war in the Middle East has the FBI tracking more potential threats of terrorism in the United States tonight the bureau's director Christopher Ray tells us his main concern is not an organized attack but lone actors inspired by the violence we met Ry Wednesday for an unprecedented interview that included him and the intelligence directors of our English-speaking allies together they know more about the threats in the world than perhaps anyone they're known as the five eyes and they have never appeared in an interview together they're doing it now because they're alarmed by China which they say
is the greatest Espionage threat democracy has ever faced but given the war we'll begin with FBI director Ray on the threat of Terror at home the story will continue in a moment we have seen an increase in reported threats but vigilance is is heightened right now just because of the fluid and volatile environment in the Middle East and the ways in which that could spin out uh in the US by the time we had gathered for our interview it had already spun out in the United States in Illinois a 6-year-old Palestinian am American boy was
stabbed to death by a man enraged by the attack on Israel how do you stop that kind of thing the key that we've found in stopping it more and more is trying to have the right eyes and ears out in the community and so what we need to have are people in the community when they see something starting to go Ary calling law enforcement um and the attacks that we've been able to prevent over the years have almost always included somebody who's made that phone call uh and the attacks that haven't been prevented have almost
always had somebody who had that information but for one reason or another didn't make that phone call about 30 Americans were killed in the Hamas attack two American hostages were released Friday which left 10 still missing sources tell us it's unclear how many of them may be hostages Israel leads the hostage effort the FBI is prepared to help we're going to work closely with our partners uh our Israeli Partners our US Embassy Partners um the whole US government to do whatever we can to ensure that those hostages uh come out safe but uh but make
no mistake this is a dangerous Taun we met Chris Ray with his fellow intelligence Chiefs of the so-called five eyes from the left Mike Burgess of Australia David vgo of Canada Ken mallum of the United Kingdom and at far right Andrew Hampton of New Zealand the five eyes Alliance was formed after World War II to gather intelligence but this was their first public appearance ever and they did it in Palo Alto California Silicon Valley to make this point the technology secrets that are about to change the world in artificial intelligence biology and computing are falling
into the wrong hands stolen in a global Espionage campaign by China the People's Republic of China represents the defining threat of this generation in this era there is no country that presents a broader more comprehensive threat to our ideas our our Innovation our Economic Security and ultimately our national security we have seen efforts by the Chinese government directly or indirectly trying to steal intellectual property Trade Secrets personal data uh all across the country we're talking everything from Fortune 100 companies all to small startups we're talking about agriculture biotech healthc care robotics Aviation uh academic research
we probably have somewhere in the order of 2,000 active investigations that are just related to the Chinese government's effort to steal information but all countries spy Mike Burgess of Australia yes absolutely all countries spy our country spy all governments have a need to be covertly informed um all countries seek strategic Advantage but the behavior we're talking about here goes well beyond traditional Espionage this scale of the theft is unprecedented in human history and that's why we're calling it out they were calling it out this past week in private meetings with 15 top Silicon Valley Executives
and Stanford University this is not just about government secrets or military Secrets it's not even just about critical infrastructure it's about academic research in our universities it's about promising startup companies people in short who probably don't think National Security is about them Ken mallum is director general of MI5 the UK's FBI so we see the theft happening in a range of ways one is that we see employees within those companies being manipulated often in the first instance they are not aware of what is happening we have seen for example the use of professional networking sites
to reach out in sort of masked disguised ways to people in the UK either who have security clearance or who are working in interesting areas of Technology we've now seen over 20,000 examples of that kind of disguised approach to people in the UK who have information that the Chinese State wishes to get its hands on you have um the biggest hacking program in the world by far big ger than every other major Nation combined stolen more of our personal and corporate data than every nation big or small combined are you saying that it is a
threat to the way of life of democracies it is a threat to our way of life uh in a in a number of ways the first is that when when people talk about stealing Innovation or intellectual property that's not just a Wall Street problem that's a Main Street problem that means American jobs American families American livelihoods and the same thing for every one of of our five countries directly impacted by that theft is not some abstract concept it's it has Flesh and Blood kitchen table consequences here's one example when China stole the technology secrets of
one American wind turban Company the company lost its competitive Advantage Sales collapsed and it laid off nearly 700 workers when you encounter a company that isn't sure that it wants to cooperate with you what do you tell them I would say that if you are operating at The Cutting Edge of tech in this decade you may not be interested in geopolitics but geopolitics is interested in you and you would be Reckless not just with my secrets but with your own company's viability with your shareholders Capital if you didn't think about what that means we all
came into these meetings with the mindset of we want to figure out how we can better help protect you your Innovation your intellectual property they all came into the conversations with ideas of ways they can help us help them the intelligence Chiefs told us Chinese companies are overseen by the Communist party and for many Espionage is a sideline on behalf of the PRC the People's Republic of China is the Chinese government building industrial sites in your countries that are actually covers for Espionage operations David vgo of Canada we have seen in the past uh acquisition
of land acquisition of of different uh companies where you when you start to dig a little bit further you realize that it's uh there is a another intent and we have seen and blocked attempt by the PRC to acquire uh locations near strategic assets of the country where we knew that the ultimate purpose was for spying operations and director Ray have you seen that in the United States we've seen a variety of efforts by uh Chinese businesses some cases State own Enterprises some cases ostensibly private companies attempting to acquire businesses land infrastructure what have you
in the United States in a way that presents National Security concerns including investigations recently of Chinese companies purchasing land and building plants near US military bases we welcome business with China visitors from China academic exchange what we don't welcome is cheating and theft and repression political repression is another Target of the five eyes they told us they're fighting China's meddling in elections and violence aimed at silencing Chinese idents living in their countries we had a case that we that was indicted not that long ago where there was a an actual Congressional candidate who was very
critical of the Chinese government the efforts were initially to try to see if they could come up with dirt on the candidate to derail his candidacy then to try to concoct dirt just fiction uh about the candidate and then if that didn't work there was even discussion about the candidate befalling a a horrible accident that candidate was Yang sha a Chinese American who served in the US Military and protested China's Crackdown on Hong Kong last year he lost the Democratic nomination in a New York Congressional race in court filings prosecutors say a Chinese agent hired
an American private investigator to discredit Yang and left the investigator a voicemail saying violence would be fine beat him until he cannot run for election is that the threat of violence in the United States that we Face from the Chinese government we have seen over and over again efforts to really stop at almost nothing to intimidate people who would have the audacity here in the United States where we have freedom of speech to express criticism of the regime while we have have the Allies around the same table let me ask this question the catastrophe in
the Middle East Russia's invasion of Ukraine Chinese Espionage on a scale that's never been seen before are all of you stretched too thin I think one of the strengths of the five eyes partnership is that we share some really fundamental values as countries and as as agencies Andrew Hampton of New Zealand part of how you respond to that is by working together is like minded countries part of how you respond to it is partnering across our own countries as we've talked about with Community groups with the private sector they are our biggest strength for its
part China said this about the five eyes point of view we firmly oppose the groundless allegations and smears toward China mi5's Ken mcallum told us never in his nearly 30 years in intelligence has the the threat been so complex Iran Russia terrorism but it was China that was the first to get the five eyes around this table and before the eyes of the public I mean essentially what you have with the Chinese government is the autocracy and oppressive regime of uh you know East Germany combined with The Cutting Edge technology of silon Valley and the
combination represents a a daunting first ofit kind threat for the United States and for our allies you seem to be saying that the Chinese government is running a criminal Enterprise well I would say the Chinese government if they want to be a great nation it's time for them to start acting like one uh and that includes abiding by its own commitments not to steal Innovation that includes not exporting repression to other countries that includes working with all of our countries and all the other uh countries that we work with all the time who have common
threats like cyber crime fentel trafficking money laundering uh it means not working with criminals uh but rather working to uphold the rule of law
