Month: May 2018

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Should America Return to Paper Ballots?

Accurate voting is vital to the American system of government, and an area of bipartisan concern. Yet, according to some critics, a potential threat to the security of balloting has been voluntarily adopted, and there are now calls for a reversal of that process.

The replacement of simple lever machines and even more basic paper ballots has swept across the nation, particularly since 2010. A Stanford study examined the merits of electronic voting: “One of the significant benefits of this new system is the possibility for increased efficiency.  With Electronic Voting Machines voters can submit their votes, and be reasonably confident that their vote will count (namely avoiding the “hanging chad” problem that handicapped the 2000 presidential elections in the United States).  New Electronic Voting Machines can also stop voters from common election faults, such as picking too many or no candidates, also thereby increasing the general effectiveness of voting… technology adds more steps to the process and thus increases the possibility of error with each additional step, all of which are largely unseen by the voter.

“Not only does the technology create more errors in the electronic workings, but the voters can also commit mistakes due to confusion with the user interface. The terminology is confusing, different machines produce different interfaces, and even the audio guides to help the disabled may prove more confusing than helpful.

“With the advent of electronic machine voting also comes the higher possibilities of fraudulent machines and practices. First of all, the technology is ‘black box software,’ meaning that the public is not allowed access into the software that controls the voting machines. Although companies protect their software to protect against fraud (and to beat back competition), this also leaves the public with no idea of how the voting software works. It would be simple for the company to manipulate the software to produce fraudulent results. Also, the vendors who market the machines are in competition with each other, and there is no guarantee that they are producing the machines in the best interest of the voters and the accuracy of the ballots.

“Lastly, vote accuracy is also an issue, because voters have no way of confirming there vote, and there is also no way of conducting a recount with direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting. With DRE, there is no paper trail, no verification, and thus no scrutiny of the processes. Voter anonymity is also a problem. Voters have to provide much of their personal information to the systems for voter verification, and with that comes the problem of keeping voter information safe and keeping voters anonymous.”
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The attraction of electronic devises has been explained by Jesse Emspsak, writing in Live Science:  “With all the vulnerabilities of machines, why not simply use paper ballots, and hand-count them, as some smaller districts do, or even some major democracies…The answer comes down to U.S. election structure, [according to Warren Stewart, communications director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that tracks voting technologies.] Americans vote on several candidates in each state, and in California and some other states, voters also weigh in on ballot measures…Of course, one could go to paper-based systems and hand-counting, but it would take a lot longer to count the votes. That might not be a bad thing, Stewart said.

But significant unease about the potential for tampering, either by partisan interests within the nation or by hostile nations abroad, exists.

Bruce Schneier  a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School who serves on the advisory board of Verified Voting, recently noted in a Guardian editorial: “Today, we conduct our elections on computers. Our registration lists are in computer databases. We vote on computerized voting machines. And our tabulation and reporting is done on computers. We do this for a lot of good reasons, but a side effect is that elections now have all the insecurities inherent in computers. The only way to reliably protect elections from both malice and accident is to use something that is not hackable or unreliable at scale; the best way to do that is to back up as much of the system as possible with paper. Last year, the Defcon hackers’ conference sponsored a Voting Village. Organizers collected 25 pieces of voting equipment, including voting machines and electronic poll books. By the end of the weekend, conference attendees had found ways to compromise every piece of test equipment: to load malicious software, compromise vote tallies and audit logs, or cause equipment to fail. It’s important to understand that these were not well-funded nation-state attackers. These were not even academics who had been studying the problem for weeks. These were bored hackers, with no experience with voting machines, playing around between parties one weekend.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow.

Illustration by Pixabay

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Bait and Switch in the Women’s Movement

There is little doubt that, historically, women have suffered oppression, both in private relationships and in society at large. But to what extent are the claims of the feminist movement about discrimination in the United States of the 21st Century accurate?

Consider these facts: In The New York Times, Elizabeth Olson reports that women make up over half of all law students. The Association of American Medical Colleges  notes that females make up over half of all new enrollees in medical school. Writing for the Atlantic, Jon Marcus reports that “Where men once went to college in proportions far higher than women—58 percent to 42 percent as recently as the 1970s—the ratio has now almost exactly reversed.”

It is, of course, accurate that women earn  only approximately 80% of what males, as a whole, do.

Maricar Santos, in a Working Mother article, explains at least one part of the reason the gap exists: “…once women reach their 30s… women are most likely to have young children. And because balancing work and family is tough for several reasons, including the cost of childcare—$11,666 per child, per year, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies—the report suggests many women leave the workforce so they can take care of their kids. The report authors reason that given the costs of childcare, it’s a no-brainer for some couples to decide that one parent should stay at home, and often that parent is the woman.”

There are, of course, issues other than pay that oppress women, even in the United States of 2018. One example: Hollywood barons have been exposed as abusing females within their industry in horrific ways.

So why, despite the very visible and active presence of self-proclaimed women’s rights organizations, does some measure of discrimination against women continue to exist?

Much of the answer lies in the disreputable practice of “Bait and Switch” that characterizes the activities of organizations that purport to represent female interests. While the National Organization of Women (NOW) and the Women’s March on Washington claim to be focused on female issues, the reality is that they are, instead, concentrating on a variety of left-wing causes and the partisan promotion of Democrat candidates.

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Despite these horrors, The National Organization for Women  continues to overlook this most fundamental of all matters affecting women.

What does it concentrate on? A review of its website  over the past several years discussed enthusiasm for a variety of issues that had only tangential relationship to discrimination against women.  N.O.W’s political contributions have been given in an approximately 50-1 ratio to Democrats over Republicans, an overtly partisan figure.

The Women’s March has an even worse record. The Washington Examiner  exposed the co-chair of the organization, Linda Sarsour, “as an enabler of sexual assault after one of her previous employees shared her story of working for her at the Arab American Association in 2009… Asmi Fathelbab, the alleged victim, is Muslim and now 37 years old. She told the Daily Caller that after complaining to Sarsour about a man in her office building groping and sexually harassing her, she was immediately dismissed and even fat-shamed.

Sarsour has  advocated for Sharia law, which essentially treats females as mere property.

Meanwhile, the banner topic atop the organization’s website as this article was being prepared was about gun control.

Photo:  EEOC

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Biased Justice

Frustration was expressed by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III   in his questioning of the legal right of the Special Counsel team to pursue charges unrelated to Russian collusion against Paul Manafort. Mueller’s move is seen by some as an attempt to frighten and bankrupt Manfort as a way to get him to desperately agree to testify against the President, even if that testimony is inaccurate, in an effort to preserve his freedom and his bank account from the crushing burden of a trial.

It’s important to understand how an individual may be subjected to a ruinous process by a determined prosecutor even in the absence of an underlying crime.

Assume that a prosecutor is determined to disrupt the life and career of a target, in this case, the President of the United States.  However, after a year of intensive investigation by a team that has close association to the President’s political opposition, there is no evidence of the alleged “crime.”  Indeed, it now seems that the whole basis of the case was based on nothing more than a document procured by the opposition campaign.

The target understandably voices frustration—which is promptly labelled as “obstruction,” a wholly separate charge but a life line to keep the failed investigation alive. Additionally, The Special Counsel now seeks to find individuals who can provide any embarrassing facts about the target, even those that are wholly unrelated to the charge that initiated the existence of the investigation.

Any individual, no matter how upstanding, can be made the subject of suspicion by a determined prosecutor.  Let’s take, dear reader, you as an example. Suppose an acquaintance of yours is the target of a so-far unsuccessful probe.  The prosecutor wants you to divulge something embarrassing about him.  You refuse; indeed, you may not know that any wrongdoing was ever committed.  So that prosecutor begins to dig into your life. He decides that you may be involved in a Chinese spy ring, which is totally untrue, but…

You frequently order takeout from a Chinese restaurant that is part of a chain of stores that, unknown to you, is owned by a Beijing-based corporation that has fiscal ties to that nation’s government. This is known to investigators because you pay by credit card and your records have been subpoenaed by a diligent prosecutor. The prosecutor accuses you of being an unregistered foreign agent providing assistance to China.  When confronted with this absurdity, you tell, in anger, the investigator to go to hell, and you instruct your accountant, tax preparer, and credit card company not to comply with the investigation. As a result, you are charged with Obstruction.  You now face serious legal expenses and potential criminal charges.  However, you are quietly informed, if you simply provide damning statements about your acquaintance, all this can go away, and what’s left of your life and money can be preserved.

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A vigorous investigative process by a special counsel into the possible commission of a crime is wholly appropriate. But there are appropriate parameters that must be observed. First, there must be dependable evidence that an actual crime has been committed. In the Russian Collusion case, this has not occurred.  All that has been unearthed is that an unsubstantiated document procured by the Clinton campaign was presented to a FISA court, which almost always approves anything placed before it by the FBI, and the origin of that documented was not disclosed.  On top of that, this current FBI leadership has very real and very significant indications of bias, including the fact that approximately $700,000 in funds to the campaign of the wife of former FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe, was provided by Clinton allies, and clear evidence, including emails, exist indicating that key figures within that agency definitively sought to prevent the election of candidate  Donald Trump.  The special counsel, Robert Mueller, served as head of the FBI, and was succeeded by James Comey, who has also made no secret of his animosity to Trump.

If this investigation, under similar biased circumstances, was taking place in another nation, many if not most of those cheering on Robert Mueller’s actions would have no hesitation in condemning it as a political show trial by one political faction against another.

Many will never be convinced that Donald Trump is innocent.  That is their right. And it would be appropriate, upon their presentation of reliable, substantive evidence of actual collusion, to initiate a vigorous investigation, to be conducted by nonpartisan personnel.  That is not the current case, which is based on biased and unreliable evidence that underlies an investigation by partisan personnel.

This analysis is neither pro nor anti-Trump.  It is, however, staunchly in favor of the concept of the fair and objective administration of justice.

Photo: U.S. Courts

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Illegal Diversion of Educational Assets

It doesn’t often reach the headlines, but the extent of political bias in education has reached near-catastrophic levels. Educators at university, high school, and lower levels, partially in response to the Parkland disaster, have abandoned any pretense at objectivity and openly abused their positions of trust to advance left-wing goals.

Not enough attention has been paid to acts such as that of the Baltimore public school system, which complained that it didn’t have enough funds to heat classrooms but spent $100,000 to rent buses to transport students to Washington for an anti-gun demonstration.

Some of the traits that have become more publicly noticeable are reminiscent of China’s cultural revolution. Bradford Richardson, for example, reports that Harvard has established  an effort to rid the classroom of so-called “offensive” remarks and has set up a mechanism to anonymously do so.

In North Carolina, notes the Washington Times,an eight year old student was given a handout from his school about “white privilege.” In a similar vein, notes Campus Reform,  Students at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs can earn up to 3 academic credits through a course that requires them to attend the annual White Privilege Conference. The credits can be applied toward the school’s Graduate Certificate in Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusion, along with courses such as “Unmasking Whiteness” and “Social Health Justice.”

PJ Media reports that a teacher was placed on leave for merely asking whether students seeking to protest abortion would be given the same rights as those demonstrating against the Second Amendment. Columnist Tom Knighton reported that an educator posed the question:  if it was appropriate for the school to have been providing support for a politically motivated protest, [in this case, anti-2nd Amendment] would such support would be there for other causes. The teacher involved, Julianne Benzel, said “I just kind of used the example … [if] a group of students nationwide, or even locally, decided ‘I want to walk out of school for 17 minutes’ and go in the quad area and protest abortion, would that be allowed by our administration… When a school makes it clear that it is willing to support some political speech but not all, students are learning that some opinions can be silenced in this country. They call it progressive, but that’s regression.”

The College Fix found that an “anti-oppression guide” at  Simmons College claims that saying “God bless you” after some sneezes is considered as a microaggrerssion, because it could offend Muslims.

As the New York Analysis of Policy and Government previously reported, Walter Williams provided  a disturbing report from the University of Hawaii:
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“’We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it.’ That’s taught to University of Hawaii students by Professor Haunani-Kay Trask. Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Palestine monitor, believes stated that President George W. Bush ordered the destruction of the twin towers.’ … Then there’s Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman, who explained our national problems by saying, ‘But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.’”

The Daily Wire reports that  Karl Marx’s ‘Communist Manifesto’ has been found to be the most taught text by economists on college campuses…“’The Communist Manifesto’ was most frequently taught by economists, receiving a total count of 3189 and a ‘teaching score’ of 99.7. The overall data from all professors revealed that only ‘The Elements of Style,’ a common writing guide by William Strunk and ‘The Republic’ by Plato were more assigned than the Karl Marx classic. And if if that’s not frightening enough, per Market Watch, the Bible did not show up in the data at all but Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ received ‘a count of 697 and a score of 75.7’ and Vladimir Lenin’s ‘What Is To Be Done’ received a count of 361 and a teaching score of 45.9.”

When U.S. history is taught, even on the lower school level, it is frequently from an extreme anti-American bias. The Federalist reported that in 2014, when award-winning history professor Larry Krieger reviewed Common Core’s AP American history curriculum, he was appalled.  “Krieger… conducted a meticulous dissection of the anti-American themes and anti-knowledge gaps in the extensive new curriculum framework. These include emphasizing exploitation, racial conflict, and economic determinism, and omitting the Pilgrims, all Revolutionary War battles, Alexis de Tocqueville, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and much more. Their analysis and Wood’s also make it quite clear that the new curriculum is nowhere near objective, or even even-handed, philosophically, and is, moreover, organizationally incoherent.”

Will Grant, reporting for Times Higher Education explains that “Growing proportions of the academic workforce are employed in ever more precarious fashion; PhD graduates are produced at volumes scarcely related to academic jobs; … Among our students, we can see a growing trend of academic entitlement, …growing political demands over the shape of the curriculum and how the university should relate to them. Accusations of liberal bias among faculty are nothing new. Since before God and Man at Yale – William F. Buckley’s 1951 attack on his teachers at Yale – academics have been accused of seeking to indoctrinate students into liberal views. Yet in recent years, [ideological battles]…have taken on a new character…The tone of campus conversations has changed. Partisan divisions we see elsewhere in society seem to have made their way into the classroom…students …are …more likely to disengage from the classroom experience, or to be disingenuous and parrot the instructors’ beliefs back to them. Neither of these behaviors is, of course, conducive to either quality classroom discussion or actual learning… these trends are worsened by the system that we have helped to create…Politics may currently be an unwelcome and potentially disruptive visitor to the classroom, but it doesn’t need to be that way….”

Allowing discussions and even protests are part of the educational process. But mandating that only one side of the ideological divide has that privilege is an affront to the American concept of free speech, and represents, in essence, a theft of taxpayer dollars or parental tuition funds for purposes unrelated to education.

Photo: Baltimore Mayor Catherine Elizabeth Pugh. Did Baltimore misuse school funds to rent buses to send students on a political protest?

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The New Secessionists

Is America splitting apart? Some on both the right and the left are engaging in conversations not heard since the Civil War.

The furious media and partisan assault on President Trump, combined with anguished reactions to the constitutionally questionable actions of Barack Obama, has prompted secessionist discussions.

President Barack Obama promised to “fundamentally transform” the United States. He kept his word. Foreign policy was reset to in a manner that overlooked Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian military advances, while alienating traditional friends. America’s armed forces were sharply reduced.  Dramatic increases in some social programs (food stamps, for example) came at the expense of others (social security recipients received fewer and less cost of living increases than at any time since the current format was adopted.) Illegal immigration was largely ignored.  Federal agencies were re-tasked to assist partisan goals, especially the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Environmental Protection.

Much of the electorate disapproved, and eventually expressed their displeasure at the ballot box. But to some, the memory of the damage remains too sharp, and to others, in states where Obama-style politics continue such as California, remedies remain too distant.

Some centrists and conservatives in Californians are seeking to split their state in two. Some on the left, who vehemently disapprove of President Trump’s policies, have even called for California to secede from the union altogether. Some Texans are also considering secession, in frustration at Washington’s growth during the Obama years.

An ABC news California affiliate  has reported that there is some support for legislation to split up California, in an effort to shield many of its citizens from the hard-left policies of Governor Brown and the Sacramento government. The referendum could appear on the November ballot. Supporters believe that the current state government has failed to protect the interests of its citizens, and wants to separate the more centrist and conservative rural areas from the rest of the state.

According to the group’s Declaration of Independence, “California is a new state in development exercising its Constitutional Right to form from the State of California. The process to form New California is authorized and codified in: Article IV Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution….The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny, which rivals those expressed in the above documents. Therefore the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, the Constitution as adapted in 1783 by the Congress of the United States of America, the Alta California Declaration of Independence of 1836, the Sonoma Proclamation of 1846, and the California State Constitution of 1848 Mandate the Right, the Responsibility, the Duty of the People who are suffering the long train of abuses and usurpations at the hands of a tyrannical government to abolish and make New a Government by the People and for the People …”
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There is some precedent for a state splitting apart, although the circumstances were radically different.  During the Civil War, West Virginia split off from Virginia. According to History.com  “Confederate forces occupied a portion of West Virginia during the war, but West Virginian statehood was nonetheless approved in a referendum and a state constitution drawn up. In April 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the admission of West Virginia into the Union effective June 20, 1863.”

The radical concept of secession from the Union altogether has gained some traction in both Texas and California.

The “Yes California”  movement is openly partisan.  It’s website notes: “Most of the time, California doesn’t get the national government we choose. We have voted for a Democratic majority in both chambers of the California Legislature since 1971 and have elected Democrats to the U.S. Senate since 1992. Clearly California leans left but by the time of the 2016 election we will have had a Republican-controlled House for 19 out of the last 24 years and a Republican-controlled Senate for 15 out of the last 24 years.”

Some in Texas are also considering secession, although from an opposite political basis.  Fiercely independent, many Texans were shaken by President Obama’s move to increase federal power. Daniel Miller, author of “Texit: Why and How Texas Will Leave the Union,”  writes that “Texans are currently subjected to over 180,000 pages of Federal laws, administered by 440 separate agencies, and nearly 2 million unelected Federal bureaucrats…”

The chances of either of these movements succeeding (or is that “seceding?”) are, of course, very small.  But they are indicators of the extraordinary anger that many Americans have.

Photo: National Park Service

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Fiscal Responsibility vs. Bike Lanes

Ballotpedia.org  reports that the total indebtedness of the fifty states is approximately $1,149,926,081,000. U.S. Governmentdebt.com estimates that New York has the highest debt of any state in the nation.  This is in addition to the federal government’s $21,000,000,000,000 debt.

The states, of course, do not have the right to print money, so their debt problems begin to hit crucial interests more rapidly than Washington’s.  State and local pensioners could soon feel the impact. That is why spending programs both large and small need to examined. It is vital to consider whether funds committed actually fulfill a valid purpose, or are they merely a cave-in to vocal advocates and special interests.

One popular concept that has spread across the nation is the dedication of portions of roads to bike lanes, and the use of tax dollars to carve up roads to prove greater safety for cyclists. As this column has previously reported, despite the diligent lobbying of politically active and media-savvy supporters, this is a prime example of how state and local funds are wasted.

Seattle Curbed recently released a  report on a study in their city, which has a weather climate, an urban geography much more conducive to cycling than many municipalities, and a population that is quite enthusiastic about the practice of bike commuting. Despite all those advantages, it found that commutes by bikes or mopeds accounted for only a “tiny fraction…0.6%” of commuters.

Despite the ardent support of politicians seeking to gain from their association with the activists, this is a very small portion of commuters to justify the expense and the inconvenience caused by bike lanes. Despite that, as noted by Crain’s New York,  Mayor De Blasio’s “Department of Transportation vowed…to add 10 miles of protected bicycle lanes and allocate 50 lane miles of regular bikeways annually starting this year…The number of bike paths citywide has more than doubled in the last decade, to 1,133 miles from 513 miles in 2006. Of the existing paths, 425 miles are protected, meaning they are protected from automobile traffic by a physical barrier, not just paint. Last year, the city installed a record 15 such paths.”

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There have been reports of citizen revolt against bike lanes.  The Wall Street Journal  reports that in cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Seattle, Boulder and even the trendy-friendly borough of Brooklyn, NYC, citizens are rising up against the practice of carving up roads for bike lanes. The publication found that ““Retrofitting city streets for protected bike lanes can be pricey. A master plan prepared for Baltimore’s Transportation Department recommended adding 52.5 miles over five years at a cost of $26 million, a tab the plan said could be covered by a mix of local, state and federal funds.”

Author and futurist Syd Mead, writing in The Los Angeles Daily News provides this analysis: “While the bicycle has many virtues, it also prompts people to go overboard. It’s often lauded as the transportation of tomorrow and the savior of cities. It is not. It is called transportation. It is not… It … operates under rigid limitations: the physical condition (and therefore age) of the rider, seasons and weather conditions, and terrain…Today there is an almost messianic insistence that bicycles should be a part of the urban transit mix. …In large urban centers…using a bicycle to traverse 10, 15, or 20 miles one-way is simply not a feasible proposition…A typical busy lane gets used by dozens of automobiles per minute. A bike lane is lucky to be used by dozens of bicyclists in an hour. Imposing bicycle accommodations onto an existing vehicular culture and street alignment is prohibitively complex and preposterously expensive on a per-mile basis. Given the relatively small number of commuters who would use such lanes in comparison to car drivers, any cost/efficiency formulae that purport to justify such infrastructure enter the realm of pure fantasy.”

Unfortunately, practical and fiscally responsible analyses of bike lanes are drowned out by the enthusiasm and political sophistication of bike lane supporters.

Photo: NYC Dept. of Transportation

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Americans Warned not to use Chinese Cell Phones

An extraordinary example of the difficulties in America’s economic relations with China is being played out in the technology field, particularly concerning cell phones.

Business Insider reports that: “US senators warned that China is trying to gain access to sensitive U.S. technologies and intellectual properties through telecommunications companies, academia and joint business ventures. Chinese firms have come under greater scrutiny in the United States in recent years over fears they may be conduits for spying, something they have consistently denied.”

Writing for the Verge, James Vincent  reports that the heads of six major American intelligence agencies are advising U.S. citizens to not use products or services provided by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE.

The problem has a lengthy history. In May 2017, a federal jury found that Huwaei engaged in industrial espionage within U.S. borders, and ordered the company to provide $4.8 million in damages to T-Mobile.

In 2012  The House Intelligence Committee “confirmed significant gaps in available information about the Chinese telecommunications sector, the histories and operations of specific companies operating in the United States, and those companies’ potential ties to the Chinese state. Most importantly, [a committee preliminary review] highlighted the potential security threat posed by Chinese telecommunications companies with potential ties to the Chinese government or military. In particular, to the extent these companies are influenced by the state, or provide Chinese intelligence services access to telecommunication networks, the opportunity exists for further economic and foreign espionage by a foreign nation-state already known to be a major perpetrator of cyber espionage. As many other countries show through their actions, the Committee believes the telecommunications sector plays a critical role in the safety and security of our nation, and is thus a target of foreign intelligence services. The Committee’s formal investigation focused on Huawei and ZTE, the top two Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturers, as they seek to market their equipment to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.”

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Although reluctant to publicly announce the reasons, U.S. telecommunications companies are backing away from some relations with their Chinese counterparts. The Wall Street Journal  reported in January that AT&T “has walked away from a deal to sell smartphones made by Chinese electronics giant Huawei Technologies Co.”

In April, ZTE was hit with another charge by the U.S. Commerce Department, which announced that its “Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has imposed a denial of export privileges against Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment Corporation, of Shenzhen, China (“ZTE Corporation”) and ZTE Kangxun Telecommunications Ltd. of Hi-New Shenzhen, China (“ZTE Kangxun”) (collectively, “ZTE”). In March 2017, ZTE agreed to a combined civil and criminal penalty and forfeiture of $1.19 billion after illegally shipping telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea, making false statements, and obstructing justice including through preventing disclosure to and affirmatively misleading the U.S. Government.  In addition to these monetary penalties, ZTE also agreed a seven-year suspended denial of export privileges, which could be activated if any aspect of the agreement was not met and/or if the company committed additional violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).”

In January, Rep. Mike Conway (TX-11) introduced H.R. 4747, The Defending U.S. Government Communications Act. This bill prohibits the U.S. government from purchasing or leasing telecommunications equipment and/or services from Huawei, ZTE, or any subsidiaries/affiliates thereof. Rep. Conway emphasized that “Chinese commercial technology is a vehicle for the Chinese government to spy on United States federal agencies, posing a severe national security threat… Allowing Huawei, ZTE, and other related entities access to U.S. government communications would be inviting Chinese surveillance into all aspects of our lives,,,This is an issue we’ve followed for years at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). The threat… is now reemerging as the Chinese government is reattempting to embed themselves into U.S. technology. This is extremely dangerous because the Chinese government is trying to compromise the integrity of U.S. businesses and spy on our closely held national security secrets.”

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