Bo Jiang, a Chinese research scientist who worked at a NASA facility and was suspected of stealing secrets, is expected to plead guilty today–not for espionage, but for downloading porn on his work computer.
Jiang was nailed down in suspicion of trying to spy on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration but was instead found guilty of downloading porn movies on his NASA laptop.
According to court documents, Jiang was previously characterized as a “low risk” hire at NASA, despite his status as a foreign national, because his team was “not working on classified material or any development that is critical to the success of a current mission.”
But even if Jiang didn’t have access to any such information, there are still directives barring NASA laptops “from being used for official business on international trips without prior written permission of the Chief Information Officer for NASA’s Langley Research Center.”
Jiang took his laptop and an external hard drive along on two trips to China without written permission, according to court documents, which also said that while Jiang was in China, he corresponded with colleagues about work-related matters.
His lawyers said he was doing “generic work” and did not have access to sensitive information. But he did have something else that could earn him a criminal record: Pirated movies and porn on his old NASA-issued laptop.
The charge for making a false statement “has been resolved,” a prosecutor said, without providing details. Nasa had previously said it took “any allegation of a security violation very seriously”.
[NBC News]
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