War Department bans Chinese nationals from Cloud environments

This is an area that has needed reform for years:

The Pentagon will no longer allow Chinese nationals to support Department of Defense (DOD) cloud environments, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a video posted to X on Aug. 27.

Hegseth said the arrangement – part of a Microsoft program known as “Digital Escorts” – allowed coders from China, remotely supervised by U.S. contractors, to assist with sensitive DOD cloud systems. He called the setup an “unacceptable risk” to national security.

Well, yeah. 

Here's how the rules have been bent for years.  Initially what was mandated was that only U.S. Citizens could work in these environments.  After lots of complaints from tech companies (*cough* Jobs Americans won't do *cough*) this was changed to "US Persons".  This added both Green Card holders and H1-B Visa holders to the list of acceptable people allowed into the environments.

Fast forward a decade and Silicon Valley has so gamed the H1-B system that the US imports a huge number of foreign workers while laying off US citizens.  So the question is how much loyalty to the USA do these people have?

Green Card holders?  Probably a lot.

H1-B holders?  Dunno.

Chinese H1-B holders?  Per the SECDEF, they represent an overwhelming security risk. 

Like I said, this area has been ripe for reform for years.  We will see if this policy gets extended from the War Department for Fed.Gov in general.