 he first denied knowing about the
document on his USB drive and then admitted he had created it but said he
had never handed it on to Chinese agents.
CIA spy operation in China: Key dates
 2010: Information gathered by the US from sources deep inside the Chinese
government bureaucracy start to dry up
 2011: Informants begin to disappear. It is not clear whether the CIA has been
hacked or whether a mole has helped the Chinese to identify agents
 2012: FBI begins investigation
 May 2014: Five Chinese army officers are charged with stealing trade secrets and
internal documents from US companies. Later that same month, China says it has
been a main target for US spies
 2015: CIA withdraws staff from the US embassy in Beijing, fearing data stolen
from government computers could expose its agents
 April 2017: Beijing offers hefty cash rewards for information on foreign spies
 May 2017: Four former CIA officials tell the New York Times that up to 20 CIA
informants were killed or imprisoned by the Chinese between 2010 and 2012
 June 2017: Former US diplomatic officer Kevin Mallory is arrested and charged
with giving top-secret documents to a Chinese agent
 January 2018: Former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee is arrested at New
York's JFK airport

3. Questions:
1. What are your thoughts about the plea of Former CIA officer Jerry
Chun Shing Lee?
2. Do you think it’s possible to escape CIA team’s investigation? If
yes, what would be your escape plan? If no, why not?
3. Without prejudice to Mr. Lee or CIA, do you believe that Mr. Lee
did not hand the documents to Chinese agents?
4. What do you think is the importance of spying a foreign country?
5. Do you think your country has being spied on by a foreign country?
6. How would your country avoid this kind of trouble?
7. If you were to participate in a conspiracy between states, what
state would you like to spy on? Why?