Powell aide in Taiwan spy storm

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A FORMER aide to US Secretary of State Colin Powell was seen passing documents to Taiwan intelligence agents and has been charged with concealing a trip to Taiwan, leading US dailies said today.

Donald Keyser, who retired in July as principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was followed on September 4 by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to a Washington restaurant where he was seen handing over some documents to two Taiwanese agents. The documents were described by court papers filed yesterday in Virginia as something "derived from material to which Keyser had access as a result of his employment with the Department of State".

The Washington Post and The New York Times said the court documents did not mention Keyser accepting any money for the documents, which he told FBI agents contained "talking points" that he often would prepare for his meetings with the Taiwanese.
. Keyser was not charged with spying in the court papers but with violating State Department rules by failing to disclose a side trip he took to Taiwan last year during a visit to China and Japan. Keyser, who advised Powell on China issues, met one of the Taiwanese agents in Taipei in September 2003, the court papers said. Keyser, who after retiring from the number two position in the East Asia bureau last year was assigned to the department's Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia, made the news in 2000 over a missing top-secret laptop computer in the State Department.

As one of six State Department employees blamed for lax security at the department, he was suspended for 30 days and reassigned by then secretary of state Madeleine Albright.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10786079%255E1702,00.html

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1. Wow, the Bush Administration has been a real United Nations of espionage

So now we got Taiwan, Iran and Israel represented. How much do you want to bet there are many more yet to be discovered?

Given the influence many of these covert agents have had on US policy, maybe Bush HAS been acting multilaterally, but just didn't realize it?

:eyes:

[w4rma]

2. Probably not too hard for a spy to get a job with them.

Just pretend your a ultra-hardcore Republican who will be ultra-loyal to the "king" and who is willing to say anything that is told to them and who will lie through their teeth to protect the "king". All the while robbing all of us blind of our nations confidential secrets.

These Repugs could care less about how skilled someone is at performing a job, other than PR. They only really care about overt loyalty to the furer and the furer's agenda.

Robert Hanssen, the Russian spy who was only recently outed, snuck into his FBI job by pretending to be an uber-conservative, also.

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3. Kick!

:kick:

I haven't seen this story covered anywhere else today.

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4. Long time moron

Albright suspended him for losing a laptop containing classified information.

That IMHO should be enough to get your clearance yanked, for good.