NAVY COMMANDER NAMED IN ESPIONAGE CHARGE, SPYING FOR CHINA. NATIONAL SECURITY AT RISK.

LIN, at a naturalization ceremony in 2008. (Photo by Spec. 1st class Sarah Murphy/Navy).

The officer belongs to a unit that provides airborne anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, and maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations from planes such as the P-8A Poseidon, P-3C Orion and unmanned MQ-4C Triton. The command is headquartered at Hampton Roads Naval Support Activity in Norfolk, although it’s not clear if he was stationed there.

In addition his time on EP-3Es, Lin served from 2012 to 2014 as the Congressional Liaison for the Assistant Secretary of Navy for Finance Management and Comptroller.

Above, the redacted charge sheet.

SEE A MUCH  LARGER VERSION OF THE FOUR-PAGE DOCUMENT AT
https://news.usni.org/2016/04/08/navy-charges-maritime-recon-officer-with-espionage-in-rare-national-security-case


APRIL 10, 2016

A U.S. Navy officer with access to sensitive U.S. intelligence faces espionage charges over accusations he passed state secrets, possibly to China and Taiwan, a U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the suspect as Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin, who was born in Taiwan and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen, according a Navy profile article written about him in 2008.


A redacted Navy charge sheet said the suspect was assigned to the headquarters for the Norfolk-based Navy's Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, which oversees intelligence collection activities.

The charge sheet redacted out the name of the suspect and the Navy declined to provide details on his identity.

It accused him TWICE of communicating secret information and THREE times of attempting to do so to a representative of a foreign government "with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation."

[Add five counts of communicating defense information.]

The document did not identify what foreign country or countries were involved.

The U.S. official said both China and Taiwan were possible but stressed the investigation was still going on.


USNI News, which first reported Lin's identity, said he spoke fluent Mandarin and managed the collection of electronic signals from the EP3-E Aries II signals intelligence aircraft.

The U.S. Navy profiled Lin in a 2008 article that focused on his naturalization to the United States, saying his family left Taiwan when he was 14 and stayed in different countries before coming to America.



Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin is being held in the Navy's brig in Chesapeake, Va., on multiple counts of espionage, communicating defense information and making false official statements.

He also faces charges of adultery and patronizing prostitutes, the charge sheet said.

Investigators suspect Lin of funneling secret information to a country in the Asia-Pacific region, according to three U.S. officials who who asked for anonymity while the case is ongoing.
The details of the investigation are being closely held, the officials said.



Lin faced an Article 32 hearing Friday and the judge has 10 days to submit his recommendation to a court-martial convening authority, according to a Navy official.
Lin's name was first reported Sunday afternoon by USNI News.


IF HE IS FOUND GUILTY, HE WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A DEATH SENTENCE.

“A ‘National Security Case ’ is one which: to any serious degree, involves the compromise of a military or defense advantage over any foreign nation or terrorist group; involves an allegation of willful compromise of classified information, affects our military or defense capability to successfully resist hostile or destructive action, overt or covert; or involves an act of terrorism,” according to a manual of trying classified military cases.

The cases are tried under an additional set of rules than normal courts-martial due to the sensitivity of the evidence involved in the proceedings.


The last major incident of espionage by an active duty member of the Navy was the case of John Walker – a Navy warrant officer and submariner who for 18 years passed reams of military secrets to the Soviet Union before he was finally caught in 1985.