Pinehurst Today

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-09), joined by Congressmen Pat Fallon (TX-04) and Jimmy Panetta (CA-19), sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding answers on how the Department of Defense is responding to the recent uptick in incidents of foreign nationals attempting to infiltrate U.S. military installations or spy on military personnel across the country.

"The trio recently sent a letter to Austin that pointed out that several of the country’s installations are strategic power projection platforms or places where important or sensitive activity occurs."

This letter follows a study released by Duke University in December, which revealed that the personal information of US military members, including addresses and health status, is available for purchase. This raises significant national security issues surrounding Fort Liberty.

Since then, Hudson has probed the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on this matter and cosponsored H.R. 6573—a bill aimed at protecting service members’ information.

Most recently, two Chechen nationals were involved in potentially suspicious surveillance activity near an Army Special Forces soldier’s property close to Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg.

In December 2022, vandals fired guns at two electric grid substations in Moore County, causing power outages that left up to 40,000 customers without power for two weeks.

In their letter, the congressmen expressed concern that the US is ill-prepared to respond to foreign adversaries’ increased intelligence-gathering and surveillance activities.