The US Navy may have put trackers in emails destined for defense counsel and news media covering a military trial involving leaks, Military Times reports.
Wednesday's US Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain declared a state of emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code. The Executive Order directs the Secretary of Commerce to take the lead in minimizing the risk from companies controlled by "foreign adversaries" (read, "China"). Its immediate effect is to clamp down on the use of Huawei technology in the US.
The US Commerce Department immediately banned Huawei and seventy of the company's partners. The measure will also affect US exports. Broadcom, Qualcomm, Intel and Oracle, among others, will henceforth find it difficult to sell to Huawei, the Wall Street Journal points out.
China's government has called the Executive Order and its attendant enforcement actions a "wrong course," and promises to "resolutely defend" Chinese companies from Washington's depredations, the AP reports. Beijing sees the affair as a move in a trade war.
US allies may be nudged by both prudential policy and the Wassenaar Arrangement to follow suit, the Times says. They're aware that doing business with Huawei is not only unpopular with the US Government but can also be risky in its own right. As Forbes and others report, the Netherlands' intelligence service is investigating what appear to be Huawei-insinuated backdoors in Dutch telecommunications networks.