New Leaked Documents on Discord Reveal More Chinese Spy Balloons (msn.com) 43
The Washington Post found a new tranche of "top-secret intelligence documents" on Discord, and based on them reported Friday that U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of at least two additional Chinese spy balloons.
Based on the classified documents, the Post also reports that "questions lingered about the true capabilities of the one that flew over the continental United States in January and February." The Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States this year, called Killeen-23 by U.S. intelligence agencies, carried a raft of sensors and antennas the U.S. government still had not identified more than a week after shooting it down, according to a document allegedly leaked to a Discord chatroom by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Another balloon flew over a U.S. carrier strike group in a previously unreported incident, and a third crashed in the South China Sea, a second top-secret document stated, though it did not provide specific information for launch dates.... [Chinese spy balloon] Bulger-21 carried sophisticated surveillance equipment and circumnavigated the globe from December 2021 until May 2022, the NGA document states. Accardo-21 carried similar equipment as well as a "foil-lined gimbaled" sensor, it says....
Annotating what appear to be detailed photos of the balloon that flew over the United States, presumably taken from a U-2 spy plane, intelligence analysts assessed that it could generate enough power to operate "any" surveillance and reconnaissance technology, including a type of radar that can see at night and through clouds and thin materials [including tarps].... China's military has operated a vast surveillance balloon project for several years, partly out of Hainan province off China's south coast, U.S. officials have previously told The Post.
But the NGA document is notable as much for what it doesn't say, reflecting the government's possible lack of insight, at least in mid-February, into the balloons' capabilities... The lack of detailed conclusions about the balloon's surveillance capabilities raises questions about the decision to let it fly over the United States before shooting it down, an action the Defense Department justified at the time as an opportunity to collect additional intelligence.
The Post also reports that another leaked document (relying on intercepted communications) assessed that within the Chinese military the balloon surveillance program lacked "strong leadership" oversight.
Based on the classified documents, the Post also reports that "questions lingered about the true capabilities of the one that flew over the continental United States in January and February." The Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States this year, called Killeen-23 by U.S. intelligence agencies, carried a raft of sensors and antennas the U.S. government still had not identified more than a week after shooting it down, according to a document allegedly leaked to a Discord chatroom by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Another balloon flew over a U.S. carrier strike group in a previously unreported incident, and a third crashed in the South China Sea, a second top-secret document stated, though it did not provide specific information for launch dates.... [Chinese spy balloon] Bulger-21 carried sophisticated surveillance equipment and circumnavigated the globe from December 2021 until May 2022, the NGA document states. Accardo-21 carried similar equipment as well as a "foil-lined gimbaled" sensor, it says....
Annotating what appear to be detailed photos of the balloon that flew over the United States, presumably taken from a U-2 spy plane, intelligence analysts assessed that it could generate enough power to operate "any" surveillance and reconnaissance technology, including a type of radar that can see at night and through clouds and thin materials [including tarps].... China's military has operated a vast surveillance balloon project for several years, partly out of Hainan province off China's south coast, U.S. officials have previously told The Post.
But the NGA document is notable as much for what it doesn't say, reflecting the government's possible lack of insight, at least in mid-February, into the balloons' capabilities... The lack of detailed conclusions about the balloon's surveillance capabilities raises questions about the decision to let it fly over the United States before shooting it down, an action the Defense Department justified at the time as an opportunity to collect additional intelligence.
The Post also reports that another leaked document (relying on intercepted communications) assessed that within the Chinese military the balloon surveillance program lacked "strong leadership" oversight.
Re:Wait a minute, (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of classified documents are classified for a good reason. Eg not giving away capabilities to the enemy or revealing agents identities. While I take a lot of what government says and does with a large pinch of salt I'd sooner trust them than some immature 21 year know nothing kid playing videos game with people he's never actually met.
No doubt I'll be modded to hell for daring to go against the stick-it-to-the-man kidult anti government groupthink prevalent on here.
Re: Wait a minute, (Score:2)
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Because you obviously haven't been paying attention.
Many key leakers in the last 2 decades have been anything but mere conduits, on the contrary they've leaked information then distorted what it says to pursue a political agenda.
So yes, their fucking motivations matter. When they're leaking specific bits of info with the goal of spinning an incomplete picture to push an agenda, then you have to focus on the fucking leaker.
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"Many key leakers in the last 2 decades have been anything but mere conduits, on the contrary they've leaked information then distorted what it says to pursue a political agenda."
Like who? Name them.
Re: Wait a minute, (Score:3)
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I also suspect he's referring to those who embarrassed his favorite politball team.
We're headed for some dark times.
Re: Wait a minute, (Score:5, Insightful)
There are 4 kinds of leakers:
1. Insiders who leak to push an approved agenda. This is orders of magnitude by far the most common type of leak, and is the basis for 90% of national security stories in NYT and WaPo. We never find out who they are. These are "reliable sources."
2. Insiders who leak to push an unapproved agenda, i.e. for their own political purposes inside the state security system. These are approximately 10% of national security stories in NYT and WaPo. You never find out who they are, either.
3. Whistleblowers who leak to show that the govt is lying to its own people or is committing crimes. These comprise approximately zero percent of the leakers who get written up. They include Ellsberg, Snowden, Manning, that girl with the funny name.
4. Idiots. These are the people who leave classified stuff lying around or sell it to spies. This is also approximately zero percent. It includes people like Biden.
It's not yet clear whether the current guy is #3 or #4.
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These are the people who leave classified stuff lying around or sell it to spies
That's a hell of a conflation. Why would you put those in the same category?
It includes people like Biden.
Oh, that's why. This is more of a political rant than an analytical list.
It's not yet clear whether the current guy is #3 or #4.
Really? Is there even a hint of evidence he was trying to be a whistleblower? Maybe if you squint really hard you can turn his racism and pro-Russia ramblings into a political stance, but leaking do
Re: Wait a minute, (Score:2)
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That would be a faceplant of a message for a politician to put out there, which is why none of them have. "War at all costs" might be the intent, but it's never the message.
The message is always some variation of "We really don't want war, but we have no choice." For example, Putin's message is that the dangerous Nazi state of Ukraine posed such a threat that they forced him to invade.
Re:Wait a minute, (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're frankly right.
The fact is the leaker had no noble deed here, it was an immature kid with a hatred for his country trying to damage it.
But the irony is as much as a number of people, including many Americans that want to collapse America like MTG on behalf of Russia, or just out of bitter spite that they're failures of their own making despite the opportunities living in the US has afforded them, frankly the leaks don't make the US look that bad.
If anything the fact we now know Chinese surveillance efforts were sophisticated and ongoing it shows the US knew more about this programme than previously publicly known, that whilst the absence of more detailed information in these leaks is being used to imply the US doesn't know, the reality is it's probably just that these leaks are so small relatively that you wouldn't be able to surmise the entire state of US intelligence from them anyway.
But where these leaks have really done the US a favour is saying publicly what we all wanted to hear, but that the US couldn't officially call out - the fact Russia has absolutely fucked itself in Ukraine, that there's political infighting there, and that even the FSB acknowledges they've lost well over 100,000 troops.
So again, frankly, as leaks go, and as much as many people try and use every leak ever to demonise the US, these leaks haven't left the US looking as bad as US haters like Trumpists would love them to, so here they are trying to praise a leaker who acted out of sheer malice and egoism and paint his leaks as damning for the US when in many cases they're anything but, on the contrary, many of these leaks have done the US a favour.
I don't often agree with you on Slashdot, but anyone modding you down for pointing out the obvious has gone full retard. The OP is obviously very much full retard if he thinks this leaker is in any way deserving of praise, or that using these leaks to criticise the US is both a fair reading of the leaks, and a legitimate thing to do. Primarily it's the usual pro-Russian disinfo agents trying to spin them as something they're not, but largely failing hard this time because the leaks also prove Russia and it's puppets like MTG have indeed been wrong/lying all along.
Re: Wait a minute, (Score:4, Insightful)
What lies?
They've been saying for 6 months that Ukraine needs a lot more ammo to avoid a stalemate. Especially anti air weapons.
That Ukraine has issues with corruption, everyone's been saying that, the difference is unlike Russia or China, Ukraine has been making sustained and well supported efforts to reduce corruption for over a decade and the war has enabled the government to speed up it's anti corruption actions. Their corruption rankings have been going down over the last 20 years.
That their are western special forces in Ukraine training them? That's not very surprising, we've had trainers their for a decade. There are also very likely black ops and spies there. Their is no evidence that there are uniformed American soldiers launching offensive operations against Russian soldiers.
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I didn't say he didn't deserve to be arrested. I said it was odd that "journalists" were the ones to out him and cheered on his arrest.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh look, a high UUID account with a history of posts aimed purely at defending Russsia desperately trying to spin a bunch of relatively mundane leaks as terrible for the US. Weak attempt trying to shift the focus onto the leaks, rather than the far more interesting and less mundane story - the leaker who turned on his own country.
How novel. You're really going to have start innovating Vlad, this kind of attempt at spinning leaks to be something they're not really doesn't have the impact it used to. I know t
Re: Wait a minute, (Score:2)
Everyone knew we likely had special forces there training people. Just like Russia in Iraq and Syria. And likely non uniformed spies and black ops.
That's a nothingburger. If there were uniformed American soldiers launching offensive operations against uniformed Russian soldiers, that would be different.
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"We should expect our government to lie through it's teeth and not play by the rules it set down in it's chambers of state" Is not particularly reassuring. Meanwhile, you complete ignoring of the fact that our allies are corrupt shitbags is particularly telling. One of the Obama cabinet stenographers recently coming out and confirming that Biden's Ukraine trip was entirely for corrupt reasons is particularly amusing in light of that fact.
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Well, in this case, threats were made that if "OG" was arrested that LOTS more docs would be leaked, and here we are. ..and here's you. Covering it up.
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Just to add that I don't know that that's what happened here, maybe it's still part of the original leak. Either way, OP is still a goof.
Assange (Score:2, Troll)
Interesting how WaPo is doing what Assange is rotting in Belmarsh for doing and they're not running a story about his persecution every day.
Maybe when one of their own gets the collar they'll speak up?
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I don’t have the faintest clue what you’re trying to say.
Mothership (Score:5, Funny)
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Still waiting for some evidence to back up the claims they are spy balloons. They recovered the one they shot down.
After Iraq and WMD I think we need some fairly compelling evidence before taking their word for it. At least some of these "spy balloons" have turned out to be weather balloons or HAM radio transceivers.
Re: Mothership (Score:2)
Considering Iraqs previous actions using WMDs, invading neighbors, making constant threats implying they still had WMDs, and heavily interfering with inspectors; the West had very good reason for believing they still had the WMDs.
The UK and USA were convinced Iraq had them, so they had blinders on, and lied about stuff and assumed they'd find the proof after invading.
How much evidence would you need before you wanted the police to actually search the place, and you lie to the police to give them cause, if y
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While Iraq did not have an active chemical weapons program, in 2014 The New York Times [nytimes.com] published that Iraq did, in fact, still have some chemical weapons left over from pre-1991 when they they had an active program.
The problem was the west, including the USA and European nations had aided Iraq with this program. So it was a bit embarrassing to publicly talk about it. GWB even chose to not bring it up while he was still in office.
Iraq had a habit of mislabeling munitions to hide this stuff in plain sight
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Maybe the motherships as shown in Three-Body series. :O
most important missing sensor (Score:2)
The one sensor we have most need of these days when listening in on the govt is a bullshit detector.
This isn't a big deal (Score:2)
Night Radar (Score:5, Funny)
a type of radar that can see at night ...
Oh my god! A type of radar that can see at night! I wonder how the brits managed in WWII, with radar that can only see in daylight!
/s
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radar (Score:2)
Interesting naming convention... (Score:2)
Alphabetic - Numeric - would almost imply K-22 would be the 11th item identified in 2022. Or Im just a crazy conspiracy theorist.