Shitstain's NOAA Nominee Signed 2015 Deal With China; In 2014, China Hacked NOAA
President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the nation's oceans and atmosphere agency is already facing political headwinds.
While environmental groups and some senators have expressed skepticism about the nomination of Barry Lee Myers, the CEO of AccuWeather, to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the criticism to date has focused on possible conflicts of interest that could arise from the fact that he has spent much of his career leading a private sector weather forecasting company. However, potentially more problematic is Myers' role in securing a 2015 deal with the Chinese government that set up a 20-year joint venture to disseminate weather data in China.
The deal may spur national security concerns, at least on the surface, considering that China is a potential adversary of the U.S. Shortly before AccuWeather announced its expansion into China, Chinese hackers were implicated in a 2014 hacking incident that knocked out NOAA's satellite data dissemination. In other words, the nominee to lead NOAA is doing business with the country suspected of hacking the agency.
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But there is one big problem in having a NOAA nominee who was the CEO of a company that struck such a deal: The China Meteorological Agency (CMA) is a government entity, just as the National Weather Service (NWS) is in the U.S. Not only that, but the Chinese government has also been implicated in cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure, including NOAA's own systems in 2014, the year before AccuWeather inked its deal.
According to the Washington Post, hackers based in China breached federal weather systems pertaining to satellites and other critical infrastructure. The attack on web servers led to a satellite data outage, affecting millions of U.S. users of weather information and partners abroad. While Chinese officials denied any involvement in the incident, then-Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia told the Post that the attack was of Chinese origin. (Wolf was a key player in cybersecurity and NOAA oversight at the time.)
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http://mashable.com/2017/10/18/trump-nominee-barry-myers-to-lead-noaa-china-deal-problem/#5bHG9OtKWgq8