C M Y K Nxxx,2017-03-05,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

WASHINGTON — Three yearsago, President Barack Obama or-dered Pentagon officials to step uptheir cyber and electronic strikesagainst North Korea’s missile pro-gram in hopes of sabotaging testlaunches in their opening sec-onds.

Soon a large number of theNorth’s military rockets began toexplode, veer off course, disinte-grate in midair and plunge into thesea. Advo-cates of suchefforts saythey believethat targetedattacks havegiven Ameri-can antimis-sile defenses anew edge anddelayed byseveral years the day when NorthKorea will be able to threatenAmerican cities with nuclearweapons launched atop intercon-tinental ballistic missiles.

But other experts have grownincreasingly skeptical of the newapproach, arguing that manufac-turing errors, disgruntled insidersand sheer incompetence can alsosend missiles awry. Over the pasteight months, they note, the Northhas managed to successfullylaunch three medium-range rock-ets. And Kim Jong-un, the NorthKorean leader, now claims hiscountry is in “the final stage inpreparations” for the inauguraltest of his intercontinental mis-siles — perhaps a bluff, perhapsnot.

An examination of the Penta-gon’s disruption effort, based oninterviews with officials of theObama and Trump administra-tions as well as a review of exten-sive but obscure public records,found that the United States stilldoes not have the ability to effec-tively counter the North Koreannuclear and missile programs.Those threats are far more resil-ient than many experts thought,The New York Times’s reporting

TRUMP INHERITSSECRET CYBERWAR

ON NORTH KOREA

AN IMPERFECT OPTION

U.S. Tries to SabotageMissile Tests to Slow

Nuclear Threat

By DAVID E. SANGERand WILLIAM J. BROAD

Kim Jong-un

Continued on Page 14

IVAN PIERRE AGUIRRE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

South Plains, a Texas college that copies the Golden State Warriors’ plays, is 28-0. SportsSunday.This Team Can Shoot, and Steal

YAMBIO, South Sudan — Simon Buretewas weeding his peanut field a few weeksago when he saw smoke coming from hishouse. He ran as fast as he could.

He and his wife, Angelina, had enjoyedyears of peace, he farming the fields, sheselling the produce in the market. Theywere poor but welded to each other. Justthat morning, they had talked about walk-ing into town to buy their first mobilephones.

But as Mr. Burete made it back to thehouse, out of breath, red dirt still stuck tohis knees, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Hiswife was lying on the floor, burned to deathin a rampage by government forces.

“I used to call her akara-ngba,” he said,

which means in the Zande language “thelast word on beauty.”

He could barely choke out the words.South Sudan’s war and its full ugliness

are engulfing new, previously peaceful ar-eas of the nation, spelling horror for thevictims and signifying something deeper:This country is cracking apart.

Yambio, a midsize town of wide dirtroads and lofty kapok trees that seem tobreathe tranquillity, used to be part of whatwas called a green state. This place wasconsidered safe. It was not a red zone.

But now charred buildings and crushedhuts line the roads leaving town. Bountifulfields — here in a part of the countryknown as South Sudan’s breadbasket — lie

Women waiting in the early morning at a water collection point in a camp for displaced people in Bentiu, South Sudan, last month.PHOTOGRAPHS BY TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

A New Nation, Cracking ApartMore Ethnic Groups Drawn Into South Sudan’s War as Peaceful Areas Vanish

A woman roasting peanutsin Rimenze, South Sudan,

where food is scarce forthose uprooted by war.

Continued on Page 12

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

AS THE MEDIA class struggles tounderstand an election result fewforesaw, some have blamed aquirk of modern technology.

“The ‘Filter Bubble’ ExplainsWhy Trump Won and You Didn’tSee It Coming,” New York maga-zine announced the day after theelection. “Your Filter Bubble IsDestroying Democracy,” Wireddeclared a week out. One monthin, an M.I.T. Media Lab analysisconfirmed that Trumpsupporters “exist in their owninformation bubble,” as Vicereported — and that journalistsdidn’t let Trump supporters intotheir bubbles, either.

The filter bubble describes thetendency of social networks likeFacebook and Twitter to lockusers into personalized feedbackloops, each with its own newssources, cultural touchstones andpolitical inclinations. We seem to

like these places, and so do socialmedia companies — they keep usclicking from one self-affirmationto another. But now our bubblesare being blamed for leading ustoward the most divisive presi-dency in recent memory, andsuddenly, the bubble doesn’t feelso inviting anymore. So mediaand tech companies are pivoting,selling us a whole suite of offer-ings aimed at bursting the bub-bles they helped to create.

Few people get a kick out ofacknowledging their own biases,so new digital features are easingthe way with candy-coloredvisuals and interactive quizzes.Download the Chrome extensionPolitEcho and watch as it crawls

Having Built a Bubble, Sites Sell a Way OutCRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

By AMANDA HESS

STEPHEN SAVAGE

Continued on Page 21

The arrest of the company’s heir is atest of the cozy system that helpedtransform South Korea into an exportpowerhouse. PAGE 1

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There are a little more than twoweeks between Juan, an electri-cian in the Bronx, and the date hecannot forget: March 21, 2017, at 8a.m., when the federal govern-ment has told him to report for de-portation.

Two weeks to decide: Avoid it,and try to preserve the Americanlife he has built for a little longer,even as a fugitive. Go, and lose it

all: his wife and son, his job, hisapartment, his world.

“I would feel like an animal if Istay here and hide,” said Juan, 29,who asked that his last name notbe used. “I want to prove that I canfollow the laws. I want to make mycase at this meeting, but I knowthat if I go, they’re going to deportme.”

In an immigration system mot-tled with escape hatches and hob-bled by scant resources, Juan,who fled Colombia six years ago,

is one of nearly a million peoplewho have managed to linger in theUnited States despite having beenordered out of the country by animmigration judge — some ofthem more than a decade ago.

And with the Trump adminis-tration intent on sweeping per-haps millions of immigrants with-out legal status out of the country,the White House has not had tolook far to make a quick mark. Be-cause people with deportation or-ders have had their day in court,

most of them can be sent out of thecountry without seeing a judge,sometimes within hours of beingarrested.

“People who have been ordereddeported and who are still hereare the low-hanging fruit,” saidStephen Yale-Loehr, an immigra-tion law professor at Cornell Uni-versity. “Trump has said he haswanted to deport more people.The easiest way to get those num-

Migrants Confront Judgment Day Over Old Deportation OrdersBy VIVIAN YEE

Continued on Page 18

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —President Trump on Saturday ac-cused former President BarackObama of tapping his phones atTrump Tower the month beforethe election, leveling the explosiveallegation without offering anyevidence.

Mr. Trump called his predeces-sor a “bad (or sick) guy” on Twit-ter as he fired off a series of mes-sages claiming that Mr. Obama“had my ‘wires tapped.’” Helikened the supposed tapping to“Nixon/Watergate” and “Mc-Carthyism,” though he did not saywhere he had gotten his informa-tion.

A spokesman for Mr. Obamasaid any suggestion that the for-mer president had ordered suchsurveillance was “simply false.”

During the 2016 campaign, thefederal authorities began an in-vestigation into links betweenTrump associates and the Russiangovernment, an issue thatcontinues to dog Mr. Trump. Hisaides declined to clarify on Satur-day whether the president’s alle-gations were based on briefingsfrom intelligence or law enforce-ment officials — which couldmean that Mr. Trump was reveal-ing previously unknown detailsabout the investigation — or onsomething else, like a news re-port.

But a senior White House offi-cial said that Donald F. McGahn II,the president’s chief counsel, wasworking to secure access to whatMr. McGahn believed to be an or-der issued by the Foreign Intelli-gence Surveillance Court author-izing some form of surveillancerelated to Mr. Trump and hisassociates.

The official offered no evidenceto support the notion that such anorder exists. It would be a highlyunusual breach of the Justice De-partment’s traditional independ-ence on law enforcement mattersfor the White House to order it toturn over such an investigativedocument.

Any request for informationfrom a top White House officialabout a continuing investigationwould be a stunning departurefrom protocols intended to insu-late the F.B.I. from political pres-sure. It would be even more sur-prising for the White House toseek information about a case di-rectly involving the president orhis advisers, as does the case in-volving the Russia contacts.

After the White House received

With No Proof,Trump ClaimsObama Tapped

Charge of Nixon-StylePhone Monitoring

By MICHAEL D. SHEARand MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Continued on Page 16

Men who say they endured “excruciat-ing and shocking” abuse as boys inEngland have put an evangelical leaderat the crux of a widening scandal. PAGE 13

INTERNATIONAL 6-14

Scandal Over Lashing Claims

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVI . . . No. 57,527 © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2017

ENVOY EXPELLED Malaysia gaveNorth Korea’s ambassador 48hours to leave the country. PAGE 6

Today, plenty of sunshine, brisk,cold, high 36. Tonight, clear, cold,low 25. Tomorrow, a mix of sunshineand some clouds, not as cold, high48. Details, SportsSunday, Page 8.

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