LOS ANGELES, California -- A California engineer and his wife and brother have been charged in a plot to pass information about U.S. submarines to the Chinese, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.Chi Mak, 65, who worked for the defense contractor L-3 Communications' subsidiary Power Paragon, was accused in an indictment of taking home information "relating to a sensitive government project." Federal prosecutors said the information involved technology that enables submarines to avoid detection by sonar.Mak's wife, Rebecca Chiu, 62, helped him copy the data to compact discs, and his brother, Tai Mak, encrypted the information and arranged to transport it to China, the indictment states. All three are charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents and face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted. Chi Mak, a Chinese-born American citizen, had a secret security clearance and access to Navy "quiet propulsion" technology, according to an affidavit. The information is not considered secret, but its distribution to other governments is restricted.The FBI arrested Tai Mak and his wife, who was not charged, October 28 at Los Angeles International Airport. They were preparing to board a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, said Gregory Staples, an assistant U.S. attorney in Santa Ana, California. (Full story)FBI agents arrested Chi Mak and his wife, also a Chinese-born American citizen, at their home in nearby Downey.The brothers are being held without bail, and Chiu was released after posting a $300,000 bond, Staples said.