Lawmakers say Capitol computers hacked by Chinese

WASHINGTON - Multiple congressional computers have been hacked by people working from inside China, lawmakers said Wednesday, suggesting the Chinese were seeking lists of dissidents.

Two congressmen, both longtime critics of Beijing's record on human rights, said the compromised computers contained information about political dissidents from around the world. One of the lawmakers said he'd been discouraged from disclosing the computer attacks by other U.S. officials.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., said four of his computers were compromised beginning in 2006. New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said two of the computers at his global human rights subcommittee were attacked in December 2006 and March 2007.

Wolf said that following one of the attacks, a car with license plates belonging to Chinese officials went to the home of a dissident in Fairfax County, Va., outside Washington and photographed it.

During the same time period, The House International Relations Committee — now known as the House Foreign Affairs Committee — was targeted at least once by someone working inside China, said committee spokeswoman Lynne Weil.

Wednesday's disclosures came as U.S. authorities continued to investigate whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce Department computers.

The Pentagon last month acknowledged at a closed House Intelligence committee meeting that its vast computer network is scanned or attacked by outsiders more than 300 million times each day.

Wolf said the FBI had told him that computers of other House members and at least one House committee had been accessed by sources working from inside China. The Virginia Republican suggested that Senate computers could have been attacked as well.

He said the hacking of computers in his Capitol Hill office began in August 2006, that he had known about it for a long time and that he had been discouraged from disclosing it by people in the U.S. government he refused to identify.

"The problem has been that no one wants to talk about this issue," he said. "Every time I've started to do something I've been told 'You can't do this.' A lot of people have made it very, very difficult."

The FBI and the White House declined to comment.

The Bush administration has been increasingly reluctant publicly to discuss or acknowledge cyber attacks, especially ones traced to China.

In the Senate, the office of Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Senate's subcommittee on humanitarian issues, asked the sergeant at arms to investigate whether Senate computers have been compromised.

Wolf said the first computer hacked in his office belonged to the staffer who works on human rights cases and that others included the machines of Wolf's chief of staff and legislative director.

"They knew which ones to get," said Dan Scandling, who currently is on leave of absence from his job as Wolf's chief of staff. "It was a very sophisticated operation," he said. "The FBI verified that it had been done."

Smith said the attacks on his office computers were "very much an orchestrated effort."

He said that after the first intrusion in December 2006, "that was the last time" his office put the names of dissidents on its computers.

Smith said the intrusions were discovered when House technicians found a virus that seemed designed to take control of the computers. Technical experts who cleaned the computers reported that the attacks seemed to come from the People's Republic of China.

In Beijing, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no immediate comment on the allegations by Wolf and Smith.

Last week, China denied the accusations regarding Gutierrez's laptop and the alleged effort to hack Commerce Department computers.

Wolf said he was introducing a House resolution that would help ensure protection for all House computers and information systems.

It calls for the chief administrative officer and sergeant at arms of the House, in consultation with the FBI, to alert members and their staffs to the danger of electronic attacks. Wolf also wants lawmakers to be fully briefed on ways to safeguard official records from electronic security breaches.

"My own suspicion is I was targeted by China because of my long history of speaking out about China's abysmal human rights record," Wolf said in a draft of remarks he prepared to give on the House floor.

He said Congress should hold hearings, specifically the House Intelligence Committee, Armed Services Committee and Government Operations Committee.

Speaking generally in May 2006, Wolf called Chinese spying efforts "frightening" and said it was no secret that the United States is a principal target of Chinese intelligence services.

Wolf thinks that President Bush should stay away from the Olympics because of China's human rights record.

He also has been outspoken on the subject of violence in the Darfur region of Sudan, where China has major oil interests.

Smith has introduced the Global Online Freedom Act which would prohibit U.S. Internet companies from cooperating with countries such as China that restrict information about human rights and democracy on the Internet.

Wolf and Smith both traveled to Beijing 17 years ago seeking the release of 77 people imprisoned or under house arrest because of their religious activities.

国会议员说国会的电脑被中国电脑黑客入侵

国会议员周二说：很多台国会计算机遭到来自中国的计算机的攻击，这表明中国正在寻找持不同政见者的名单。

两名国会议员说无论是长期批评北京的**记录还是计算机中所包含的世界各地的不同政见者的资料信息。其中一个国会议员说，他曾被阻止披露其他美国计算机被攻击的信息。

众议员弗兰克沃尔夫说他的四台计算机从2006年开始被入侵。新泽西州众议员克里斯史密斯，一名资深共和党对众议院外交事务委员会说，在2006年12月和2007年3月，两台电脑在其全球**小组委员会遭到袭击。

沃尔夫说在一次攻击后，有一辆牌照属于中国官员的车前往华盛顿外、弗吉尼亚州、费尔法克斯县的不同政见者的家中并被拍了照。

在同一时期内，美国众议院国际关系委员会，现在被称为众议院外交事务委员会的女发言人琳韦伊说，这些人至少有一次在中国境内工作。

周三披露美国当局继续调查商务部长卡洛斯古铁雷斯在对中国访问时使用的政府笔记本电脑被入侵后是否有一些文字资料被中方官员秘密复制。

五角大楼上个月在一个封闭的众议院情报委员会会议承认，其庞大的计算机网络每天遭到外界超过三百万次的扫描。

沃尔夫说FBI已经告诉他众议院议员和至少一名内务委员会的电脑被中国境内攻击，维吉尼亚州共和党暗示参议院的电脑也可能被攻击。

他说黑客从 2006年8月开始对国会山的电脑进行攻击，他已知道在相当长的时间内他被阻止披露消息，美国政府拒绝确认这个消息。

他说这个问题没有人想谈，每次我开始做些什么，我就会被告诉说有不用这么做。许多人说那是很难很难的。

联邦调查局和白宫拒绝就此发表评论。

布什政府已越来越不愿意公开讨论或承认网络攻击，尤其是那些从中国来的。

在参议院，参议院的小组委员会主席办公室参议员迪克德宾，就人道主义问题，询问该名警长在武器调查时是否参议院电脑已经失密。

沃尔夫说第一台被黑的计算机是属于一个**案件的工作人员的。包括沃尔夫的参谋长和立法主任。

当前正在休假的沃尔夫的参谋长丹?史坎德陵说他们明确知道获取什么东西，那是非常老练的操作，FBI证实那已经被做了。

斯密斯说那些对他办公室电脑的攻击是个精细活

他说在2006年12月的攻击后，那是最后一次在他的电脑上存放不同政见者的名单。

史密斯说，入侵被发现时技术员发现的病毒似乎在控制电脑。清理电脑报道中电脑专家说，攻击似乎是来自中国人民共和国。

在北京中国外交部没有立即对沃尔夫和史密斯的说法发表意见。

上周，中国否认对古铁雷斯的笔记本电脑和哈克商业部的电脑的指控。

沃尔夫说他已经介绍了一个可以帮助保护众议院所有计算机和信息系统的解决方案，

它要求议院的行政主任和警务官与联邦调查局协商，以提醒议会成员和他们的员工危险的电子攻击。沃尔夫也希望立法者必须充分听取有关维护正式记录电子安全违规行为的办法。

在沃尔夫准备给众议院的发言中说：我怀疑自己是有针对性的对中国，因为我老是对中国的糟糕的**记录发言。

他说，国会应该举行听证会，特别是众议院情报委员会，军事委员会和政府运作委员会。

在谈到普遍在2006年5月，沃尔夫对中国间谍活动的可怕 ，并说当时并不是什么秘密，美国是中国情报一个主要的目标。

沃尔夫认为不是政府应该因为中国的**记录而远离奥运会。

他还直言的关于在苏丹的达尔富尔地区的暴力行为，与中国具有重大的石油利益。

史密斯推出了全球在线自由法案将禁止美国网络公司与中国这样的国家合作。这些国家在互联网上限制**和民主。

沃尔夫和斯密斯在17年前两次到北京，为释放那些因为宗教活动而被囚禁或软禁的77个人。

【Translate by nicola】