FBI investigation: Huawei equipment might disrupt US nuclear arsenal communications

Federal officials

Federal officials quietly killed a $100 million Chinese garden at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. The pagoda would have been placed on one of the highest points, two miles from the US Capitol, perfect for signals intelligence collection.

US military bases in the Midwest

Among the most alarming things, the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the Midwest. Huawei says its equipment can not operate in any communications spectrum allocated to the Défense Department.

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Turning doves into hawks

The FCC is more than $3 billion short of the money it needs to pay all qualified firms. The FCC expects to reimburse qualified firms approximately 40% of Huawei equipment removal expenses. A former senior US law enforcement source says the Justice Department submitted its national security concerns about Huawei equipment to the Commerce Department in 2020.

FBI Director Christopher Wray

FBI Director Christopher Wray says the FBI opens a new China counterintelligence investigation every 12 hours. Huawei says all of its products imported to the US have been tested and certified by the FCC before being deployed there.

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Spectrum allocated by the DOD

According to Huawei, their products "only operate on the spectrum granted by the DOD for commercial usage," which means that their products cannot access any other spectrum that is allocated to the DOD.

In February, the China Initiative, which aimed to combat Chinese surveillance, was terminated by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden. And a significant number of them resorted to Huawei for high-quality equipment that was also more affordable.

According to people familiar with the inquiry, Huawei equipment poses a threat to the Department of Defense's communications in the spectrum even though the Federal Communications Commission has approved it However, unwittingly, they were also recording the movement of the United States military equipment and people.

This gave Beijing, or anybody else for that matter, the capacity to trace the pattern of activity between a number of heavily guarded military locations.

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Viaero CEO Frank DiRico

There were no instructions to remove or alter any of the devices. His account of the government's concerns about Huawei equipment is based on press stories rather than the FBI. In the opinion of those knowledgeable about the inquiry, at least some of the cameras in question were running on Huawei networks.

Chinese investments

Scouring the country for Chinese investments After the results of the I-25 investigation were briefed to the Trump White House in 2019, the FCC ordered that telecom companies who receive federal subsidies to provide cell service to remote areas companies like Viaero — must "rip and replace" their Huawei and ZTE equipment.

"For the Chinese people to understand that this is a Communist Party problem, the administration needs to communicate this more clearly," Evanina said.

Evanina DiRico

I'll be the first to say that the government has to do better concerning understanding the Communist Party's intentions are not the same intentions of the Chinese people. The FBI is giving more defensive briefings to US businesses, academic institutions, and state and local governments, but officials are still fighting an uphill battle.