Liang’s arrest and charges stem from an incident the FBI described as occurring during a multistate road trip that included a stop at an Air Force base in South Dakota and visits in Nebraska, according to a court filing described in the complaint. Prosecutors said the student illegally photographed U.S. military aircraft at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, where the government identified the RC-135 reconnaissance plane and the E-4B aircraft known as the “Nightwatch.”
The FBI said Liang, who is 21 and attending school in Glasgow, Scotland, was arrested April 7 at a New York airport while trying to leave the U.S. The filing also said Liang had planned to travel to Glasgow, where he attends school, and that he was taken into custody while attempting to depart the country.
According to the FBI, Liang admitted that he got out of a car on a public road in late March and took photos of the aircraft while at Offutt Air Force Base. The government described the E-4B as the service’s “Nightwatch,” noting that it can function as an airborne command center for a president and military officials during emergencies, a description attributed to the U.S. Air Force.
The FBI said investigators also found that Liang was traveling with other students as part of the broader itinerary. The filing described that Liang flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 26, met a friend who is a college student in New York, and then drove across the U.S. border in Washington state before he traveled alone, including to locations in South Dakota and other planned destinations.
Investigators said Liang was interested in going to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and also had interest in visiting Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. The government said the episode involved multiple stops rather than a single stop, and it placed the Offutt Air Force Base photography on a late-March timeline tied to the wider trip.
In a quote included in the FBI filing, Liang told investigators that it was “legal to take pictures of the sky, but he knew it was illegal to take pictures of the planes on the ground,” the FBI said. The filing also said he told investigators he was taking the photos for his personal collection.
The FBI said federal law makes it illegal to photograph or sketch defense installations without approval. The filing also referenced that images of both aircraft were available online, while focusing its allegations on Liang’s actions at the base.
Liang’s attorney, Jeff Thomas, declined to comment, according to reporting tied to the court filing. Liang has not appeared yet in federal court in Omaha, where the case would proceed, the filing said.
The case was described as part of a pattern of similar allegations involving people photographing military sites while traveling. The filing cited other examples, including charges against five men confronted in 2023 near a Michigan military site during drills who were charged with lying and trying to cover their tracks, and a 2020 case in which two Chinese nationals pursuing master’s degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally taking photographs at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.