The stunning news that a Chinese intelligence outfit has been rolled up in Los Angeles, and which operated there for 15 years!

Four persons arrested in Los Angeles are part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering ring, federal investigators said, and the suspects caused serious compromises for 15 years to major U.S. weapons systems, including submarines and warships.

U.S. intelligence and security officials said the case remains under investigation but that it could prove to be among the most damaging spy cases since the 1985 one of John A. Walker Jr., who passed Navy communication codes to Moscow for 22 years.

The Los Angeles spy ring has operated since 1990 and has funneled technology and military secrets to China in the form of documents and computer disks, officials close to the case said.

It begs the question: would the Able Danger’s China investigation had not been shutdown in the spring of 2000 – would it have identified these people? Recall that Able Danger’s terrorist research being performed by the Army’s LWIR group and Orion Corp was in parallel to another study, using the same data mining analysis of public information, looking into contacts with communist China.

It was the results of the communist China study that caused the appointed legal eagles from Clinton’s administration to come down hard on LIWA and Orion and purge all the data (terrorists included) in the spring of 2000. If Able Danger was ever going to get back into the national spotlight, being tide to this breaking revelation wouldn’t hurt it’s cause.

Even without Able Danger in the mix, it is hard to ignore the Clinton’s open wallet policy towards China. We may still be discovering the results of those short sighted actions.