21ST CENTURY ESPIONAGE: Drone photographer pleads guilty to Espionage Act charges: Graduate student Fengyun Shi is the first to be convicted under this section of the Espionage Act. “Fengyun Shi, a Chinese citizen and graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested in January after a drone he was flying got stuck in a tree in Newport News, Virginia. A suspicious resident called the police and Shi was questioned before abandoning the drone and fleeing. After the FBI seized the drone and pulled the images off it, investigators discovered that Shi had photographed Navy vessels at multiple shipyards in Virginia. One of those shipyards, in Newport News, was actively manufacturing next-generation aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. Both of these types of vessels contain classified components.”