Obama administration denies Chinese firm due process, appeals court rules

This blog concerns an article in today's Washington Post and relates to Module 5's topic of how state public authority attempts to control private corporations. The bottom line of the article is that a US appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Obama administration failed to give constitutional due process to a Chinese-owned company barred for national security reasons from investing in wind farms in northwest Oregon. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-administration-denies-chinese-firm-due-process-appeals-court-rules/2014/07/15/53d4e3ea-0c5d-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CIFUS) is an interagency committee established in 1950 and chaired by the Treasury secretary. It usually conducts a 30-day review of foreign investments deemed sensitive to national security and can extend that for an investigative period lasting an additional 45 days. After that, the president has up to 15 days to issue a decision. 

In 2012 CIFUS rejected a transaction by a wind-farm investment owned by two Chinese executives of Sanyi, a Chinese construction-equipment firm that manufactures wind turbines. President Obama ordered Ralls in September 2012 to divest itself of all four wind farms because they fall within or near restricted airspace of the Naval Systems Training Facility in Boardman, Oregon.

Although not directly related to this case, the United States Justice Department has indicted five members of of the Chinese military on charges of hacking into computers and stealing trade secrets from leading steel, nuclear plant and solar power firms. The Chinese approach to intelligence collection directed towards the United States is very different than the KGB approach during the Cold War. 

Foreign intelligence services create international private corporations as a cover to conduct espionage. Additionally, foreign intelligence services often target private citizens with access to defense technology as opposed to government employees. This blog provides further evidence that states must provide legal review of the activities of private corporations for a variety of reasons.