Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin and the MH370 videos

... the evidence presented at day-long trial didn’t uncover a master spy, but a middle aged naval officer in the midst of a divorce who used some of his lower level knowledge to impress women. (USNI News, 4 May 2016)

Contents

Introduction
Chronology
Comments
References

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1. Introduction

On 30 January 2025 (Australian time) American investigative researcher and YouTuber Ashton Forbes presented a comprehensive video on Lt. Cmdr. Edwin C. Lin who was responsible for the release of the two MH370 videos in 2014, shortly after the plane went missing on 8 March of that year. Lin was subsequently placed under investigation in April, arrested in September 2015, charged in 2016, court marshaled by the United States Navy and government authorities in 2017 and sentenced to 9 years in prison for various offences, including espionage, misuse of secret material, contacting foreign (Taiwanese and Chinese) officials, and misuse of travel documents. He served 6 years and was supposedly released in 2023, though this has not been confirmed. Nothing is known of his subsequent fate, though he was apparently dishonorably discharged from the US Navy as a result of the trial.

Lin's release of the MH370 videos - which was not specifically mentioned in any of his court hearings due to the top secret nature of the technology involved and the circumstances of the planes disappearance - was an act of compassion for the families of the missing 246 individuals who died when MH370 went missing on the morning of 8 March 2014 as part of a US operation to forestall Chinese access to advanced superconductor chip technology.

MH370 satellite & drone footage, 8 March 2014, YouTube.

The following article brings together material and information gathered and discovered by Forbes back in later 2023, and others in order to provide a succinct account of this part of the MH370 story. Forbes had specifically identified the highly advanced, satellite-based SIBARS / CITRIX surveillance (spying) system developed by the United States. The system totally envelopes the Earth, and is able to take images of such high detail as to enable the reading of a number plate on a car from lower Earth orbit. The system is also able to create video of events as observed and, together with terrestrial based systems such as radar, drones and direct observation, provides a powerful, and very secret tool to support US military and strategic initiatives. It is this system that was used to create the MH370 videos in 2014, and it is this system that Edward C. Lin became an expert in the use of between 2004-2014, both as practitioner and manager of various US Navy operational units. Lin obtained a high level security clearance during the period leading up to his arrest in 2015. The story of Edward C. Lin is a complicated one, made more so by the super secret nature of his actions. However, MH370 is merely one element of a tumultuous period in his life which resulted in divorce, a court martial during 2016-17, a 6 year period of imprisonment, and the end of a distinguished naval career.. A chronology of events is presented below, followed by a discussion of its revelations and impact upon the MH370 disappearance investigations.

It should be noted at the outset that the Lin family declared Edward innocent of all charges at the outset of his incarceration, and his lawyer protested that he was not provided with a speedy trial, as was required. He may have been innocent of all the charges which led to his imprisonment. He may only have been guilty of releasing the MH370 videos. If the latter is true, and given the implications of their existence, then the only path for government and military to follow would be to create a case against him - a coverup - in order to deflect from the truth, and the preparation - fabrication - of such a case would have taken some time.

As a believer in the often ultimate truth of conspiracy theories, the writer suggests the following scenario took place following the release of the MH370 videos and the discovery that Lin was responsible: Charges were concocted against Lin consisting of espionage, sexual impropriety and misuse of official documents such as travel forms, along with accusations of collaboration with individuals from Taiwan and China - the use of the dreaded term spy. Was Lin James Bond or Mahatma Gandhi, or was he, as noted above, just a compassionate, middle-aged man going through a divorce and attempting to expose the truth surrounding the MH370 disappearance? The CIA and FBI would have assisted in the creation of the false accusations scenario, as they had done many times before, and continue to do, in the so-called interest of national security. The NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) was also involved in the investigation. They would have done this to protect the "above top secret" nature of the plasma orb technology revealed in the videos - a technology which allows the Americans to "disappear" anyone and anything they so desire, and which it was said they made use of during the 9/11 event of 2001.

This is what the writer believes actually happened. However, a reading of the media reports which follow will lead one to draw the complete opposite conclusion, namely, that Lin was a spy, adulterer and traitor to the United States, and that the US Navy threw the book at him in a righteous and patriotic manner. Mmmmmm...... really?

Finally, is it not strange that Lin, his family, and legal team professed his innocence throughout his trial in 2016-17, yet, after a period of intense interrogation beginning in September 2015, culminating in almost 2 years of pre-trial confinement (September 2015 - June 2017), at the end of which he professed that he was "broken", Lin also pleaded guilty to all the charges put by the authorities, apart from those relating to sexual impropriety? Strange? Yes. He also unsuccessfully appealed his sentence before a Naval court in 2019, continuing to maintain his innocence of all charges. This, of course, does not make sense. It suggests that the only innocent party in this whole episode is Edward C. Lin, and that he was coerced by the military and government authorities such as the CIA, NCIS and FBI into adopting a guilty plea. The latter two were publically cited as leading the investigation into Lin's activities. There was no mention of the CIA. Questions also arose at the time as to why the Department of Justice was not handling the Lin "national security case" as expected. Once again, the extreme high security nature of the MH370 incident would point to a reason for this effort by the military to steer clear of too much public exposure which could reveal some of the dark programs that they engage in.

The authorities are obviously willing to do everything in their power to coverup what happened to MH370, and punish Edward C. Lin for attempting to reveal the truth, namely that the US killed all those on board (or, almost all) in order to forestall the Chinese gaining access to advanced superconductor chip technologies. They had also done the same during the 9/11 event, taking thousands of lives in order to promote a false-flag "war on terror" and secure Middle East oil supplies. A certain section of the US government and military is prepared to act with "extreme prejudice" in the name of maintaining so-called "national security" (i.e. personal profit and power). There is no recourse to question those actions as they lie outside the purvue of the Congress and even the President of the United States, who is not part of this deemed "need to know" clique / cabal. Until that group falls and a true, open and accountable democracy returns to the United States, Edward C. Lin will remain a traitor in the eyes of the public, and not a man of compassion and a hero.

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2. Chronology

The following chronology brings together available information to provide context to the events surrounding Edward C. Lin and his involvement with the MH370 videos. Whilst at present there is no direct and definitive evidence for such a connection, the circumstances would suggest otherwise.

1976

* Edward Chieh-Liang / Edward C. Lin is born in Taiwan.

1990

* Lin and his family leave Taiwan. They visit a number of different countries before deciding to emigrate to the United States in 1996.

1998

* Edward C. Lin becomes a US citizen.

1999

* Edward C. Lin joins the US Navy.

2000

* March 2000 to February 2002 - Following basic training, Lin attends the Navy’s nuclear training schools in Charleston, South Carolina.

2002

* 10 May 2002 - Lin is commissioned as an officer after attending the Officer Cadet School (OCS).

2004-2006

* 30 June 2004 - Following OCS, Lin spends two years moving through the Navy’s signals intelligence and aviation pipeline to reporting to his first operational deployment with the Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron ‘World Watchers’ (VQ-1) at Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Washington. The 'World Watchers' fly Lockheed Martin EP-3E Aries II signals intelligence aircraft that gather information on the capabilities of potential adversaries.

2007

* 2007 to 2009 - Following his time with VQ-1, Lin is assigned to U.S. Pacific Fleet at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii as a staff aide from 2007 to 2009.

2008

* Lt. Edward Lin speaks at a 2008 U.S. naturalization ceremony in Hawaii. Refer US Navy Photo below,

2010

* Around this time Lin began a career as a signals intelligence specialist on the Navy’s Lockheed Martin EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance aircraft. The specifics of how the U.S. gathers signals from potential adversaries are among the military’s most closely guarded secrets. Knowing the methodology for how the U.S. gathers signals intelligence – information that Lin would likely have with his Aries II experience – could allow adversaries to devise ways to counter U.S. monitoring.

2011

* Following his time at Pearl Harbour, Lin served on the carrier USS Eisenhower (CVN-69) for a sea tour before attending the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. for two years, graduating in 2012.

2012

* 2012 to 2014 - Lin serves in Washington as the Congressional Liaison for the Assistant Secretary of Navy for Finance Management and Comptroller.

Lin, far left, in the Pentagon during his tour as liaison to Congress.

* April 2012 to about May 2014 - on divers occasions at Washington DC, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, Edward C. Lin did communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

* 9 August 2012 - on or about, at Pearl Harbour, with intent to deceive, Edward C. Lin did electronically sign an official record, to wit: Standard Form 86, which record was false in that it failed to include foreign travel from 3 December 2011 to 10 December 2011, and was then known by the said Lieutenant
Commander Edward C. L. Lin to be so false.

* September 2012 to about December 2013 - on divers occasions at Washington DC, Edward C. Lin did, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.

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2013

* 31 October 2013 - on or about, Edward C. Lin did with intent to deceive, electronically sign an official record, to wit: an e-Leave Request dated 31 October 2013, which record was false in that it listed the leave address as 166 Comay Terrace, Alexandria, VA rather than the actual foreign destination, and was then known by the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin to be so false.

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2014

* February 2014 - Lin reported to the Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2) at Marine Corps Air Base Kaneohe, Hawaii as a department head. The Wizards fly signals intelligence aircraft based on the EP-3E Aries II that for decades were classified as part of a so-called “black” or secret program. Lin’s job on the Aries II, which bear a resemblance to the maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare P-3C Orion, was to manage the collection of electronic signals from the aircraft as a sensor coordinator.

* February 2014 to September 2015 - Edward C. Lin wrongfully failed to report foreign connections to his security manager.

* 8 March 2014 - MH370 disappears in the Indian Ocean. It is suspected its final destination was the island of Diego Garcia. According to Ashton Forbes, it is possible that Lin was in one of the spy planes following MH370 as it was diverted from China and teleported away towards the Maldives. Or, has may have played a part as an operational controller monitoring what happened as part of the exercise. Whether Lin actually produced the two videos, or merely passed them on for upload to the internet, is not known.

* 12 March 2014 - MH370 satellite footage received.

* 2 April 2014 - Lin being investigated in regards to a remote terminal CITRIX session relating to MH370 and corresponding drone footage, according to his lawyer. Federal officials began investigating Lin in early 2014 based on an FBI tip that he may have been sharing sensitive information with foreign agents, NCIS Special Agent Chris Mitchum told the court on Thursday.

* 19 May 2014 - MH370 satellite footage uploaded to the internet.

* 5 June 2014 - MH370 drone footage received.

* 6 June 2014 - MH370 drone footage uploaded to the internet.

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2015

* 12 February 2015 - At San Francisco airport Edward C. Lin did wrongfully transport material classified as SECRET.

* 20 February 2015 - At Pearl Harbour, Edward C. Lin wrongfully failed to report the compromise of information classified as SECRET.

* 29 April 2015 - on or about, Edward C. Lin did with intent to deceive, sign an official record, to wit: an
e-Leave Request dated 1 July 2015, which record was false in that it listed the leave address as 166 Comay Terrace, Alexandria, VA rather than the actual foreign destination, and was then known by the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin to be so false.

* August to September 2015 - During this period Lin had several meetings with an undercover FBI agent who operated under the alias, “Katherine Wu.” He told the agent general details of his secretive unit - Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2). The Wizards, based at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe, Hawaii, use specialized signals intelligence aircraft to collect data on potential U.S. adversaries as part of one of the most secretive units in the service.

* 21 & 25 August 2015 - on or about, at Pearl Harbour, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, knowingly and willfully communicate information relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

* 1, 4 & 9 September 2015 - At Pearl Harbour, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, Edward C. Lin did attempt to communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

* 1, 4 & 9 September 2015 - on or about, at Pearl Harbour, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, did knowingly and willfully communicate information relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

* 11 September - Lin is apprehended at Honolulu International airport by NCIS and put in confinement at the brig, Chesapeake, Virginia. He was travelling at the time to meet a woman prison guard in China he had met online. Charges would eventually include:

At Pearl Harbour, on or around this date, Edward C. Lin wrongfully failed to properly store material classified as SECRET.
Disclosing secret information to a female friend working for a Taiwanese political party in Washington, D.C.
Disclosing secret information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an employee of Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Failing to disclose contact with naval attaches at the the Taiwan embassy office, and a Chinese massage therapist.
Providing incorrect US addresses to leave destination forms for two trips to Taiwan.
Failing to declare a meeting with the head of the Taiwanese navy in Taiwan.
Violating a Lawful General Order (4)
Espionage (2)
Attempted Espionage (3)
False Official Statement (3)
Communicating Defense Information (4)

* December 2015 - The investigation around Lin was declared a “national security case,” and early results prompted a December alert to U.S. Navy leadership of a potential “national security incident” related to the release of classified materials. [NB: This could likely relate to the public release and exposure of the MH370 videos.]

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2016

* 25 March 2016 - Lin is officially reassigned from the Wizards to the Naval Consolidated Brig (prison), Chesapeake, Virginia.

* 8 April 2016 - Charges laid against Edward C. Lin. Refer copy at 17 May below.

* Sam Lagrone, U.S. Naval Flight Officer Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin accused of giving U.S. secrets to China, USNI News, 10 April 2016. Text:

A U.S. naval flight officer with an extensive signals intelligence background was accused by the service of passing secrets to China, USNI News has learned.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, 39, who served on some of the Navy’s most sensitive intelligence gathering aircraft, faces several counts of espionage and other charges outlined during a Friday Article 32 hearing in Norfolk, Va.

Lin, originally a Taiwanese national before his family moved to the U.S., had a career as a signals intelligence specialist on the Navy’s Lockheed Martin EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance aircraft, several sources confirmed to USNI News.

Several sources familiar with the case told USNI News the country to which Lin passed secrets was China, however, few other details are known about the case given much of the evidence is classified.

The redacted charging documents say Lin allegedly transported secret information out of the country without permission and then lied about his whereabouts when he returned to duty. The charging documents allege he successfully committed espionage twice and attempted espionage on three other occasions.

In addition to the accusations related to transmitting secrets to a foreign power, Lin was also accused of violating military law by patronizing prostitutes and committing adultery.

Lin is currently assigned to commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group in Norfolk and has been held in pre-trial confinement at the Naval Consolidated Brig Chesapeake, Va. for the last eight months, sources told USNI News.

According to a 2008 Navy release on a naturalization ceremony at which he spoke, “Lin was 14 years old when he and his family left Taiwan. They had to travel halfway around the world, stopping in different countries along the way.”

He speaks fluent Mandarin and had been a department head for the Hawaii-based Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2) that flew signals intelligence aircraft based on variants of the EP3-E Aries II signals intelligence aircraft, two sources confirmed to USNI News.

Lin’s job on the Aries II, which bear a resemblance to the maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare P-3C Orion, was to manage the collection of electronic signals from the aircraft – a sensor coordinator.

The specifics of how the U.S. gathers signals from potential adversaries are among the military’s most closely guarded secrets. Knowing the methodology for how the U.S. gathers signals intelligence – information that Lin would likely have with his Aries II experience – could allow adversaries to devise ways to counter U.S. monitoring.

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.

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.

* Sam Lagrone, U.S. Official: Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin accused of passing secrets to Taiwan in addition to China, USNI News, 11 April 2016. Text:

In addition to passing secret information to the People’s Republic of China, a naval flight officer held on espionage charges is also suspected of passing secrets to Taiwan, a U.S. official with information on the case told USNI News on Monday.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Chieh-Liang Lin — who emigrated from Taiwan to the U.S. — is currently being held in a Navy brig in Virginia on several charges that allege he spied for both countries, the official told USNI News.

The service has released few details about the case beyond the heavily redacted charge sheet. From the document, it appears Lin had mishandled secret information and traveled to a foreign country without authorization and lied about it to superiors later. In addition to the espionage accusation, Lin is also charged with patronizing prostitutes and committing adultery – violations of military law.

“These issues are always clouded in obscurity without the whole story,” a former U.S. defense official told USNI News on Monday. “[But] it would be unusual for a person to consciously be feeding stuff to both sides.”

He’s been held quietly in pre-trial confinement for about eight months, sources familiar with the investigation told USNI News on Sunday.

Lin’s case – which came to light on Friday during his Article 32 hearing – would be the first time in decades that a uniformed member of the Navy willingly passed secrets to a foreign government. He served as a signals intelligence expert on the Navy’s sensitive EP-3E Aries II surveillance aircraft and as a nuclear-trained enlisted sailor.

As to Taiwan’s involvement, while the island nation shares a close relationship with the U.S., there have been instances in the past where U.S. officials have passed classified information to Taipei or Chinese agents posing to forward Taipei’s interests.

“Taiwan is like Israel, it’s a close relationship — we have a security relationship with them — but they also collect on us,” Randy Schriver, with the Armitage International consultancy and a former U.S. Navy officer, told USNI News on Monday.

In 2005, U.S. State Department official Donald Keyser pled guilty to federal charges of lying to the FBI about a sexual relationship with a Taiwanese intelligence agent and unauthorized handling of classified information.

In 2009, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. James Wilbur Fondren Jr. was convicted of writing white papers that contained classified information for a naturalized U.S. citizen from Taiwan for about four years who was working for Chinese intelligence services. The relationship included a trip to China where Fondren met with a People’s Republic of China official.

The former U.S. defense official told USNI News that if Taiwan had indeed cultivated Lin as a source of classified information the revelation could damage the relationship between Taipei and Washington.

“They are usually careful not to avoid that [type of intelligence collection] and play within the lines,” the official said.

Following Lin’s Article 32 hearing this past Friday – loosely equivalent to a civilian grand jury – adjudication of the case rests with U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Phil Davidson. He will decide if the case is to proceed to court martial.

* Sam Lagrone, Accused spy Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin was a trained nuclear specialist, Navy Congressional Liaison, USNI News, 11 April 2016. Text:

The naval flight officer accused by the Navy of giving secrets to China was a trained enlisted nuclear specialist prior to his time as a surveillance expert, USNI News has learned.

Before Lt. Cmdr. Edward Chieh-Liang Lin, 39, joined the small community flying the service’s most secretive aircraft, he was a sailor who enlisted in 1999. Following basic training, Lin attended the Navy’s nuclear training schools in Charleston, S.C. from March of 2000 to February of 2002.

Later that month, Lin was enrolled as a student in the Navy’s Officer Candidate School and commissioned on May 10, 2002, according to Lin’s official Navy biography obtained by USNI News on Monday.

There’s no evidence that Lin, originally from Taiwan, served as an enlisted nuclear specialist on a ship or a submarine before he attended OCS.

Following OCS, Lin spent two years moving through the Navy’s signals intelligence and aviation pipeline to reporting to his first operational deployment Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron ‘World Watchers’ (VQ-1) at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash. on June 30, 2004.

The World Watchers fly Lockheed Martin EP-3E Aries II signals intelligence aircraft that gather information on the capabilities of potential adversaries, Bryan Clark, naval analyst Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) and former special assistant to past Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Monday.

Sources told USNI News that Lin spoke fluent Mandarin and was one of the onboard analysts that would be able to provide commanders real-time assessments of what the team onboard the Aries II learned from their monitoring.

Following his time with VQ-1, Lin was assigned to U.S. Pacific Fleet at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii as a staff aide from 2007 to 2009. During his time at PACFLT, Lin spoke at a U.S. naturalization ceremony about his dream as a child to eventually travel to America, according to a 2008 Navy release on the ceremony.

“Whether it is economical, political, social or religious reasons,” Lin said. “I do know that by becoming a citizen of the United States of America, you did it to better your life and the life of your family.”

In his speech, Lin said when he arrived at his first American school his Chinese name was so long and unpronounceable that he elected to go by the name of his mother’s dog — Eddy.

Following his time at Pearl, Lin served on the carrier USS Eisenhower (CVN-69) for a sea tour before attending the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. for two years, graduating in 2012.

Lin came to Washington, D.C. and served for a little under two years as the Congressional Liaison for the Assistant Secretary of Navy for Finance Management and Comptroller – the service’s chief civilian budgeting officer.

In 2014, Lin reported to the Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2) at Marine Corps Air Base Kaneohe, Hawaii as a department head. The Wizards fly signals intelligence aircraft based on the EP-3E Aries II that for decades were classified as part of a so-called “black” or secret program. Lin was officially reassigned from the unit on March 25. The next entry in his official bio is the Naval Consolidated Brig Chesapeake, Va.

Sources told USNI News that Lin had spent eight months in pre-trial confinement before his Friday Article 32 hearing that outlined his charges that included instances of espionage, attempted espionage, adultery and prostitution.

What Lin Could Have Told China

While Lin had basic knowledge of the Navy’s nuclear power systems from his enlisted service, as well as the Navy’s budget practices, it was his time with the Aries II that would have been of the most interest to the Chinese.

“The stuff he knew as a nuclear power guy are engineering details that China could have obtained by other means,” Clark said.

“They would like to know the types of stuff a VPU guy would know.”

Damaging information to the U.S. would include, “What kind of Chinese systems they were looking for and listening to. Which ones were easier to detect and harder to detect what information did they gather and what did they assess from that information and what was the assessment.”

Lin position on the EP-3Es was that of a sensor coordinator – a supervisor that directed what the team on the aircraft were looking for, how to interpret the data and how to help guide military leaders on how to use the information, USNI News understands.

Knowledge of EP-3E operations and sensors — especially the specialized aircraft variants the Wizards flew -– would be critical to China to develop sensors that were harder for the U.S. to detect and could give the Chinese People’s Liberation Army an advantage in an all-out conflict.

“It’s mostly radars that they would be looking for,” Clark said.

In 2001, an EP-3E collided with a PLA Shenyang J-8 fighter off of Hainan Island in the South China Sea forcing the crew to land on Chinese soil.

China eventually returned the crew and the aircraft but not before it collected reams of data on how the aircraft and its crew did their jobs. The Hainan Incident likely prompted the Navy to retool much of how the EP-3Es did business and their equipment, Clark said.

Any edge of how the contemporary Aries IIs function could undo much of the work the Navy did to shore up its program following the crash at Hainan.

“That would be the kind of stuff I’m sure China that I would love to learn,” Clark said.

* Sam Lagrone, Early results of Edward Lin espionage investigation triggered national security alert, USNI News, 13 April 2016. [Not reproduced here]

* Sam Lagrone, Preliminary report on Edward Lin spy case - Decision to prosecute with Fleet Forces head, USNI News, 27 April 2016. [Not reproduced here]

* Sam Lagrone, Edward Lin lawyer asks Navy not to take espionage case to court martial; Family says Lin 'no spy', USNI News, 2 May 2016. Text:

The defense team and family of the U.S. Navy officer accused of giving secrets to China and Taiwan are declaring his innocence and don’t want his case to go to court martial, according to a Monday statement provided to USNI News.

“We maintain that Lt. Cmdr. Edward “Eddy” Lin is innocent of espionage, innocent of failing to follow lawful orders, innocent of false official statements and innocent of violating the general article, Article 134, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” read the statement from former U.S. Air Force lawyer Larry Youngner to USNI News.

“While we await the convening authority’s decision as to whether to actually proceed to trial, it is our assessment that Lt. Cmdr. Lin’s case is best handled administratively.”

The Navy has accused Lin of two instances of espionage, three instances of attempted espionage in addition to traveling out of the country without permission, lying about the trip on his return, paying for prostitutes and adultery.

The statement from Youngner follows last week’s completion of the preliminary report of the case by the investigating officer.

According to former Marine lawyer Rob “Butch” Bracknell, the request to handle the case administratively means that the official in charge – U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Phil Davidson – would forgo a court martial in favor of other options – like non-judicial punishment or pushing Lin out of the service.

“’Administrative’ is code for ‘something else that doesn’t involve court’,” Bracknell told USNI News.

“It would be ‘administrative’ to just suspend his clearance and reassign. Or to convene a [Board of Inquiry] to discharge him.”

The family of Lin, 39, also accused the government of sensationalizing the case by including “salacious” charges of adultery and paying for prostitutes to create a “tale of espionage, misdirection, and sexual perversion,” on a website created over the weekend to crowd-fund money for Lin’s defense.

A screen shot taken on May 1, 2016 from the website, bringeddyhome.org

“That’s not the Eddy Lin with whom and for whom you served in dangerous and austere environments,” read a statement posted on the site. “That’s not the Eddy Lin you sent forward to carry out high impact/critical missions. Eddy is innocent of the alleged crimes with which the government has charged him. He is no spy for Taiwan or any other foreign country.”

Lin came to the U.S. as a teenager from Taiwan and joined the Navy as an enlisted sailor in 1999.

Both Navy Times and The Daily Beast reported the site’s existence over the weekend.

“The ‘Bring Eddy Home’ website is set up by his family,” read a Monday email sent to USNI News signed by “The Lin Family” from an address associated with the site.

“At this time, the family does not have more to comment beyond what’s on the website and the comment provided by Eddy’s civilian attorney, Larry Youngner.”

Military members charged with a crime are assigned counsel, but have the option to hire additional lawyers to represent them during legal proceedings. Fees for outside counsel can run tens of thousands of dollars depending on the length and complexity of the case.

Bringeddyhome.org was neither created nor officially affiliated with Youngner’s firm, a spokesperson told USNI News.

Before Lin was detained by NCIS on Sept. 11, 2015, he served as a department head for one of the Navy’s most secretive units – Special Projects Squadron Two “Wizards”(VPU-2) – based at Marine Corps Air Base Kaneohe, Hawaii. The Wizards fly specialized versions of the service’s P-3C Orion and P-8A Poseidon aircraft used for signals and electronic intelligence gathering. Prior to his Hawaii assignment, Lin was also a service congressional liaison and was privy the service’s secret black program portfolio.

The investigation around Lin has been declared a “national security case,” and early results of the investigation prompted a December alert to U.S. Navy leadership of a potential “national security incident” related to the release of classified materials.

Lin has been held in pre-trial confinement in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va. since he was detained.

The following is the complete May 2, 2016 statement from Larry Youngner provided to USNI News.

Statement from Tully Rinckey PLLC Attorney Larry Youngner on the Completed Article 32 Preliminary Hearing Report Regarding Navy Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin.

May 2, 2016 – Washington, D.C. – Following last week’s release of the Article 32 preliminary hearing officer’s report, we maintain that Lt. Cmdr. Edward “Eddy” Lin is innocent of espionage, innocent of failing to follow lawful orders, innocent of false official statements and innocent of violating the general article, Article 134, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. While we await the convening authority’s decision as to whether to actually proceed to trial, it is our assessment that Lt. Cmdr. Lin’s case is best handled administratively “in a timely manner at the lowest appropriate level” as Rule for Court-Martial 306(b) allows. Should Lt. Cmdr. Lin’s case be referred to a court-martial, we request a speedy trial on the merits and look forward to defending Lt. Cmdr. Lin, who has honorably served the United States, to include combat tours, since 1998.

* Catherine Treyz, Supporters of alleged spy challenge Navy accusations, CNN, 3 May 2016. [Not reproduced here]

* Sam Lagrone, Edward Lin admits to disclosing classified information. Not to espionage, USNI News, 4 May 2016. Text:

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — A Navy officer accused of espionage has pleaded guilty to less serious charges as part of a negotiated plea deal.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, 40, admitted to the charges during a court-martial before a military judge on Thursday.

Last year the military had accused Lin of two instances of espionage, three instances of attempted espionage and several instances of mishandling classified information and failing to report contact with foreign agents.

The new deal allows Lin to plead not guilty to military espionage charges but guilty to charges that include failing to report foreign contacts, mishandling classified information and disclosing secret information to a female friend working for a Taiwanese political party in Washington, D.C. and an undercover FBI agent posing as an employee of Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs.

Lin was arrested on Sept. 11, 2015 at the Honolulu International Airport on his way to Shanghai, China to visit a Chinese national he met online – a female prison guard.

The arrest also followed several meetings with an undercover FBI agent who operated under the alias, “Katherine Wu.” Over a series of meetings from August to September in 2015, Lin told the agent general details of his secretive unit — Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2). The Wizards, based at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe, Hawaii, use specialized signals intelligence aircraft to collect data on potential U.S. adversaries as part of one of the most secretive units in the service.

In addition to passing information classified as secret to the FBI agent, Lin also offered his opinion on international developments in the Western Pacific to the employee of the Taiwanese political party over a period of about two years starting in 2012.

During the trial, Lin admitted to using secret information he gained during a 2009 exercise when he was assigned to PACOM to tell the employee of the political party how the U.S. believed, “a certain entity would act in a certain way.”

Lin admitted he had agreed not to acknowledge, confirm or deny the information related to his work at VPU-2 and the operational details learned during the 2009 exercise.

Following Lin’s arrest, NCIS and federal investigators interrogated Lin and combed through his possessions and his electronic correspondence.

Based on the evidence, the government also charged Lin with not reporting foreign contacts he had with naval attaches at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office – Taiwan’s embassy equivalent in Washington – an American employee of a Taiwanese political party and female Chinese national massage therapist to whom Lin loaned money.

He also pleaded guilty to two instances of mishandling classified material. In 2014, Lin had accidentally left two flight manifests in his flight suit from a deployment that included search and rescue code names. When filled out, the documents were classified secret. During a customs search at the San Francisco airport, a Homeland Security officer discovered the manifests and Lin asked the officer to destroy the documents in violation of procedure.

Federal investigators also found study notes for unit training Lin made from memory in his apartment that the government determined were secret and improperly stored.

To round out the charges, Lin also admitted to giving an incorrect U.S. address on a leave request on two separate foreign trips – one to Taiwan in which he met the head of the Taiwanese Navy and the planned trip to Shanghai where he was to meet the Chinese prison guard.

The charges to which Lin has plead guilty are serious and carry a maximum penalty of more than 30 years, forfeiture of pay and dismissal from the service. However, the actions outlined in the Thursday military trial are less severe compared to the espionage charges that would have put Lin behind bars for life if he was convicted.

Lin knew some of the Navy’s most sensitive secrets from his time not only at VPU-2 but also as a congressional liaison where he would have been privy to the Navy’s black program portfolio, several sources have confirmed to USNI News. If he was inclined, his knowledge could be extremely useful to potential U.S. adversaries, the sources said.

But the evidence presented at daylong trial didn’t uncover a master spy but a middle aged naval officer in the midst of a divorce who used some of his lower level knowledge to impress women.

“It sounds like they thought they had Al Capone but they got the gang that couldn’t shoot straight,” Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a former Marine and military lawyer, told USNI News on Thursday.

Now that he’s admitted guilt to the charges, Lin will face a sentencing hearing in early June. U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Phil Davidson will assign the final punishment based on guidance from the military judge.

Lin has been held in pre-trial confinement of the service since his arrest on Sept. 11, 2015.

Originally from Taiwan, Lin joined the Navy as an enlisted sailor in 1999, a year after becoming a U.S. citizen.

* Paul McLeary, FBI tricked naval intel officer in spilling info, lawyer says, Foreign Policy, 5 May 2016.. Text:

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, the U.S. Navy officer accused of spying for foreign agents, was entrapped by the FBI, his defense team alleges, and never passed sensitive military information to Taiwan. Instead, he discussed the information with a Mandarin-speaking undercover informant. Larry D. Younger, Lin’s civilian lawyer, further said at Lin’s April 8 preliminary hearing at U.S. Naval Station Norfolk that Lin never admitted in 11 hours of interrogation to spying for Taiwan. The Pentagon for the first time made an audio recording of the hearing available to reporters Thursday. “The government has engaged in a nefarious scheme to entrap Lt. Cmdr. Lin,” Younger claimed, adding that Navy lawyers have to prove “beyond reasonable doubt that Lt. Cmdr. Lin was not entrapped” during the five liaisons with the informant that led to his arrest last September in Honolulu. Government lawyers did not respond to the charge of entrapment. Lin, 39, moved to the United States from Taiwan when he was 14 and became a U.S. citizen in 1998. After enlisting in the Navy in 1999, he would go on to serve in a secretive Hawaii-based aviation unit that carried out reconnaissance on Chinese activities in the Pacific. It was during his service with this unit that he was arrested in September after his fifth and final meeting with the FBI informant, and charged with two instances of espionage and three of attempted espionage. He has been held in confinement since his arrest, an event that rocked his unit and raised questions about how secure its operations may be. The Navy released a heavily redacted charge sheet last month, accusing Lin of communicating secret information “with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation.” Navy officials have suggested that Lin stands accused of spying for both Taiwan and China, but at no time during the hour-plus hearing earlier this month did China come up. His defense team repeatedly said that he had no intention of spying for Taiwan. Lin’s defense also maintains that the information Lin passed on to the undercover FBI informant was public information, making it unclassified. But the prosecution argued that just because some military information may have been published doesn’t make it unclassified, only the government can change classification levels. The U.S. Pacific Command and the Joint Special Operations Command — known by its acronym, JSOC — reviewed the interrogation tapes and transcripts before the hearing, Naval officers said. It’s not clear what role JSOC plays in missions Lin may have been involved in. “The defendant was induced by government agents to commit this offense,” Younger said, adding that government agents preyed “on his vulnerabilities to entice him to engage in something he otherwise would not have engaged in.” Lin is also accused of soliciting a prostitute and committing adultery; his defense team did not contest those charges during the hearing. Younger also says that Lin was not read his rights during his arrest or the subsequent 11-hour interrogation that stretched over two days. The website set up by the Lin family insisting on his innocence says that his “Constitutional rights were not protected, nor respected,” during his arrest and imprisonment, while “the government took its time to create a conventional, easy-to-digest, sensationalized tale of espionage, misdirection, and sexual perversion. Eddy is innocent of the alleged crimes with which the government has charged him.”

* Sam Lagrone, Accused spy Edward Lin will face general court martial, USNI News, 13 May 2016.Text:

The Navy officer accused of passing secrets to foreign agents will face a general court martial, with an arraignment on the charges scheduled for next week, a Navy official told USNI News on Friday.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, 39, will face charges that he committed espionage and mishandled classified documents, U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Phil Davidson decided on May 10, the official told USNI News.

Lin is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges in Norfolk, Va., on May 17. At the hearing Lin will enter his plea to the charges.

Charges related to prostitution and adultery were dismissed without prejudice by Davidson, but the service reserves the right to handle the accusation through administrative punishment.

In an email statement, Lin’s attorney, Larry Youngner, wrote that “following the release of the convening authority’s decision, we are pleased the charges and specifications of adultery and prostitution against our client, Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, have been dropped. As previously stated, we maintain that Lt. Cmdr. Lin is innocent of espionage, innocent of failing to follow lawful orders, innocent of false official statements and innocent of violating Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Now that the remainder of Lt. Cmdr. Lin’s case has been referred to a court-martial, we request a speedy trial on the merits and look forward to defending Lt. Cmdr. Eddy Lin, who has honorably served the United States, to include combat tours, since 1999.”

Lin, originally from Taiwan and a U.S. citizen since 1998, was arrested on Sept. 11, 2015 in Hawaii and has been held in pre-trial confinement for eight months at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va.

Prior to his detainment by NCIS, Lin had served as department head for the Navy’s secretive Special Projects Squadron 2 “Wizards” (VPU-2) and was clued in on some of the service’s most sensitive signals and electronic intelligence methods. Lin was also a Navy congressional aid and aware of the programs in the Navy’s secret black budget.

Prosecutors say following his detainment, Lin confessed to passing on classified information to foreign agents from Taiwan, including a Mandarin-speaking FBI informant, during an 11-hour interrogation taking place over two days.

Lin’s lawyers claim the Navy and the FBI entrapped Lin into giving over sensitive but publicly available information and questioning their client without properly advising him of his rights.

“The government has engaged in a nefarious scheme to entrap Lt Cmdr. Lin,” civilian defense attorney Larry Youngner said during the April 8 hearing. “The defendant was induced by government agents to commit this offense.”

While much of the evidence in the case is classified, it’s not classified to the level of some of the most sensitive information Lin could have passed to a foreign country, according to a recording of Lin’s April 8 Article 32 hearing in Norfolk played for reporters.

* Sam Lagrone, Edward Lin pleads not guilty to espionage charges, USNI News, 17 May 2016. Text:

The naval flight officer accused of passing secrets to foreign agents and an FBI informant in a sting operation pled not guilty to charges of espionage and mishandling classified information during a Tuesday arraignment in a Norfolk, Va. military court, a U.S. official familiar with the proceedings told USNI News.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, 39, is accused of two instances of espionage, three instances of attempted espionage and several instances of mishandling classified information and failing to report contact with foreign agents, according to a new charge sheet provided to USNI News on Tuesday.

Fleet Forces commander Adm. Phil Davidson elected not to try Lin on adultery and prostitution charges and dismissed them without prejudice, meaning the Navy could elect to pursue those charges via administrative punishment later.

Lin elected to have a trial by jury and declined to have his charges read during the hearing. His next court appearance will be an administrative hearing in early June, the official said.

Prosecutors have argued Lin, originally from Taiwan, had attempted to pass secret information to at least one foreign agent – an FBI informant fluent in Mandarin, according to an audio recording of Lin’s April 8 Article 32 hearing played for reporters earlier this month.

During the same hearing Lin’s lead defense attorney, former Air Force lawyer Larry Youngner said NCIS and the FBI entrapped Lin into giving the informant publically available information and that Lin was improperly advised of his rights by NCIS agents when he was detained in Hawaii on Sept. 11, 2015.

Lin, originally from Taiwan and became a U.S. citizen in 1998, served as a department head of the secretive signals and electronic intelligence unit Special Projects Squadron 2 “Wizards” (VPU-2) and as a congressional liaison privy to the Navy’s spending on secret so-called black projects.

While Lin was privy to some of the Navy’s most closely guarded secrets, the classified evidence alluded to in the April Article 32 hearing was designated SECRET –indicating whatever alleged classified information is in question was likely not the most sensitive information he knew.

[The Charges]

United States v. LCDR Edward Lin, USN

CHARGE I, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 92

Specification 1 (Violation of a Lawful General Order): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, CA on or about 12 February 2015, fail to obey a lawful general order, to wit: SECNAV M-5510.36, paragraph 9-3, dated June 2006, as incorporated into SECNAVINST 5510.36A, dated 6 October 2006, by wrongfully transporting material classified as SECRET.

Specification 2 (Violation of a Lawful General Order): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 20 February 2015, fail to obey a lawful general order, to wit: SECNAV M-5510.36, paragraph 12-2, dated June 2006, as incorporated into SECNAVINST 5510.36A, dated 6 October 2006, by wrongfully failing to report the compromise of information classified as SECRET.

Specification 3: Dismissed without prejudice.

Specification 4 (Violation of a Lawful General Order): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 11 September 2015, fail to obey a lawful general order, to wit: SECNAV M-5510.36, paragraph 10-3, dated June 2006, as incorporated into SECNAVINST 5510.36A, dated 6 October 2006, by wrongfully failing to properly store material classified as SECRET.

ADDITIONAL CHARGE, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 92

Specification (Violation of a Lawful General Order): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, from about February 2014 to about September 2015, fail to obey a lawful general order, to wit: SECNAV M-5510.30, paragraph 3-8, dated June 2006, as incorporated into SECNAVINST 5510.30B, dated 6 October 2006, by wrongfully failing to report foreign connections to his security manager.

CHARGE II, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 106a

Specification 1 (Espionage): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Washington, D.C., on divers occasions, from about September 2012 to about December 2013, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.

Specification 2 (Espionage): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Washington, D.C., on divers occasions, from about April 2012 to about May 2014, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

Specification 3 (Attempted Espionage): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 1 September 2015, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, attempt to communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

Specification 4 (Attempted Espionage): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 4 September 2015, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, attempt to communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

Specification 5 (Attempted Espionage): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 9 September 2015, with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation, attempt to communicate SECRET information relating to the national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

CHARGE III, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 107

Specification 1 (False Official Statement): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at nor near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 9 August 2012, with intent to deceive, electronically sign an official record, to wit: Standard Form 86, which record was false in that it failed to include foreign travel from 3 December 2011 to 10 December 2011, and was then known by the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin to be so false.

Specification 2 (False Official Statement): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at nor near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 31 October 2013, with intent to deceive, electronically sign an official record, to wit: an e-Leave Request dated 31 October 2013, which record was false in that it listed the leave address as 166 Comay Terrace, Alexandria, VA rather than the actual foreign destination, and was then known by the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin to be so false.

Specification 3 (False Official Statement): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at nor near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 29 April 2015, with intent to deceive, sign an official record, to wit: an e-Leave Request dated 1 July 2015, which record was false in that it listed the leave address as 166 Comay Terrace, Alexandria, VA rather than the actual foreign destination, and was then known by the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin to be so false.

CHARGE IV, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 134

Specification 1 (Communicating Defense Information): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 21 August 2015, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, knowingly and willfully communicate information relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

Specification 2 (Communicating Defense Information): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or >near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 25 August 2015, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, knowingly and willfully communicate information >relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

Specification 3 (Communicating Defense Information): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 1 September 2015, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of >the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, knowingly and willfully communicate information relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

Specification 4 (Communicating Defense Information): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 4 September 2015, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, knowingly and willfully communicate information relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

Specification 5 (Communicating Defense Information): In that Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, on active duty, did, at or near Pearl Harbor, HI, on or about 9 September 2015, having lawful access to information relating to the national defense of the United States, which information the said Lieutenant Commander Edward C. L. Lin, U.S. Navy, had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, knowingly and willfully communicate information relative to the national defense to a person not entitled to receive said information in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 793(d), an offense not capital.

Specification 6: Dismissed without prejudice.

Specification 7: Dismissed without prejudice.

* Sam Lagrone, Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin espionage trial pushed to March, USNI News, 31 October 2016. Text:

The court martial for a Navy officer accused of espionage has been pushed to March at the request of the defense, USNI News has learned.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin was scheduled to go to trial last week but his court-martial was postponed until March at the request of his defense team via a motion, a defense official confirmed to USNI News.

According to a report in The Virginian Pilot, “there was a need for additional pretrial hearings and for the defense to gather evidence. The court-martial is now scheduled to begin March 8 and last through March 24.”

Fleet Forces Command did not immediately respond to a request for additional information. Lin plead not guilty to espionage charges in May which the military has accused of two instances of espionage, three instances of attempted espionage and several instances of mishandling classified information and failing to report contact with foreign agents.

He has been held in pre-trial confinement of the service since his arrest on Sept. 11, 2015 in Hawaii.

Before he was arrested, Lin served as a department head in one of the service’s most secretive units, Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2). Lin was also likely aware of some of the Navy’s most sensitive programs during his time in Washington, D.C. working budget issues as a liaison to Congress. While the government has classified much of the evidence against Lin, the few details that have emerged suggest the information involved were far less sensitive than what he could have divulged to foreign agents.

Lin originally from Taiwan, joined the Navy in 1999 a year after becoming an U.S. citizen.

* David B. Larter, Navy officer, accused spy, says "Good Squad" guards abused him, Navy Times, 11 November 2016. Text:

The Navy is investigating prisoner-abuse allegations leveled against at least five corrections officers at the military detention facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, Navy Times has learned. One of the complainants is Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, who is awaiting trial on charges he leaked national security secrets to the Taiwanese government. The other is Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Zane Josi, who was acquitted in August of sexual assault charges and is now back with the Coast Guard. In separate affidavits filed in September with the Navy and Marine Corps Central Judicial Circuit, two inmates have accused the guards, a team of sailors and Marines whom they nicknamed "the Goon Squad," of committing various offenses against them and others confined in the Chesapeake brig. The inmates say they witnessed a sailor locked in solitary confinement without proper cause, that they were forced to go outside in freezing temperatures without coats or sweaters, and that their cells were targeted for intrusive inspections after complaining about this and other alleged mistreatment. The inmates' complaints, obtained by Navy Times, are part of an internal investigation, according to a statement from Navy Personnel Command, which is the governing authority for the brig. The command has already sent representatives to the brig to investigate the allegations of misconduct. "The Navy takes all prisoner complaints about the conduct of Brig staff seriously and that is why we sent a Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG Corps) Captain and a Senior Correctional Program Specialist from Navy Personnel Command to investigate these allegations in October 2016," said Cmdr. Jodie Cornell, an NPC spokeswoman. "We are conducting a full investigation of these allegations, but we do not discuss the details of our on-going investigations." "Treating all service members with dignity and respect is something we take extremely seriously, and when there are any indications that those values are not being followed, we will conduct appropriate investigations and take action as necessary." 635977147730381503-lin-blueberries.jpg Naval flight officer Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin. Photo Credit: Courtesy Naval Criminal Investigative Service has also opened an investigation into the complaints, according to a Navy official, but declined to comment further on an ongoing investigation. The guards involved are not fully named in the affidavits and Navy Times was unable to verify their identities by press time. No charges have been filed in connection with the allegations as of Thursday. Lin's court-martial is scheduled for next spring. The high-profile espionage case is headed to court martial in March after he pleaded not guilty to spying charges in May. The guards' alleged behavior toward them has been "sadistic, unprofessional and abusive," Josi wrote in his affidavit. Lin, who has been confined since September of 2015, described living in fear of them. "They terrorized me and most of the other pretrial detainees for almost my whole time here," Lin said in the affidavit. "... Every day that I knew the Goon Squad was coming online it would cause a visceral feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. It was not an environment of security, dignity and respect. It was an environment of degradation." The Chesapeake Consolidated Brig is a medium-security prison that currently houses 100 inmates — 11 pretrial detainees and 89 post-trial prisoners, said Cornell. The offenses for prisoners range from theft to assault and battery, Cornell said. The military's maximum security prison is in Leavenworth, Kansas Both investigations center on the five-man guard team, according to Josi and Lin's statements. It was led by a petty officer first class, an enlisted sailor and supervisor who would be expected to uphold and enforce the regulations governing prison staff. They were split up in June, but the guards continued to threaten and abuse inmates individually, according to both affidavits. Josi and Lin submitted their affidavits as part of a separate case concerning another sailor who is confined at the Chesapeake brig: Samuel Perkins, an airman apprentice. Lin and Josi allege that one of the guards denied Penkins access to his cell, demanding he say "please" first even though that was not required as part of the prison's rules. Perkins maintained a cool demeanor but was put in solitary confinement and falsely accused of disrespecting the guard, Josi and Lin allege in their affidavits. "What the Goon Squad was doing is cruelty and maltreatment," Josi wrote. "I don't know any other way to describe it. Perkins was the focus of a lot of abuse, but it happened to everyone. I felt like the Goon Squad targeted the pretrial guys especially because they knew we would not be able to defend ourselves and still look good for our court cases." Lin claims he testified on Perkins' behalf at the resulting disciplinary hearing but that Perkins was punished nonetheless. Josi's affidavit describes a series of alleged measures he considered humiliating. The guards, he wrote, ordered the prisoners into formation and instructed them to start and stop marching arbitrarily. "There was no rhyme or reason other than they seemed to be entertained by doing that to us," Josi wrote. "But it was degrading." Lin's affidavit also includes this claim. He and Josi also allege the guards would "toss" their cells, which meant guards would rake through their personal items and bed linens searching for contraband. Lin said Perkins told him that a member of the guard team confiscated a notebook labeled "attorney-client privileged," according to Lin's statement. When the prisoner complained to get the notebook back, he was allegedly told there was no notebook, the document says. Prisoners would complain to their chain of commands through official correspondence, called 5-10 forms, but their complaints would either go unheeded or a member of the brig staff would come yell at the prisoner that "the guards are always right," Lin's affidavit says. Josi's statement indicates he knew "for a fact" that many prisoners had filed complaint forms against the five guards and that those documents should still be in the brig's possession. But submission of those forms were met with reprisal from the guards, according to his affidavit. A prisoner who filed a complaint could expect to get their room "tossed," the document says. "So that made it scarier for us to make a complaint and chilled us from doing it as often as we should have," he wrote. Josi was released from the brig and has returned to duty with the Coast Guard. He blamed the brig's leadership for its guard's alleged behavior. "There is no doubt in my mind that leadership enabled the Goon Squad to abuse us," Josi wrote in his affidavit. "There is no way they could have gotten away with this so pervasively without being enabled, especially when we complained." Lin wrote in his affidavit that most of the brig staff does treat prisoners with respect, but that the guards in question are an exception. "Even pretrial detainees deserve to be treated with some dignity," Lin wrote. "Clearly most of the staff understands that because the vast majority of guards treat us with dignity and respect. It is only the Goon Squad and a few enablers who do not."

-----------------------

2017

* David B. Larter, The strange case of Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, Navy Times, 22 January 2017. Text:

When Navy Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin was first arrested at the Honolulu airport in 2015 on a flight to China, military investigators thought they had uncovered an espionage case of epic proportions – a Mandarin-speaking Asian-American military officer accused of leaking highly sensitive U.S. military secrets to Chinese and Taiwanese officials.

After two days of intense interrogation, Lin confessed to telling a recently retired Taiwanese naval officer and others some highly classified details about the U.S. Navy's weapons programs, including the Long Range Anti-ship Missile under development, the high-speed rail gun and the Laser Weapon System being tested in the Persian Gulf, according to statements made at a recent motion hearing in a courtroom in Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.

So military investigators likely thought they had a key witness when they sat down to depose that retired Taiwanese naval officer, Justin Kao, who is also a Virginia Military Institute and Penn State grad and who worked at the unofficial Taiwanese embassy in Washington.

However, according to a copy of Kao's Aug. 2 deposition transcript that was obtained by Navy Times, Kao told investigators very little that would help convict the U.S. Navy officer.

Did Lin ever share information about the Navy's laser weapon? Kao said no.

Did Lin say anything about the anti-ship missile program? Kao said he'd never heard of it.

Did Lin disclose information about the rail gun? Kao said Lin mentioned it once, at a barbecue at Lin's house, when Lin casually recalled a visit to the Navy research test lab when one of the technicians gave Lin a fragment from a test target as a souvenir. Lin seemed to be showing off to a friend rather than disclosing military secrets, Kao said, according to the deposition's transcript.

As Lin's trial date in March approaches, Navy lawyers have a problem: There's very little evidence of any espionage by Lin and there is growing doubt that the government can prove that Lin was a spy, according to a trove of documents obtained by Navy Times and a series of interviews with officials inside and outside the military.

At a court hearing here in November, government attorneys conceded that, despite Lin's initial confession, they had no direct evidence corroborating much of what Lin supposedly confessed to. Furthermore, there is little or no evidence he transferred classified information to Taiwanese officials aside from two emails that were classified "secret" after the fact.

A copy of the report from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, obtained by Navy Times, found no evidence that Lin was receiving any kind of payment for the alleged spying. The redacted NCIS report obtained by Navy Times appears to reveal a wide gap between the most damning crimes Lin was originally accused of and the evidence prosecutors have in hand now.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin is facing charges of espionage and attempted espionage, but a Navy Times investigation found scant evidence that Lin was a spy.

Lin, a Taiwanese-American who has been an U.S. citizen for nearly two decades, remains locked up in the Chesapeake Brig, charged with espionage and attempted espionage, charges that could result in a life sentence.

For now, the government's spy case against Lin appears to boil down to two emails sent to a Taiwanese political lobbyist named Janice Chen - a representative of Taiwan's pro-U.S. and pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party - that U.S. Pacific Command deemed classified after the fact. Lin's attorneys will likely question whether those emails should have been classified at all.

Another pillar of the case against Lin involves his series of encounters with the undercover FBI agent Katherine Wu, according to statements made at the hearing and interviews with several people familiar with the case who declined to speak on the record fearing government retribution.

Given the lack of evidence corroborating some of the things Lin is said to have confessed to, Lin's defense team could focus on a claim that the incriminating statements he himself made were false and coerced, said Tim Parlatore, a former surface warfare officer and New York defense attorney who handles military cases pro bono.

"There is a lot of information out there about false confessions and there are expert witnesses who can explain the psychology of why someone would confess to something that they didn't do," said Parlatore, who is not directly involved in the Lin case but reviewed documents from the case at the request of Navy Times.

A confession is a powerful piece of evidence, but most people don't understand the circumstances under which people confess to crimes they didn't do, often under intense interrogation by law enforcement, Parlatore said. And military members are uniquely susceptible to confessing crimes they did not commit, he added.

"We are indoctrinated into the idea that when you are confronted for a mistake, you take responsibility, you fall on the sword and you ask for mercy," Parlatore said.

Lin's relationship with NCIS

Lin had a security clearance higher than Top Secret and had access to some of the Navy's most sensitive secrets. At the time of his arrest, he was working for an airborne signals exploitation squadron called Special Projects Squadron 2. Lin is also a former enlisted sailor who started his career in the nuclear force.

There is no doubt that the investigation of Lin revealed some highly unusual activities. Lin had many contacts with high-ranking Taiwanese officials that he should have — but failed to — disclose to the U.S. Navy.

Yet, his story is complicated by evidence that Lin had a prior and undisclosed relationship with NCIS and the FBI years before the spying allegations. The nature of that relationship is unclear, but it could have involved Lin and his rare Mandarin language skills in a shadowy intelligence or counter-intelligence operation.

According to an investigation report obtained by Navy Times, part of Lin's official duties with the FBI and NCIS included maintaining contact with Taiwanese officials at the Taiwanese diplomatic outpost in Honolulu and Taiwan.

Lin was stationed in Hawaii with U.S. Pacific Fleet between 2007 and 2009, according to his official bio.

The investigation shows clearly that Lin did not cease contact with Taiwanese officials after he left the program. In fact, during his time as a congressional liaison in 2012 and 2013 while working in the Navy's Pentagon budget shop, the investigation documents nearly 50 emails to and from Taiwanese officials.

Most of the email exchanges are with Kao, and the contents are hardly earth-shattering. Kao asks Lin about U.S. Navy customs and uniform items. In one exchange, Kao asked Lin about the U.S. military's transition to an all-volunteer force after Vietnam, and Lin forwarded him a Congressional Budget Office report on the subject.

Lin's failure to disclose contacts

Lin's friendship and repeated contacts with Taiwanese officials raised questions because he did not report them to his security clearance managers — a major misstep for an officer with his level of access, experts say.

Investigators found evidence that Lin repeatedly left the country despite routinely putting his home address in northern Virginia down on his leave chit — including a trip to Taiwan with his wife when he met with the Taiwanese Chief of Naval Operation, Vice Adm. Richard Chen. Lin knew the Taiwanese CNO from Lin's time working at the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii, according to Kao's deposition.

Also raising red flags with the government, however, was Lin's request that Kao not tell American diplomats in Taiwan about his meeting with Chen.

"The problem is that he had these foreign contacts he was communicating with and he didn't report them" said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer who has at various points in his career acted as the security officer in charge of managing security clearances for commands. "And not reporting the contact opens you up to all sorts of criticisms."

According to the 65-page transcript of Kao's deposition, Kao and Lin met from time to time for lunch, visited each other's houses. According to the investigation the most damning evidence appears to be an email about a Navy weapons program — specifically about submarine-launched torpedo test results. But the government found no evidence that Lin shared the information and, in fact, Lin seemed to suggest Kao to go through official channels for the information because it was classified, according to the investigation.

Kao described a cordial relationship between himself and Lin: They'd meet for barbecues and occasionally emailed Lin about open-source information he was having trouble locating online.

Kao said his job at the unofficial Taiwanese embassy was to glean open-source information and pass it to Taiwan's military intelligence division — most of what he'd do is translate press clippings into Chinese.

Kao's job also frequently required that he interact with the U.S. Navy's office of International Engagement — N-52. If Kao had trouble getting something from N-52, he'd email his friend Lin who'd occasionally find stuff buried on the Navy's unclassified websites and pass it along.

"Move on to real crimes"

Legal experts who reviewed the documents for Navy Times disagreed on the strength of the government's case against Lin.

David Sheldon, a Washington-based attorney with experience in military law said the contacts Lin maintained and didn't report, as well as his sharing information with his contacts, did raise a lot of red flags.

"The fact is, you have a senior Naval officer providing significant information to representatives of the Taiwanese military establishment and government (both here and abroad), socializing with these individuals, traveling to Taiwan on multiple occasions, failing to disclose multiple contacts with foreign nationals and travel to Taiwan, as well as ostensibly providing classified information." Sheldon said.

But another military attorney was more skeptical. Jeffrey Addicott, a retired Army lawyer who now teaches at St. Mary's University School of Law in Texas, said that it seemed the prosecution was far more aggressive than the evidence warranted.

"Even though the initial suspicions of the investigators turned up nothing of great significance that would warrant a criminal trial, the system is unwilling to admit this — particularly after expending two years of investigation efforts — and chooses instead to press forward," Addicott wrote in an email. "I have seen this pattern manifest itself many times in my experiences. If they would only sit back, take a deep breath, and pursue justice, they would be able to move on to real crimes."

What is clear is that last year's sensational headlines were far from accurate. Unnamed government officials told reporters that Lin was suspected of spying for China and Taiwan, despite there being no evidence in the NCIS investigation that Lin ever exchanged sensitive information with anyone from China.

Other accusations of misconduct attributed to unnamed officials included an April 11 article in the Daily Beast with the headline " Did an Accused Navy Spy Trade Secrets for Sex?" which cited defense officials speculating that Lin was paid in sex for government secrets. The Navy later dropped Lin's initial charges of prostitution and adultery.

In a statement to Navy Times, Lin's civilian attorney maintained his client's innocence.

"Lt. Cmdr. Lin's trial was never about 'sex for secrets' or 'spying for China' as inaccurately described by unnamed Navy and government officials last year," Larry Youngner said. "Lt. Cmdr. Lin's case is about a patriotic U.S. sailor who would never harm his country. Eddy loves the USA. That is why Lt. Cmdr. Eddy Lin pleaded not guilty. His Defense team looks forward to confronting the remaining government case against him."

When asked to describe what evidence the government had that tied Lin to the espionage charges, a Navy spokesperson declined to comment.

"We cannot disclose the elements of the case that you are requesting – the facts of the case will be presented during the trial, not before through the press, in order to preserve the integrity of the judicial process, to ensure LCDR Lin's right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, and to protect the interest of the US Government," said Fleet Forces Command spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Stephanie Turo.

* Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin's lawyer on plea deal, WAVY TV 10, 6 May 2017, YouTube, duration: 1.06 minutes.

* Sam Lagrone, Edward Lin will serve 6 years for mishandling classified information, not reporting foreign contacts, USNI News, 2 June 2017. Text:

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — A Navy officer who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information and not reporting foreign contacts will serve 6 years of confinement and will be dismissed from the Navy, a military judge ruled in a Friday sentencing hearing.

Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, 40, was sentenced to a nine-year sentence with the last three years suspended as part of a pre-trial agreement with the government. Along with a 646-day credit for time served in pre-trial confinement, Lin could be released from the brig in about four years.

He pleaded guilty last month to mishandling classified information, not reporting foreign contacts and putting U.S. destinations on leave requests when he had planned to leave the country.

The admission of guilt was part of a plea arrangement reached in April between the defense team and prosecutors.

In exchange for admitting to the lesser charges, Lin did not face two instances of espionage and three instances of attempted espionage, which were the most serious charges the government preferred last April.

Instead, the government charged Lin under Federal law in communicating secret information with a U.S. citizen who worked for Taiwanese political party and an undercover FBI agent.

“While this case didn’t turn out to be related to foreign intelligence — not really a ‘spy’ case — the sentence sends a strong message to the force about taking care to safeguard classified and sensitive information,” Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a former Marine and military lawyer, told USNI News on Friday.”It also invites comparison to other more high profile classified and sensitive information cases in Washington, and it may be fair criticism that senior folks are handled with kid gloves compared to rank and file personnel.”

Lin, by his own admission before a military judge, was sloppy with handling classified information and arrogantly attempting to impress women with information he knew.

“I get physically ill when I think about the damage I could have caused from my actions,” Lin said on Friday. “I’m exhausted and broken in spirit. The best thing I can do is serve as a cautionary tale to others.”

Federal officials began investigating Lin in early 2014 based on an FBI tip that he may have been sharing sensitive information with foreign agents, NCIS Special Agent Chris Mitchum told the court on Thursday.

The Navy and the Department of Justice then mounted a joint NCIS/FBI investigation into Lin’s foreign contacts with a focus on the year he worked in Washington, D.C. Lin served on the staff of Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Financial Management and Comptroller. Lin had previously served as Mulloy’s aide during a tour at U.S. Pacific Fleet in from mid-2007 to early 2009.

During the investigation, the FBI and NCIS had combed through Lin’s personal and Navy emails and found he had developed a close relationship with Cmdr. Justin Kao of the Taiwanese Navy, a military officer attached to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the United States – Taiwan’s embassy equivalent in the U.S.

Lin did not report his relationship with Kao or another TECRO military attaché Cmdr. Victor Hsu, required by his position.

Lin had also developed a relationship with Janice Chen, an American who worked for the Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and was a registered foreign agent.

As part of his plea, Lin admitted to sending Chen emails on his takes on international news stories that included analysis based on classified operational plans he learned of while serving on the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69).

“This is something you would probably never see in the published literature, but it’s pretty close to ground truth,” Lin wrote Chen in a July 22, 2017 email according to prosecutors.

In 2013 Lin arranged a meeting with the head of the Taiwanese Navy, Vice Adm. Richard Chen Yeong-kang, through his TECRO contacts, lied about his destination on his leave request and did not report the encounter.

The start of Lin’s investigation began shortly after he reported to one of the Navy’s most secretive units – the Special Projects Squadron Two “Wizards” (VPU-2) – based at Marine Corps Air Base Kaneohe, Hawaii. The Wizards fly specialized versions of the service’s P-3C Orion and P-8A Poseidon aircraft used for signals and electronic intelligence gathering.

Retired Cmdr. Paul Crawford, Lin’s commander at VPU-2, said Lin deployed several times with the unit while he was under investigation.

While he was in Hawaii, Lin developed relationships with two Chinese nationals he did not report to security officials – one was an employee at the China Doll massage parlor in Honolulu and another was a prison official Lin met online.

Lin had given both women several thousand dollars but prosecutors said there was no evidence they were agents of the People’s Republic of China.

“This never was a case of spying or trading secrets for sex,” government prosecutor Capt. Michael Luken said. “I don’t know who the sources were, but from convening authority or the trail counsel, we’ve never asserted that.”

Much of the case against Lin came from an FBI agent who’s back story shared similarities to Lin’s mother who died from cancer. The FBI agent assumed the alias of Katerine Wu and over a period of five meetings from August to September in 2015, Lin told the agent secret information about his unit.

“I felt like I was talking to my mother, even though I knew she wasn’t,” Lin said in his unsworn statement.

While Lin admitted he told the agent information she wasn’t authorized to hear, he said his intent was to communicate a military career was an honorable pursuit in the U.S.

Shortly after Lin’s last meeting with the undercover agent, Lin was arrested in the Honolulu airport intending to fly to mainland China to meet with the prison official he met online on Sept. 11, 2015.

In a statement, Lin’s attorney said that now that the trial is over Lin is committed to cooperate with authorities.

“Lt. Cmdr. Eddy Lin never spied on his country. He served faithfully in the United States Navy for over 17 years, becoming a highly regarded and decorated officer,” Lin’s lawyer Larry Youngner told USNI News. “He accepted responsibility for the offenses he was actually guilty of and he agreed to debrief and further assist the FBI and NCIS.”

* William Cole and Associated Press, Former Hawaii Navy officer pleading guilty, but not to spying, Honolulu Star Advertiser, 4 May 2017. Text:

A Navy flight officer formerly with a highly secretive P-3 Orion squadron at Kaneohe Bay and accused of espionage struck a deal with the U.S. government and agreed today to plead guilty to several charges, but not to spying involving China or Taiwan.

Taiwan-born Lt. Cmdr. Edward Chieh-Liang Lin is pleading guilty to mishandling classified information, communicating national defense information, failing to report foreign contacts and lying about where he was going while on leave.

The espionage-related accusations leveled against Lin occurred between 2011 and 2015 in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Jacksonville, Fla., and Hawaii, culminating with his arrest at Honolulu Airport in September 2015, according to officials and the charges brought against the former flight officer.

Navy Times reported that at the time of his arrest, Lin was booked on a flight to China.

Lin and his attorneys were hashing out the deal in a Navy court in Norfolk, Va. A Navy judge planned to go through the details of Lin’s crimes today.

Court documents did not reveal for whom Lin was accused of spying. But officials told The Associated Press last year that the country involved is China or Taiwan, and possibly both.

At the time of his arrest, Lin was with the Special Projects Patrol Squadron 2 (VPU-2) “Wizards” at Kaneohe Bay. The squadron, which flies specially modified spy planes, had been known to change P-3 Orion aircraft paint schemes and identifying numbers to blend in with other Navy planes.

The squadron and several aircraft still operate from the Oahu base.

On May 10, 2016, Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, based in Norfolk, Va., approved charges against Lin, including two specifications of espionage, three specifications of attempted espionage, three specifications of making a false official statement, five specifications of improperly communicating defense information and other charges.

The two specifications of espionage for communicating secret information to a foreign government were said to have occurred between 2012 and 2014 in Washington, D.C. During that time frame, Lin was on the staff of the assistant secretary of the Navy for financial management; a student with Patrol Squadron 30 in Jacksonville, Fla.; and with VPU-2 at Kaneohe Bay, according to biographical data supplied by the Navy.

The false official statement charges included the allegation that Lin failed to properly report foreign travel in late 2011.

Lin additionally was accused of wrongfully transporting secret material at the San Francisco airport in early 2015. He faced three specifications of attempted espionage for attempting to pass secret information in September 2015 to a representative of a foreign government while in Hawaii, the charges stated.

Lin’s sister, Jenny Lin, wrote to members of Congress last year and said the Navy lacks evidence to support the charges.

A website created by Lin’s family called “Bring Eddy Home” said following his arrest in Honolulu, the government created an “easy-to-digest, sensationalized tale of espionage.”

“That’s not the Eddy Lin we know and love. That’s not the Eddy Lin with whom and for whom you served in dangerous and austere environments,” the family said. “That’s not the Eddy Lin you sent forward to carry out high impact/critical missions. Eddy is innocent of the alleged crimes with which the government has charged him. He is no spy for Taiwan, China or any other foreign country.”

An official list of Lin’s Navy assignments said he joined the service in December 1999 as an enlisted sailor and attended Navy nuclear training at Charleston, S.C., from 2000 to 2002. He then attended Officer Candidate School and gained his commission in May 2002.

His official Navy biography says he was assigned to VPU-2 in Hawaii from Feb. 15, 2014, to March 25, 2016.

A Navy press release about a speech Lin gave in December 2008 to new citizens in Hawaii said he was 14 when he and his family left Taiwan.

“I always dreamt about coming to America, the ‘promised land,’” Lin was quoted as saying. “I grew up believing that all the roads in America lead to Disneyland.”

-----------------------

2019

* 15 April 2019 - Lin unsuccessfully appeals his conviction at the US Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeal.

-----------------------

2020

* circa 2020 - CDSE, Insider Threat: Unreported Foreign Contact - Edward Lin, LCDR U.S. Navy, Centre for Development of Security Excellence, n.d. The Centre for Development of Security Excellence prepared the following analysis of the Edward C. Lim case:

Edward Lin – LCDR U.S. NAVY;

* 40 year old naturalized citizen from Taiwan

* TS/SCI clearance with extensive background in signals intelligence

What Happened

* In 2013, Lin claimed to take leave in Virginia when in actuality he traveled to Taiwan to meet with the head of the Taiwanese Navy, Vice Admiral Richard Chen Yeong-kang.

* A tip to FBI in early 2014 indicated that Lin was sharing sensitive information with foreign agents, which led to a joint FBI/NCIS investigation.

* Investigation revealed close and continuous contact with senior official assigned to Taiwan’s embassy equivalent in the U.S., Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO).

* Developed relationship with a female registered foreign agent who worked for the Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)

* 11 September 2015: After providing classified information to an undercover FBI agent in attempt to impress a woman, he was arrested for suspected espionage.

* 2 June 2017: Found guilty of wrongly transporting classified material, failing to store classified material as SECRET, wrongly failing to report foreign connections to the security manager, two specifications of false official statements, and two specifications of communicating defense information. Sentenced to nine years in prison with three years suspended for making false statements, failing to report foreign contact, mishandling classified information, and disclosing secret information to a foreign citizen. Lin will be dismissed from the Navy, and will forfeit all pay and allowances.

Insider Threat Indicators

* Unreported foreign contact with high ranking officials on multiple occasions.

* Developed relationships with two female Chinese nationals and gave both women several thousand dollars.

* Falsified leave documents concerning a trip to Taiwan and scheduled trip to China.

* Unreported security violation after leaving classified information in an airport terminal.

* Life crisis: Divorce.

Impacts

* May have shared technical or political classified information pertaining to the Navy’s Special Projects Squadron Two mission with a foreign government.

-----------------------

2023

* Shawn Patrick Hazlett, MH370 and the curious case of Edward C. Lin: Anatomy of a cover-up [podcast], Through a Glass Darkly, episode 214, 16 November 2023, duration: 64.49 minutes. Interview with Ashton Forbes.

-----------------------

2025

* Ashton Forbes, MH370 leaker Edward C. Lin and new 4chan UFO whistleblower, YouTube, 30 January 2025, duration: 130.17 minutes.

------------------

4. References

CDSE, Insider Threat: Unreported Foreign Contact - Edward Lin, LCDR U.S. Navy, Centre for Development of Security Excellence, n.d.

Cole, William and Associated Press, Former Hawaii Navy officer pleading guilty, but not to spying, Honolulu Star Advertiser, 4 May 2017.

Forbes, Ashton, MH370 leaker Edward C. Lin and new 4chan UFO whistleblower, YouTube, 30 January 2025, duration: 130.17 minutes.

Hazlett, Shawn Patrick, MH370 and the curious case of Edward C. Lin: Anatomy of a coverup [podcast], Through a Glass Darkly, episode 214, 16 November 2023, duration: 64.49 minutes. Interview with Ashton Forbes.

Lagrone, Sam, U.S. Naval Flight Officer Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin accused of giving U.S. secrets to China, USNI News, 10 April 2016.

-----, U.S. Official: Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin accused of passing secrets to Taiwan in addition to China, USNI News, 11 April 2016.

-----, Accused spy Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin was a trained nuclear specialist, Navy Congressional Liaison, USNI News, 11 April 2016.

-----, Early results of Edward Lin espionage investigation triggered national security alert, USNI News, 13 April 2016. [Not reproduced above]

-----, Preliminary report on Edward Lin spy case - Decision to prosecute with Fleet Forces head, USNI News, 27 April 2016. [Not reproduced above]

-----, Edward Lin lawyer asks Navy not to take espionage case to court martial; Family says Lin 'no spy', USNI News, 2 May 2016.

-----, Edward Lin admits to disclosing classified information. Not to espionage, USNI News, 4 May 2016.

-----, Accused spy Edward Lin will face general court martial, USNI News, 13 May 2016.

-----, Edward Lin pleads not guilty to espionage charges, USNI News, 17 May 2016.

-----, Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin espionage trial pushed to March, USNI News, 31 October 2016.

-----, Edward Lin will serve 6 years for mishandling classified information, not reporting foreign contacts, USNI News, 2 June 2017.

Larter, David B., Navy officer, accused spy, says "Good Squad" guards abused him, Navy Times, 11 November 2016.

-----, The strange case of Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, Navy Times, 22 January 2017.

McLeary, Paul, FBI tricked naval intel officer in spilling info, lawyer says, Foreign Policy, 5 May 2016. [Not reproduced above]

Treyz, Catherine, Supporters of alleged spy challenge Navy accusations, CNN, 3 May 2016. [Not reproduced above]

United States v. Lin (2019), U.S. Navy - Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeal, 15 April 2019.

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Last updated: 30 January 2025

Michael Organ, Australia

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