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12/4/08 Asian Week: "A Slap in Our Face: We can’t forget what 
Richardson did to Wen Ho Lee,"
by Emil Guillermo
    Wen Ho Lee is as close as it gets in contemporary Asian Pacific 
American history to a mythic victim of racism in our nation.
    Unlike a symbol of injustice like a Rosa Parks, Lee was no activist and 
did not seek to challenge society. He was merely an ordinary Asian 
American scientist doing his life’s work. And solely because of his race 
was he wrongly suspected of being the most heinous kind of criminal 
to democracy — a spy.
    For his ordeal, Lee rarely receives the respect he deserves and now 
lives in quiet obscurity after being stripped of his livelihood as a nuclear
scientist. To add insult to injury, some still don’t think Lee is innocent.
    Meanwhile, Bill Richardson, secretary of energy in the late 1990s and
the man who fingered Lee and presided over his public flogging, remains
in the limelight and is now being honored as President-elect Obama’s 
new secretary of commerce.
    That may be the ultimate injustice to Wen Ho Lee.
    Simply for his lead role in the Lee case, Richardson should have a
karma deficit so huge that he should be happy to remain ensconced as
the popular governor of New Mexico , far from the national stage.
    But politics and ambition being what they are, Richardson has 
apparently rehabilitated himself to glory in the last eight years. His recent
unsuccessful run for president seemed to be waged on the basis that 
someone who was Latino had to do it. Yet it’s likely he never saw himself
with a real shot to win, and instead used the campaign to position 
himself to fail upwards.
    Sure enough, at this year’s Democratic National Convention, the 
also-ran spoke on that last memorable night at Invesco Field and 
achieved what his failed presidential run could not — a real shot at 
national prominence and a place in Obama’s inner circle. I mean, there’s
got to be a Latino in there somewhere, right?
    Too bad it’s someone responsible for what is arguably the most
prominent case of racism and xenophobia against Asian Americans 
since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
    Richardson, the charming politician, would love for us all to forget
Wen Ho Lee. But we must insist that APAs and all Americans go back
to the memory vault and re-experience the pain of that episode, which
caused a ripple effect from the white towers of academia to the dim 
sum houses of Chinatown and everywhere in between where Asian 
Americans were.
    For a time in our country, every Chinese American was seen as a
suspect. Whether student or professor, Asian or Asian American, just
enough doubt was cast to impact all working relationships.
    Wen Ho Lee’s pain suddenly became all our pain. We were all 
suspects. Before Sept.11 and the terrorist fear, the profiling standard
was not a man with a turban, but a brainy Chinese or Asian American
scientist or student with access to some form of technology, top secret
or not. It really didn’t matter. All that mattered was your Asian heritage.
   
Richardson ’s disgusting role
    These days, the modern memory vault seems to be YouTube 
(check out this short recap of the Lee saga at: tiny.cc/BGHDZ). It’s a 
painful reminder of Richardson ’s adamant defense of his role in the 
Lee case. The clip includes Richardson being grilled on 60 Minutes, as
well as Lee being interviewed on NBC. There’s a shot of the cell where
Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement, waiting for the trial that 
would exonerate him from espionage charges.
    The broadcast clips unfortunately do not represent the overall media
coverage, which was as close as it gets to a modern “yellow journalism.”
The media and the government were in lockstep, feeding on each other.
There were so many leaks to the media from federal sources that it 
could not have been done without some orchestration from the top of 
the Department of Energy. The New York Times was so gung-ho about
being leaked upon, it lost its sense of ethics.
    But even The Times was able to see its error. It ran a massive 
apology to Lee for its failure to present a fair human portrait of Lee and
admitted to an over reliance on a few government sources.
    The Times had no choice but to apologize. Even Judge James Parker,
the presiding judge in the Lee case, issued an apology to Lee upon his
release for how badly government prosecutors had bungled the case.
    One man should have had the moral courage to change all of that 
history: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. But he didn’t.
    Now he hopes we’ve forgotten all about it. It would be quite the norm
to forget what happens to Asian Americans; we have constantly been 
ignored, overlooked. How many Asian Americans do you see 
mentioned in the Obama transition? So why should we expect anything
different now? Because America cannot afford to forget what 
happened to Lee.
    President-elect Obama should not give in to Richardson ’s charm or
to the large Latino vote he claims. Latino activists have propped
Richardson
up as the “Latino guy.” But how many people outside a 
small circle even know Richardson is Latino? Besides, his race is 
irrelevant; ours isn’t.
    A Richardson selection is purely a matter of ambition and political 
payback, not the public good. Surely there is someone better for the 
commerce job who doesn’t have a history of trading in xenophobia?
    President-elect Obama shouldn’t dismiss concerns of Asian 
Americans who overwhelming supported his campaign. The choice 
sends a negative message to APAs everywhere. Richardson  
represents a regression. He is simply unfit to be part of any “cabinet
of change.”
    On-line petitions are being circulated at http://www.wenholee.org/ 
and petitiononline.com/GovBillR/petition.html


12/02/2008 San Jose Mercury News: “Chinese-American activists oppose
any Bill Richardson cabinet nomination,”
by Ken McLaughlin
    In a move bound to create political tension between Latinos and Asian-
Americans, a group of Chinese-American activists in Silicon Valley has 
launched a nationwide grass-roots movement to fight President-elect 
Barack Obama's nomination today of Bill Richardson as commerce 
secretary.
    The group is upset at the New Mexico governor for his handling of the 
nearly decade-old case of Taiwanese-American Wen Ho Lee, a former 
nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. officials once 
suspected Lee of giving nuclear secrets to China when Richardson was 
President Clinton's energy secretary.
    The Chinese-Americans say they realize that challenging the nomination
of Richardson , 61, the nation's most high-profile Hispanic politician, will 
ruffle the Latino community, many of whose leaders felt he should have 
been named secretary of state instead of Sen. Hillary Clinton. 
    But the Chinese-American group insists that Richardson 's refusal to 
acknowledge making serious errors in the case makes it a moral 
imperative to oppose his nomination to Obama's Cabinet. They say their
criticism of Richardson has nothing to do with him being Latino but 
everything to do with his lack of judgment in the case.
    "This was the major Chinese-American civil rights case in the last 30
years,'' said Albert Wang, a Fremont physician. "And there was a feeling
among many Chinese-Americans, particularly in Silicon Valley, that Bill
Richardson did a lot to promote the notion that all Chinese-Americans are
potential spies.''
    The group has already gathered more than 4,000 electronic signatures
protesting Richardson 's nomination as head of the federal department 
dealing with business and industry.
    A former congressman and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
Richardson ran for president against Obama in the Democratic primary
and later endorsed him over Sen. Clinton. He has acknowledged the 
government made "some mistakes'' in the Lee case, but he has denied 
that his public statements naming Lee as an espionage suspect 
represented racial scapegoating or exhibited a lack of judgment.
    But Roger Hu, a 30-year-old Silicon Valley engineer who was raised in
Los Altos and was an Obama delegate at the Democratic convention, 
has written an "open letter'' to Obama and the transition team stating that
Richardson should not be nominated or confirmed for any Cabinet-level
position.
    In the letter, which appears on his blog at http://notorich.blogspot.com,
 Hu says he became aware of the Lee case when he was entering his 
senior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
    " Richardson 's actions were simply inexcusable,'' he writes.
    Hu, Wang and well-known Chinese-American human rights activists 
such as Henry Der plan to say in a new letter to Obama today, posted at
www.wenholee.org, that Richardson 's actions violated Lee's due process
rights by firing him without the required legal notice. It will also accuse 
Richardson of promoting Lee's indictment when there was no evidence 
that he had engaged in espionage.
    Until Richardson apologizes for his actions, the group says, it will 
continue to oppose the nomination.
    Der accused Richardson of fueling suspicions about the loyalties of 
dedicated, hardworking Chinese-Americans.
    "Wen Ho Lee bore the brunt of Richardson's actions, but there were 
many Chinese-American scientists who felt great fear,'' said Der, who 
once headed Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco. "Even I 
got a visit from the FBI, and I'm not a scientist.''
    Caitlin Kelleher, press spokeswoman for Gov. Richardson, referred
calls on Tuesday to Obama's transition office. A spokesman there would
not comment on anyone not yet officially nominated.
    Victor Garza, chairman of La Raza Roundtable, a San Jose-based 
civil rights group with about 800 members, said Richardson "is one of the
most high-profile Hispanics in the United States who has done an 
excellent job in many high-profile jobs.''
    Noting that his group has endorsed many Asian-Americans running for
local offices, Garza said he hopes "my brothers and sisters who happen
to be Chinese don't allow their resentment'' over Richardson 's handling
of the Lee case "to become a single issue'' that could threaten his 
nomination.
    "And I hope this single issue won't create a major problem between 
the two groups,'' Garza said.
    Lee, now 68, was indicted on Dec. 10, 1999, on 59 counts that 
accused him of mishandling nuclear weapons secrets. His arrest followed
months of press reports and speculation that he had passed secrets to
China
something with which he was never charged and always denied.
He spent the next nine months in solitary confinement at the Santa Fe 
County Jail.
    Supporters claimed Lee, who was born in Taiwan and is a naturalized 
U.S. citizen, was being targeted because of his race. The government 
denied that, although former Los Alamos counterintelligence chief Robert
Vrooman says Lee was singled out because he is ethnic Chinese.
    Initially, government attorneys said Lee had stolen the "crown jewels" 
of U.S. nuclear weaponry science and intended to turn them over to a 
foreign power. But the government was eventually forced to acknowledge
that the material was classified "restricted" rather than secret and that 
"99 percent" of the material was already available to the public.
    Lee eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading 
sensitive material and was sentenced to time served.
    Some political analysts see the dust-up as one of the opening salvos in
an evolving political mosaic created by the election of the nation's first 
black president.
    Gregory Rodriguez, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, 
said the controversy shows that all the talk about a "post-racial America ''
is overblown.
    "We believed we were going to work our way to the point where race 
did not matter,'' said Rodriguez, author of "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans,
and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America.''
    But the reality, Rodriguez said, is that "race is only going to affect our 
society in more complex ways.''


11/28/08 Asian Week: “Commerce Secretary Appointment Draws Ire
From Asian Americans: Community looks back at Richardson ’s role in
Wen Ho Lee Case,”
by Andrew Lee
        New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s appointment this week as
President-elect Barack Obama’s commerce secretary is being greeted
with anger and disappointment by some who remember the former energy
secretary’s role in the botched investigation and prosecution of scientist
Dr. Wen Ho Lee.
    In 1999, Richardson and several other Department of Energy officials
publicly accused the Taiwanese-born Lee of stealing classified nuclear-
related documents from the Los Alamos Laboratories.
    Lee, who had been employed at Los Alamos for 21 years, was indicted
and spent 278 days in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, the case became
a national story as suspicions formed that Lee was performing espionage
for the Chinese government.
    In the face of insufficient evidence, Lee pled guilty to a substantially
reduced charge and received a public apology from President Bill
Clinton for his mistreatment at the hands of the federal government.
    The future New Mexico governor came under fire for his role in the
case, as allegations surfaced that it was Richardson who leaked
damaging classified personal information about Lee in an apparent
attempt to smear the 69-year-old doctor in the press. Lee eventually
received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the federal government and
several media outlets in 2006.
   
Richardson ’s new appointment has drawn fierce criticism from
members of the Asian American community, many of whom still blame
the New Mexico governor for perpetuating a harmful image of Chinese
Americans.
    “ Richardson inflamed the stereotype that Americans of Chinese
descent are easily disloyal citizens of our country,” said Henry Der who
was Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action in the 1990s.
Der called upon members of the Senate Commerce Committee to
investigate Richardson ’s conduct as secretary of energy during
Richardson ’s confirmation hearings.
    For critics like Der, Richardson ’s refusal to acknowledge his own
misconduct during the scandal remains a bitter sticking point.
    “[He] needs to… apologize for the grave, calculated mistakes and
harm he perpetrated against Lee and our nation’s sense of justice,”
Der said.
    Guy Wong, a member of a group of Chinese Americans who
supported Wen Ho Lee during his imprisonment, went further in his
criticism of the former energy secretary.
    “Bill Richardson is simply a ruthless opportunist,” said Wong, who
circulated a petition urging President-elect Obama to deny Richardson
any cabinet position prior to Tuesday’s announcement. Wong criticized
Richardson and other government officials for being “willing to lie, not
just to Dr. Lee, but also in open court, in order to gain advantage over
an innocent and powerless man.”
    That Richardson’s appointment comes at a time of unprecedented
economic turmoil concerns Asian American business leaders like John
Jin Lee, chairman of the Asian Business League of San Francisco.
    “Mr. Richardson’s association with the well-documented mishandling
of the Wen Ho Lee case at the very least raises the question as to his
qualifications,” said Lee.
    Shien Biau “S.B.” Woo, former lieutenant governor of Delaware and
co-founder of the prominent 80-20 Initiative, an Asian American political
organization, had a different view.
    “I doubt if we want to burn our political capital opposing the
appointment of Richardson ,” Woo said, questioning the notion that the
Wen Ho Lee case was an important issue to Asian Americans.
    In lieu of opposing the appointment and risk angering the Hispanic
community, Woo proffered that the Asian American community should
work to increase its influence instead of focusing on negatives.
    “The politic way of doing things has always been not to be concerned
with what others are getting,” said Woo. “We have to be politically astute.
Otherwise we’ll never succeed in enlarging our political clout.”



6/6/06 San Francisco Chronicle: Why privacy matters -- the case of Wen Ho Lee, by Helen Zia
    Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos nuclear physicist, finally may be vindicated. Now that the federal government and five media companies have agreed to pay a settlement of $1.6 million, of which Lee will receive $750,000, it is his turn to point a finger.
    After he was accused of espionage, imprisoned, then released with an apology in September 2000, Wen Ho Lee's legal battles continued over the government leaks of his personal information that led to his ordeal. The five media companies -- the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, the Washington Post and ABC -- announced in a joint statement that they are making this unprecedented settlement to protect the identities of their confidential news sources, and to protect journalists. More specifically, they feared that the courts would force their reporters to reveal the anonymous sources who leaked Wen Ho Lee's personal information, in violation of the Privacy Act.
    While the defense of journalists is a noble ideal, the actual news reports about Wen Ho Lee tell a far less admirable tale. Lee's lawsuit recounted numerous incidents of government officials manipulating and misleading the news media into producing stories that falsely portrayed the Chinese American as a devious master spy and threat to the American people.
    To cite just a few examples, named and unnamed government sources told the news media that:
    -- Wen Ho Lee had failed a polygraph test about giving secrets to China , proving that he was deceptive, which was prominently reported in the news. This was false -- he had unequivocally passed the polygraph.
    -- Lee's private financial data indicated that he had purchased a ticket to Shanghai , which was prominently reported in the news. This was false -- he had given money to his daughter so she could take a tour of Hong Kong .
    -- He failed to report the names of Peoples Republic of China scientists he met at a conference, as required; this was also false -- he had duly filed the appropriate reports.
    -- He had tricked a Los Alamos colleague into using a computer by saying he wanted to "download his resume" -- this too was false.
    News stories containing such fabrications and distortions were often attributed to anonymous government sources and appeared as regular, indeed headline, news for nearly a year before his arrest, beginning with the New York Times coverage in March 1999. This was well before Wen Ho Lee was charged with "mishandling classified information" -- not with espionage that was "as bad as the Rosenbergs," as characterized by the Times. Nevertheless, Lee was imprisoned for nine months in pre-trial detention, shackled and chained in solitary confinement, largely because he had been portrayed as such a sinister threat to America 's national security. Yet even after Wen Ho Lee and his attorneys proved such stories to be false, the factual stories or follow-up reporting on why disinformation had been planted received little or no coverage.
    Though Lee had been a U.S. citizen for more than 30 years, the fact that he was born in Taiwan and his Chinese ethnicity played into the feverish innuendo from pundits and politicians that Chinese spies were swarming into the United States . Many observers of this case, including many Asian Americans, believe that Lee was singled out because of his Chinese heritage.
    Indeed, because of his mistreatment by the government, Asian scientists virtually stopped seeking employment to the national labs, severely depleting their scientific talent pool.
    It is worth noting that Lee was the first -- and remains -- the only person to be criminally prosecuted and imprisoned for mishandling classified information -- the same charge that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is considering in his investigation of the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the press.
    What happened to Wen Ho Lee still stands as a cautionary tale for all Americans, especially as untold numbers of people are being detained, without charges or trial, because they too are "threats" to national security. It is not yet known who will be profiled from the immense database the National Security Agency is amassing on everyone's phone calls. Experts are already warning that "false positives" are inevitable. Wen Ho Lee's experience shows how bits of private information can be manipulated into a nightmare.
    When the federal judge freed Wen Ho Lee from prison, he offered an apology, saying what happened to Lee has "embarrassed our nation and each of us who is a citizen of it." It behooves us all to remember why.
    Helen Zia, a writer based in the Bay Area, co-authored Wen Ho Lee's book, "My Country Versus Me" (Hyperion, 2002).  

6/2/06 Associated Press: Wen Ho Lee settles privacy lawsuit,
by Mark Sherman
    Washington Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of being a spy, settled his privacy lawsuit Friday and will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations in a case that turned into a fight over reporters' confidential sources.
    Lee will receive $895,000 from the government for legal fees and associated taxes in the 6 1/2-year-old lawsuit in which he accused the Energy and Justice departments of violating his privacy rights by leaking information that he was under investigation as a spy for China .
    The Associated Press and four other news organizations have agreed to pay Lee $750,000 as part of the settlement, which ends contempt of court proceedings against five reporters who refused to disclose the sources of their stories about the espionage investigation.
    Lee said of the settlement: "We are hopeful that the agreements reached today will send the strong message that government officials and journalists must and should act responsibly in discharging their duties and be sensitive to the privacy interests afforded to every citizen of this country."
    The payment by AP, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and ABC is the only one of its kind in recent memory, and perhaps ever, legal and media experts said.
    The companies said they agreed to the sum to forestall jail sentences for their reporters, even larger payments in the form of fines and the prospect of revealing confidential sources. The companies and their reporters were not defendants in the privacy lawsuit.
    "We were reluctant to contribute anything to this settlement, but we sought relief in the courts and found none," the companies said. "Given the rulings of the federal courts in Washington and the absence of a federal shield law, we decided this was the best course to protect our sources and to protect our journalists."
    The statement noted that the accuracy of the reporting itself was not challenged.
The government agencies did not admit that they had violated Lee's privacy rights.
    Betsy Miller, one of Lee's lawyers, said the payments show "that both the government and the journalists knew that they had significant exposure had this case gone to trial."
    Lee was fired from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico , but he was never charged with espionage. He was held in solitary confinement for nine months, then released in 2000 after pleading guilty to mishandling computer files. A judge apologized for Lee's treatment.
    Two federal judges held the reporters in contempt for refusing to reveal their sources to Lee. The journalists had argued that he could obtain the information elsewhere.
    U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer signed an order Friday vacating the contempt proceedings against the reporters, H. Josef Hebert of The Associated Press, James Risen of The New York Times, Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times, Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, and Pierre Thomas, formerly of CNN and now working for ABC News.
    CNN, in a separate statement, said it declined to join in the settlement "because we had a philosophical disagreement over whether it was appropriate to pay money to Wen Ho Lee or anyone else to get out from under a subpoena."
    The reporters had appealed the contempt rulings to the Supreme Court. The justices recently delayed a decision on whether to take up the reporters' case after being told a settlement was near.
    Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the payment unusual and perhaps unprecedented.
    "I'm certainly not happy about this, but I'm not sure I could have dreamed up a better result," Dalglish said. "On the positive side, it appears that this result will allow these reporters to continue to protect their sources."
    The settlement underscores the need for a federal law that would shield reporters from having to disclose their sources, she said.


12/22/05 San Gabriel Valley Tribune: Legal experts say prosecution bungled espionage case,
By Gene Maddaus
    It's a ploy familiar to anyone who's watched a Mafia movie. When prosecuting two defendants, offer the small fry a deal in exchange for testimony against the big fish. You pocket a partial win and improve the chances for a total victory.
    It should have worked that way in the case of accused double agent Katrina Leung, the San Marino society figure once accused of passing secrets to China .
    Instead, the plea agreement prosecutors struck with Leung's FBI handler and ex-lover, James J. Smith, ended up sinking the Leung prosecution.
    A clause in the agreement spurred the judge to declare prosecutorial misconduct and toss out the case, leading to last week's face-saving denouement. Once considered so dangerous to national security that she could not be given bail, Leung pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and filing a false tax return. She got probation.
    In retrospect, the case seems to have fallen apart due to what appeared to be a relatively harmless mistake. But legal experts and community leaders also have questioned the government's strategy in pursuing Leung to the exclusion of Smith.
    Smith, after all, continued his affair with Leung for a decade after learning of her illicit contacts with Chinese intelligence agents, according to FBI affidavits. He also continued to work as her handler, using her to gather information on China , and continued to provide her with classified information, documents show.
    Many in the legal community were surprised when Smith was allowed to take a plea deal with no jail time in exchange for his testimony against Leung.
    "This was a rather significant betrayal by an FBI agent," said attorney Stanley Greenberg, who defended Richard W. Miller, the first FBI agent ever accused of espionage. "It's one thing to have a dipsy woman on the outside trying to play off both sides who has a bunch of friends in China . To me, the greater harm is the betrayal by the FBI agent."
    Some, including Leung's lawyers, see it as a clear-cut case of discrimination. Leung's attorneys argued in an early motion that the decision to grant Smith bail was the result of "unintended sexism and/or racism." In their motion to dismiss the case, the defense argued that Smith's plea deal was "unsavory" because it perpetuated the "gross and unfair disparity in treatment between Mr. Smith and Ms. Leung."
    In her order dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper all but agreed, calling Smith's plea a "sweetheart deal."
    Though legal observers discounted the idea that Leung's gender or ethnicity played a role in the government's pursuit of her, some community leaders noted that the case was laden with familiar stereotypes.
    "I'm concerned about the continuing string of allegations against Asian-Pacific Americans regarding espionage that crumble into minor plea deals," said Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park .
    "It challenges the loyalty of Asian-Pacific Americans without generating any apparent benefit to national security."
    Others wondered whether Leung's gender was the operative factor.
    "It probably goes back to Adam and Eve," said Diana Peterson-More, a candidate for Assembly who has long worked on feminist causes. "We women are somehow the evil ones that cause the men to fall from grace."
    Cooper dismissed the case in January because of an unusual clause in the Smith plea agreement that prevented him from speaking with Leung's defense lawyers as they prepared for her trial.
    Though unlikely to have had any practical effect - Smith almost certainly would not have talked to Leung's lawyers with or without the clause - Cooper found it to be unethical and grounds for dismissal.
    Legal experts saw the clause as unnecessary.
    "I've been in dozens of cases where people have entered into plea agreements," Greenberg said
    "And nobody has ever put in a plea agreement that you can't talk to the defense. It's understood that if you're sleeping with the government, you're not having extramarital affairs with the defense. ... It's either unspoken, or spoken verbally but not put in writing. So why did they put it in writing?"
    The government maintained that the language was misconstrued, and that prosecutors merely wanted to prevent Smith from disclosing classified information.
    Greenberg speculated the clause was added because of "micromanaging from Washington ."
    Bruce Merritt, a former federal prosecutor who worked on an espionage case, agreed that the clause was ill-advised, but said he was "unsettled" by Cooper's decision.
    "The sanction of dismissing the case does seem to be a little severe," he said.
    Prosecutors appealed, but lacking absolute confidence of victory, U.S. Attorney Debra Yang worked simultaneously with Leung's lawyers to negotiate a resolution.
    "I think the government realized that their best argument was, `Even if we engaged in misconduct, there wasn't real prejudice,"' said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. "That's not the strongest position to be in - to say `We got caught, but it didn't really damage the case."'
    Leung and her defense team could not be completely confident either. She was under a separate investigation for tax charges, and may have thought that Cooper's dismissal order was just a lucky break - unlikely to be granted by most judges and vulnerable to being overturned.
    The deal announced last Friday provided that Leung's sentence would be identical to Smith's.
    At last, she got parity.
    "It looks like both sides gave up something but got something," Greenberg said. "The government gave up the more serious charge but got the face-saving conviction. She has to be a felon for the rest of her life, but she put this all behind her without serving any jail time."
    Leung's attorneys declared victory. Merritt said that prosecutors, on the other hand, will label it a "failed case."
    "These espionage cases are about as high-profile as cases get in the federal system," he said. "You don't generally surface a case like that, and let the media wallow in it, unless you think (A) it's sufficiently serious to warrant prosecution and (B) the case is sufficiently strong to be a probable winner. In this particular case, they got egg on their face."
    Left unanswered, because there was no trial, is just how culpable Smith and Leung may have been. Did she, as court papers allege, pass state secrets to China ? Was Smith an unwitting dupe or a willful accomplice? Or was the whole thing, as the Leung defense maintained, "much ado about nothing"?
    "I know that in the (defense) statement issued on Friday, they complained that Ms. Leung was never going to be able to tell her story," said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek. "It's fair to say the government, by virtue of how this case moved along, was never able to tell its side of the story either."  


12/16/05 Sacramento Bee: Former FBI informant in China-linked case makes plea deal,
By Linda Deutsch
   
Los Angeles (AP) - A woman once accused of being a Chinese double agent while having a long love affair with an FBI agent, pleaded guilty Friday to making a false statement to the FBI and filing a false tax return in a surprise ending to a complex case in which implications of sex and intrigue overwhelmed suggestions of spying.
    Katrina Leung, 51, admitted she lied to the FBI about her intimate relationship with her FBI handler, James J. Smith, and that she failed to include all her income on her tax returns for the year 2000.
    Leung, a socialite who lives in the wealthy suburb of San Marino , stood between her attorneys as she addressed U.S. District Judge Florence Marie Cooper.
    "I want to say that it's great to be an American. I love America . I love American values," Leung said.
    "I'm looking forward to putting this behind me and continuing on in this beautiful country," she said. "God bless America ."
    Leung, who already spent three months in jail and 18 months in home detention, agreed to be immediately sentenced. The plea deal provided for no more time in custody, three years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $10,000 fine. She agreed to government debriefings, including use of polygraph devices.
    Leung acknowledged that when she was questioned by the FBI about Smith she told them that he was "just a good family friend" and that she had never traveled with him abroad. In her plea she said she traveled with him to Hong Kong and England and they did have an intimate relationship.
    She said she concealed $35,000 in payments from the FBI and $16,389 in rental income on her tax return.
    The tax return was filed for her and her husband. The judge said the plea agreement relieves him of all further tax consequences as well. Her husband, Kam Leung, sat in the front row of the courtroom as she entered the plea.
    Smith pleaded guilty in connection with the case and was sentenced earlier this year to probation and a fine of $10,000. He admitted that he had lied to the FBI about his affair with Leung.
    Leung, a naturalized citizen, was recruited to work for the FBI, gathering intelligence during frequent business trips to China . Smith was her FBI handler and vouched for her trustworthiness during briefings with his superiors.
    Prosecutors claimed Leung began working for China as a double agent around 1990. An indictment contended she had access to classified documents from Smith's briefcase which she copied with the intent of using them to benefit a foreign nation. But neither she nor Smith was ever charged with espionage.
    Smith was charged with gross negligence for allegedly allowing her access to the classified material. He ultimately pleaded to a single count of making a false statement about their affair.
    The case against Leung virtually collapsed early this year when the judge rebuked prosecutors for "deliberate misconduct" and dismissed all charges.
    The judge said prosecutors purposely kept the defense from contacting Smith as they prepared for Leung's trial and, in so doing, violated her due process rights to a key witness.
    The government appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the charges and that appeal was pending when the plea bargain was announced.
    Outside court, Leung was asked why she decided to plead guilty with the government appeal still pending.
    "I pled guilty today because I want to put this all behind me and let the past be the past and move forward," she said.
    Defense attorney Janet Levine said the outcome was "vindication for Katrina and Kam Leung."
    Co-counsel John Vandevelde said, "It takes a strong individual with a strong family and resources to fight this kind of case. The government has incredible power, especially today."
    Leung was paid a total of $1.7 million by the FBI for her information as an intelligence asset code-named "Parlor Maid." Both she and Smith were married during their affair and their respective spouses have stood by them.

12/15/05 The New York Review of Books: The Strange Case of Chaplain Yee,
By Joseph Lelyveld            1.
    Each time the Muslim prisoners held in open-ended preventive detention at the Guantánamo naval station in Cuba have to be moved from their cells to interrogation rooms, they're fitted in what their military police guards sardonically term "a three-piece suit," which consists of shackles attached by chains to a heavy belt: one shackle for each ankle, the third for the wrists. Captain James Yee, a 1990 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, witnessed innumerable such fittings during the ten months he was a daily presence as a Muslim chaplain inside the cages of Camp Delta where supposed al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists were dumped as a way of holding them beyond reach of any US court. This might have prepared him for his own fitting in a "three-piece suit," which occurred at the naval brig in Jacksonville, Florida, shortly after his arrest in September 2003 on what he was eventually advised were charges of mutiny, aiding the enemy, and espionage, on any of which prosecutors could have demanded the death penalty.
   
Al-Qaeda, anonymous investigators suggested to the press, had infiltrated Guantánamo in the person of this West Point graduate, a third-generation Chinese-American from New Jersey who had made his first profession of faith as a Muslim at a Newark mosque, three months after completing his officers training.
    James Yee's spiritual journey over the next decade, which eventually brought him to Cuba as the fourth Muslim chaplain assigned in less than a year to Camp Delta 's detainees, seems to have begun almost casually. At first, his conversion "did not feel particularly momentous," he tells us in his memoir For God and Country. In his description, it sounds more like a consumer than a theological choice: accepting the "simplicity" of Islam's belief in one God didn't require trading in Jesus for Muhammad, as he saw it, but putting them more or less on a par as prophets. Although he had been raised as a Lutheran to believe in the Trinity, he had never considered religion to be a major factor in his life and didn't see why it had to become one as a consequence of his conversion. Islam, at this stage, was a more comfortable creed, not a way of life.
    To his apparent surprise, its claim on his attention gradually deepened, particularly when he was assigned to Saudi Arabia , after the first Gulf War, as an air defense artillery officer in a Patriot missile crew. Setting an example of religious tolerance that, needless to say, went unreciprocated, the American command allowed its troops to frequent a Saudi "cultural center" at King Abdul Aziz air base where non-Muslims were quietly proselytized- Yee claims that large numbers of Americans converted during the Gulf War-and Muslim servicemen could sign up for bus excursions to Mecca. Yee, who professes to have felt entirely at home in the relatively homogeneous New Jersey suburb where he'd grown up as a member of an ethnic minority, found a kind of liberation in the "diversity" of Islam. This was real multiculturalism, all those Asians, Africans, Iranians, and Turks mixed in with Arabs and praying on a footing of equality; this was indeed "momentous." Mecca , as he experienced it on this first of three trips (the first a mere visit, the second two a proper Hajj), was what his father had always taught him America was supposed to be. "The diversity of Islam," he writes, "was incredible.... I'd never seen anything as truly diverse as this."
    So moved was he that within two years he'd resigned from the army with the aim of pursuing Islamic studies to qual-ify as an imam and immersing himself in Arabic; within three years, this Chinese-American West Point graduate from New Jersey was enrolled in Abu Noor University in Damascus where he stayed four years, returning home with a Palestinian wife who kept herself covered and spoke only limited English. Captain Yee's story is remarkable even before he was recruited back into the army as a Muslim chaplain, even before he was sent to Guantánamo. His story up to this point, before it turns really dark, has strong interest as a narrative of one American's quest in the mall of religions, faiths, and cults that this country becomes for so many of its denizens. One would like to see what a novelist with a taste for American tales of improbable self-invention and cultural mutation, T.C. Boyle, perhaps, would do with it. To tell the rest of Captain Yee's story would require Joseph Conrad.
    Its subsequent episodes display the US military's profound confusion about Islam: its self-congratulation and religiosity, which lead it to boast that it provides Korans, chaplain services, and an opportunity to pray in the direction of Mecca to those it detains indefinitely as "terrorists"; while its overriding devotion to its mission leads it to interfere with the religious practice of those same detainees in order to pressure them psychologically, squeeze them for intelligence they may or may not have held back, and, generally, show them who's in charge. It's asking a lot of the individual military policeman, not to mention the individual major general, to draw a fine line between the war on terror and a war on Islam, when Islam and their own misery are all that unite the inmates in the wire-mesh cages of a high-security prison. In this case, the major general was General Geoffrey Miller, who had been dispatched by Donald Rumsfeld to Camp Delta- and later Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -with the specific charge of improving the "harvest" of what's known as "actionable intelligence."
    Into this storm of cultural confusion and ruthless resolve walked the naive James Yee in November 2002, rendered even more so by his head-turning success in his first posting as a chaplain at Fort Lewis, Washington, where he'd won the warm approbation of his commanders who thus reinforced the conviction he'd formed in Mecca that there could be no conflict between service to Allah and service to America. In Yee's eclectic theology, American values like religious freedom "are inherent in Islam and were a large part of what had led me to embrace this religion." In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the newly minted chaplain had initiated at Fort Lewis a series of "sensitivity training" sessions on Islam for officers and enlisted men, in which he earnestly argued that terrorist attacks on innocents were inimical to the teachings of the Koran. "This work was fulfilling," he declares in For God and Country, written "with" (or perhaps by) a journalist, Aimee Molloy. "It was why I had become a chaplain." Soon he was being sent to other military installations to make the same presentation and army publicists were arranging for him to be interviewed on National Public Radio and MSNBC. "I had become the US military's poster child of a good Muslim," he says.
    He was so prized during this period that no one in the military seems to have raised questions about his long stay in Damascus, a line on his rĂ©sumĂ© that might have rung some bells during a security vetting, if there had been such a thing for chaplains assigned to Guantánamo. It seems there wasn't, at least in the case of the one Muslim chaplain with a West Point diploma. If his Syrian connection was ever noted, it would have been only later when a cloud of suspicion had already settled over the heads of all the Muslim servicemen with access to this remote and heavily guarded prison. Then the fairly striking (but easily explained) fact that he had tried placing phone calls from Guantánamo to Damascus-where his wife and daughter had gone for the duration of his stay in Cuba, in order to be with her family-may well have been added to the dossier being assembled for General Miller that depicted James Yee, grotesquely and implausibly, as an al-Qaeda ringleader.
    Before the case against Chaplain Yee collapsed, Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Jon Kyl of Arizona , the columnist John Leo, as well as an array of conservative and Christian bloggers would seize on his arrest as evidence that radical Islamicists had taken control of the recruitment of Muslim chaplains into our armed forces. They offered no evidence bearing on his recruitment back into the army, however; by his own telling, Yee was first approached by a Muslim African-American, an ex-marine, at a Ramadan banquet at that hotbed of Islamic ferment, that notorious madrasa, the Pentagon.
    Yee had scant opportunity to offer a public rebuttal of the charges he faced, or the portrayal of him as a traitor by anonymous government leakers, or the further allegations the charges and leaks inspired. First he was held in solitary confinement; then, on his release, placed under a gag order. "Speech that undermines the effectiveness of loyalty, discipline or unit morale is not constitutionally protected," he was warned. The gag order stayed in force until his separation from the military-on a hard-won honorable discharge-early this year. His book thus tells a story that reporters who followed his case never got to hear from the accused.
    Actually, it appears, all Captain Yee had to do to attract suspicion was to intercede repeatedly at Camp Delta on behalf of the prisoners, as their chaplain, when he saw their guards being unnecessarily-and, he came to feel, deliberately-provocative: in handling Korans during cell searches, for instance, or taking detainees out of their cells in shackles for interrogation just as the hour arrived for prayer. He had also begun to meet regularly with the forty or so Muslim servicemen on the base, for he was their chaplain, too. Since the mess halls didn't provide halal food, some of them found it convenient to gather in the captain's quarters for meals. Among these American-born or naturalized Muslims were some who brought back stories of prisoner abuse from the interrogation rooms, where they were assigned as interpreters but which were off-limits to the chaplain, who soon began keeping a "personal journal of the atrocities that I was hearing about in the interrogation rooms and on the blocks." Some of this abuse the interpreters not unreasonably took to be abuse of Muslims as Muslims-for instance, wrapping prisoners in an Israeli flag, or playing a compact disc of verses from the Koran to set the scene for an interrogation session, only to drown it out with screeching rock music. The prisoners were also left chained in a fetal position for hours.
    In their second year of confinement, a significant proportion of the prisoners began to exhibit symptoms of depression. Some went mute; others seemed to be regressing to patterns of childish behavior, singing to themselves in thin high-pitched voices. About a third, Yee says, were on antidepressants; at any given time, roughly twenty were kept in a psychiatric ward.
    In the claustrophobic circumstances of the American military enclave, Captain Yee's evening gatherings and services could be construed as alien, suspicious, not with the program, even mutinous. We now know that the captain's quarters were searched. We don't know if they were ever bugged, a possibility that Yee doesn't raise in these pages. But it stands to reason that they may have been, in which case the investigators-inexperienced reservists who thought they were uncovering a plot-may have heard resentful talk that they took to be conspiratorial. Such suspicions were apparently fanned by interpreters from non-Muslim backgrounds (who mostly learned Arabic in the military, where they would have achieved a level of proficiency that didn't begin to match that of native speakers). The idea that Camp Delta had been infiltrated by al-Qaeda was far-fetched from the start, but the prison was on a war footing since the day it was set up, patrolled as if attack from the sea by the nonexistent al-Qaeda navy were a real possibility; infiltration from within was not the least-plausible threat imagined by the command in training exercises designed to keep the prison's guards on constant alert.
    Eventually Yee became such an object of suspicion that military policemen took to calling out "Chaplain on the block!" to warn guards inside that an intrusion was about to occur in the person of a US Army captain, or bar him till they were good and ready to let him in, even though his orders gave him complete access to the prison and he outranked the enlisted men who stood in his way. But this didn't happen until many months had passed. And, as a result, Yee is now able to give us the most coherent and detailed account that we've had of conditions inside the Guantánamo cages; he can also provide the context and narrative for bits of information about abuses of prisoners that had emerged earlier in a fragmentary way as a result of discovery motions brought by civil liberties lawyers. For instance, he makes it clear that an epidemic of suicide attempts in the summer of 2003 was an organized protest, not a collective nervous breakdown. He was often present when the prisoners erupted in fury, banging on the cages, shouting, and spitting at the guards.
    2.
    Newsweek appears to have got it wrong last year when it reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at Camp Delta (not an easy thing to accomplish, if you think about it). But abuse of the holy book that the command had so proudly installed in every cell, like a Gideon Bible in a hotel room, was a chronic issue, providing the kindling for most of these flare-ups. What he calls "the worst incident I was aware of" occurred in late July 2003 when, he tells us, an interrogator threw a detainee's Koran on the floor, "stepped on it, and kicked it across the room." When word of the incident spread through the cages, as it inevitably did, the prisoners tried to go on strike by vowing not to speak at all in the interrogation rooms.
    That didn't get them the apology from General Miller they were seeking so they escalated their protest, orchestrating a series of suicide attempts. It started with a detainee using his bed sheet to hang himself from the wire mesh in his cage while prisoners nearby raised a storm of noise. The guards then came stomping into the cell to cut him down, holler for medics, and transfer him in shackles to the infirmary. No sooner was this done than another prisoner would be found hanging by a sheet and the same cycle, with all the yelling, banging, and stomping, would be repeated. Over several days, twenty-three prisoners tried to hang themselves in protest over the incident and the general hopelessness of their situation.
    The struggle over Koran abuse reached such a pitch that the Muslim chaplain actually recommended to his superiors that the books be removed from the cells and placed in the prison library for safekeeping. He'd gotten the idea from detainees with whom he'd been speaking, but the colonel who served as Camp Delta 's warden wouldn't consider it. "Every cell gets a Koran," he's quoted as saying. "That's not an option." In effect, the chaplain was being told that we would respect Islam in our own way, giving as much offense to its practitioners as we wanted.
    In an effort to end this ugly farce, Captain Yee drafted a military SOP (standard operating procedure) on how to avoid incidents over the Koran that was accepted by the command and read out to the prisoners in Arabic, on General Miller's order, over the public address system. Guards were told never to touch the book and to call on the chaplain or a Muslim interpreter to handle it if they felt one had to be moved or searched. If Muslim servicemen were not readily available, the guard was to put on clean gloves. Surgical masks were provided to each cell to serve as little hammocks in which Korans could be safely deposited, high off the floor and away from toilets.
    The surgical masks proved to be no solution. On their daily inspections, Captain Yee says, MPs would not infrequently manage to tug on the masks so that the Korans fell out. According to him, the 344 MPs Company from Connecticut stood out for its adeptness at mask tugging. They knew they weren't supposed to touch the Korans, its members told him when he remonstrated with them, but they'd been instructed that the masks were not off limits. Finally, to his disgust, the use of force was allowed to resolve the issue. A detainee who refused to accept a Koran in his cell would be subject to what was known as "a forced cell extraction" by an IRF (for "initial response force")-six to eight MPs in riot protection gear (plastic masks, chest protectors, shin guards, shields) who would burst in on a cell to subdue a problem detainee in what was commonly known as an IRFing. Here is Yee's description of these stampedes:
     After they suited up, they formed a huddle and chanted in unison.... Then they rushed the block, one behind the other.... The sound of their heavy boots hammered down the steel corridor and their chants ricocheted off the tin ceiling.... The IRF team stopped at the detainee's cell.... The team leader in front drenched the prisoner with pepper spray and then opened the cell door. The others charged in and rushed the detainee.... The point was to get him to the ground as quickly as possible, with whatever means necessary.... When it was over, there was a certain excitement in the air. The guards were pumped.... They high-fived each other and slammed their chests together, like professional basketball players...an odd victory celebration for eight men who took down one prisoner. 
    Once "extracted," the recalcitrant prisoner was placed in isolation in an MSU (for "maximum security unit") until he was ready to accept a Koran. What are we to make of this struggle in which alleged Islamic "terrorists" refuse to accept Korans from their insistent captors until they've been pounded into submission?[*] And how, the chaplain rightly asks, was it "good for the mission?"
    James Yee couldn't easily ignore the fact that Muslim servicemen were becoming objects of hostility and suspicion; he was a little slow to recognize that he himself was now regarded as a suspicious case. (Perhaps he derived a false sense of security from his obvious usefulness, for he was still being trotted out for visiting congressmen and journalists to give a rosy picture of all that was being done to attend to the spiritual needs of the detainees.) He'd heard that Muslim servicemen had been collectively nicknamed "Hamas" by members of the Joint Task Force responsible for interrogations. And once General Miller himself, on a visit to Camp Delta, took the chaplain for a stroll on the gravel path inside the fence; the general said friends of his had died in the attack on the Pentagon and confided that he'd sought counseling from a chaplain to deal with the anger he felt against "those Muslims" responsible for the attack. "I appreciated his candor," Yee says, "but sensed ...there was a subtle warning behind his words."
    At about the same time, he noticed plainclothesmen on the periphery of services he conducted and wondered if they were FBI agents. Several Muslim enlisted men, he heard, had been detained on their return to the mainland. Finally, on September 10, 2003, a day before the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Yee found himself taken into custody by agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, shortly after landing in Jacksonville on leave. After five days in solitary confinement, he was shown a memo signed by General Miller charging him with espionage. "Chaplain Yee is known to have associated with known terrorist sympathizers," it said. He was also said to have classified documents hidden away in his quarters at Guantánamo, along with a ticket to London , suggesting that he'd been preparing to flee. None of this turned out to be true.
    But before the military prosecutors started to backtrack, they put Captain Yee through many of the experiences his fellow Muslims had endured at Camp Delta . Not only was he shackled and held in solitary confinement, he was strip-searched and made to wear blackened goggles and earmuffs as he was shifted from the naval brig in Jacksonville to the one in Charleston , South Carolina . This was where the authorities stashed terrorist suspects who could advance some slight claim to ordinary legal rights, where Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla-two "enemy combatants" with US citizenship, whose right to due process was now being contested by the government- were held. "Was I in fact being considered an enemy combatant?" Captain Yee wondered. The obvious answer was yes, even if no such formal classification had been made.
    But a month after his arrest, the charge of espionage and other ser-ious charges were abruptly dropped. Though Captain Yee had been branded a traitor and was still being held in solitary, a navy lawyer said the government lacked the "prosecutorial resources" to continue the case; also, the lawyer said, it needed more time to investigate his "misconduct." Nothing more was ever heard of that investigation. The only interpretation that fits the known facts is that the military lawyers assigned to the case found that there was nothing there to support the extreme charges. So now Captain Yee was left to face two relatively minor counts of mishandling classified documents. (He insists he never had any.) Still, he was held in solitary confinement for seventy-six days and shackled whenever he was taken from his cell.
    As the charges against him dwindled to nothing, the conduct of the prosecution became, if anything, more relentless, vengeful, and ugly. Yee's wife had returned to their home in Olympia , Washington , where she was visited by a female Defense Department investigator who showed her pictures of the chaplain with other women, and told her that he'd been having affairs. When, finally, the prosecution was unable to produce any evidence of his ever having possessed classified documents, let alone of having mishandled them, the criminal case collapsed. Far from acknowledging a miscarriage of justice, the prosecution said it couldn't disclose its evidence because of national security concerns. And still Yee wasn't in the clear. With the criminal charges erased, the chaplain was made to face administrative charges of adultery and downloading pornographic matter onto his laptop.
    Someone's obsession was driving this vendetta. Circumstantial evidence points to General Miller, the commander of the Camp Delta operation, who showed up to personally conduct the administrative hearing in Arlington , Virginia , on the adultery and pornography charges he had set in motion. Not surprisingly, he ruled against Yee, who then appealed to the US Southern Command. There General James Hill, the commander, took the remarkable step of throwing out another general's ruling but then, gratuitously, blamed Captain Yee for "misconduct." The chaplain was getting off on all charges, the general said, only because he'd suffered enough-not so much in solitary confinement in navy brigs as at the hands of the press, which had reported sensational charges that Hill's own subordinates had made and couldn't support with evidence.
    Even before the prosecution invaded Chaplain Yee's private life- and by doing so, he acknowledges, wrecked his marriage-this was a sordid tale in the sordid saga that has unfolded at Guantánamo. James Yee arrived believing he could be useful to the military's mission by showing a concern for the well-being of detainees who were held in small cages that they never got to leave for days on end unless they were summoned by an interrogator. He then concluded that the mission was actually to break their spirits, that his mediation was at best tolerated and more often resented. He made himself even more suspect when he addressed supposed "terrorists" as "brethren" and withdrew from the social circle of his fellow officers into the fellowship of other Muslims.
    It's heartening that several senior officers from Fort Lewis and Guantánamo supported him, writing to General Miller on his behalf. But what is telling is that there hasn't been a Muslim chaplain assigned to Camp Delta 's detainees over most of the two years since Yee's arrest and there is none now. A spokesman for the Joint Task Force that runs the prison assured me that a chaplain is "on call"; and that the commanding general now has an "Islamic adviser" on his staff, an Arabic speaker originally from the Middle East who sometimes talks to the prisoners. The guards, said the spokesman, are "sensitive to all the detainees' religious practices."
    Of course, this is the same line that Guantánamo spokesmen have been offering since the first prisoners landed in shackles in early 2002, and in all these months and years no independent observers, no journalists, no outsiders have been allowed inside the cages to make their own assessments, with the exception of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose continued access depends on their keeping their findings confidential. The official line sounded slightly more plausible when there was a Muslim chaplain on hand, rather than "on call," to vouch for it. Now who gets to make the call? Certainly not the five hundred or so prisoners remaining where once the masterminds of the "war on terror" expected to open new cellblocks that would enable them to raise the capacity to more than two thousand. Now the emphasis is on scaling back the number of prisoners by persuading their home countries to take them and, on grounds that they are actual or potential terrorists, keep them out of circulation. By early November this year 256 had been phased out in this way.
    Next year will be the fifth for those who remain. The Supreme Court ruled last year that federal courts do have some jurisdiction over detainees, after all. But no court order has affected the life of a single prisoner and now-in view of the moves underway in the Senate to limit the jurisdiction of the courts in Guantánamo cases-it's far from clear that any ever will. Nor has any detainee been convicted of anything, by a military commission or anyone else. We didn't need Chaplain Yee to remind us that Guantánamo has become an embarrassment. What this former insider shows us is that it's a place of misery day in day out, year in year out.
    We shouldn't be surprised. But we can be sure the prisoners still have their Korans.
    For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire, by James Yee with Aimee Molloy. Public Affairs, 240 pp., $24.00.
    Note    [*] In small doses, medical studies have shown, pepper spray causes a burning sensation and extreme pain. Pepper spray in large doses has been reported to result in coughing, gagging, even respiratory or cardiac arrest. None of these are effects Yee mentions in his description of cell "extractions" at Camp Delta . It's difficult to tell whether the use of the verb "drenched" is a writer's flourish or the result of careful, firsthand observation.



[Unlike Wen Ho Lee or Captain James Yee, white guy not held in shackles or in 
solitary confinement]
12/13/05 Los Angeles Times: Ex-Official Admits Wrongdoing, Not Espionage: 
Donald W. Keyser pleads guilty to charges related to his interaction with a 
Taiwanese intelligence officer while he was with the State Department,
By Josh Meyer
    Washington A former top State Department official pleaded guilty Monday 
to possessing classified information and concealing an improper relationship 
with a Taiwanese intelligence officer, but authorities stopped short of alleging 
that he was guilty of espionage.
    Donald W. Keyser, the former No. 2 official in the department's Bureau of 
East Asian and Pacific Affairs, pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing classified 
U.S. documents from the State Department and making false official statements.
    In court documents released Monday by the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, 
Va., authorities disclosed that Keyser, 62, had removed thousands of documents 
from the department from 1992 until his arrest in 2004, including documents 
classified as top secret and some classified at an even higher level, containing 
what is known as secure compartmented information.
    "Numerous additional classified documents were found on a laptop computer 
and on floppy disks in Keyser's home," the plea agreement says. "In all, Keyser 
had over 3,600 documents in either hard copy or electronic form."
    The court papers do not say whether Keyser had given any documents to 
foreign officials.
    Keyser is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 24; he faces a maximum of eight 
years in prison and $500,000 in fines. He is also disqualified from holding a 
government post, the documents say.
    Authorities arrested Keyser on Sept. 15, 2004, after he met with a Taiwanese 
intelligence officer, Isabelle Cheng, and a second official from Taiwan 's national 
intelligence agency, at a suburban Washington restaurant, according to U.S.  
officials, court records and news reports.
    State Department officials and Keyser's lawyers could not be reached for 
comment late Monday. The Justice Department disclosed the plea agreement 
shortly before 7 p.m.
    Keyser, who worked 33 years at the State Department before retiring last year, 
has not commented in detail on the case or on the specifics of his relationship with 
Cheng, 34.
    But federal authorities said in the lengthy plea agreement and supporting court 
papers that Keyser had admitted to having an undisclosed personal relationship 
with Cheng that could have made him "vulnerable to coercion, exploitation or 
pressure from a foreign government."
    "Those who are trusted to handle classified documents must not allow such 
material to be compromised in any way," said Paul McNulty, U.S. attorney for the 
Eastern District of Virginia.
    Keyser initially denied having an improper relationship with Cheng, but later 
confirmed to State Department investigators and the FBI that the two had had "an 
undisclosed personal relationship" from 2002 to September 2004.
    The court documents say Keyser communicated regularly with Cheng, met 
privately with her on numerous occasions and occasionally traveled with her, 
without ever reporting those contacts to the State Department as required.
    Between Sept. 3 and Sept. 6, 2003, Keyser met Cheng in Taiwan and then lied 
about the trip to authorities, the plea agreement says.
    Upon his return to the United States , he submitted a customs declaration form 
that falsely stated he had visited only China and Japan .
    Almost a year later, the court papers say, Keyser told an investigator with the 
department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security that he did not have a relationship 
with Cheng "when, in fact, he had."
    Keyser was commissioned as a foreign service officer in 1972 and specialized 
in East Asia . He became an expert on China for the State Department's Bureau 
of Intelligence and Research, later served at U.S. embassies in Tokyo and Beijing
then returned to top management at the State Department in 1993.
    In February 2003, Keyser was promoted to principal deputy assistant secretary 
for East Asian and Pacific affairs. For much of that time, he held a top-secret 
security clearance, prosecutors said.
    Court papers filed in the case detail how, in meetings in Washington, Keyser 
allegedly passed documents to Cheng and the other Taiwanese intelligence agent.
    The papers do not say that Keyser took money, and they offer no motive for his 
actions. But they disclose that FBI agents found that during his unauthorized stay in
Taipei
, Keyser had made $570.01 in credit card purchases at a Christian Dior 
boutique.



11/17/05 Los Angeles Times: New Spy Case Prompts Skepticism: Some in the 
Southland's Chinese community see parallels to earlier arrests involving Katrina 
Leung and Wen Ho Lee,
By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer
    Southern California's Chinese community is watching another spy scandal 
developing in its backyard, and some have a sense of dj vu.
    The latest case involves four people arrested last month on multiple charges of 
stealing U.S. military secrets from an Orange County aerospace firm for the People's 
Republic of China .
    Federal authorities initially accused Chi Mak, wife Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, Tai Wang 
Mak and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, of the theft of government property, conspiracy, 
transporting stolen goods and aiding and abetting.
    But when a federal grand jury returned indictments Tuesday, three were charged only 
with failing to register as agents of a foreign government; all charges were dropped 
against Fuk. One reason for the reduced charges, officials said, was because the data 
the defendants allegedly passed along turned out not to be classified.
    The case has generated much discussion in the Chinese community, but the 
decision by the prosecutors to drop some of the more serious charges has underscored 
the feeling of some that there is more smoke than fire in the U.S. effort to crack down on 
Chinese spying.
    When Lisa Yang, a local developer and president of the Chinese American Citizens 
Alliance, heard about the spy case, her first reaction was "Uh-oh, here it comes again. 
I just hope the FBI really has a case, not like with Katrina."
    "Katrina" is Katrina Leung, the prominent Chinese American activist and 
businesswoman who was charged with being a double agent for the Chinese 
government. But a federal judge ended up dropping all charges against her.
    Yang said she was relieved that the case turned out not to be as far-reaching as 
some initial reports suggested. But she is also disappointed.
    "I'm sad for the FBI and for what the government prosecutors have done to these 
Chinese Americans," she said. "I'm sad because you make other people think you 
abuse the power."
    Cat Chao, 39, who is host of a Mandarin-language talk show at evening rush hour, 
plans to talk about the most recent spy case tonight.
    She said many in the community talk about any news of Chinese American espionage 
with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
    "It's a cultural thing to always believe authority whatever teacher says is always right," 
Chao said. "Then we found out Wen Ho Lee is totally innocent. It was humiliating for our 
Chinese community and Taiwanese community."
    Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, was accused of stealing 
nuclear secrets for China in 1999. Lee later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of 
mishandling classified computer files but not spying. The Lee case became something 
of a rallying cry for many Chinese Americans who felt he was unfairly treated by the 
government.
    The latest spying case shocked some in the Chinese American community because 
the defendants seemed to have long-standing ties in Southern California . The FBI 
originally alleged in an affidavit that Chi Mak, a lead project engineer on a contract to 
develop a quiet electric-drive propulsion system for U.S. Navy submarines, transferred 
information about the system to his home computer.
    The affidavit alleged that his wife helped him copy the information onto CDs and then 
Tai Mak, a broadcast and engineering director for a Chinese cable network, and Fuk 
planned to take the information to China .
    The charges were changed for a number of reasons, some of which cannot yet be 
divulged, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles .
    Even if the information copied was only sensitive, not classified, Mrozek said, 
transmitting sensitive information is inappropriate.
    While some of the information on the submarine propulsion system might have been 
discussed at a conference, discussing this kind of information with military applications 
at a meeting of American scientists is not the same as handing it over to foreign power, 
he said.
    "These are serious charges they've been indicted on," Mrozek said. "You have people 
you believe are intelligence operatives for another country and taking information of a 
military contractor to another country. Should we let them go with it?"
    He said that some of the evidence the FBI had presented in the original charges 
showed that the three people were working for China . Federal agents who searched Chi 
Mak's trash found a document written in Chinese that "lists a number of military 
technologies that were sought."

 

11/16/05 Los Angeles Times: Conspiracy Charges Dropped: Three who had been 
accused of a plot to steal military secrets now face lesser charges,
by H.G. Reza
    Three people who had been arrested on multiple charges of conspiring to steal 
U.S. military secrets for the People's Republic of China were indicted Tuesday by 
a federal grand jury on the sole charge of failing to register as agents of a foreign 
government.
    When arrested by the FBI last month, defense plant engineer Chi Mak, his wife, 
Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, and his brother, Tai Wang Mak, were accused of theft of 
government property, conspiracy and transporting stolen goods. Those charges 
were dropped Tuesday.
    Tai Mak's wife, Fuk Heung Li, was also arrested in October and similarly charged. 
But she wasn't named in Tuesday's indictment by the grand jury in Santa Ana , and 
U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek said all charges against her were dropped.
    The defendants each face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of failing to 
register as foreign agents.
    Mrozek said prosecutors decided not to press the initial charges against the 
defendants because the information about submarine technology they possessed 
wasn't classified.
    "It's sensitive but not classified. Some of the stuff they had is talked about openly 
at conferences," said Mrozek.
    Nevertheless, the data seized is banned from export to certain countries, 
including China .
    Defense attorney Ronald Kaye, who represents Chi Mak, said his client was 
innocent of all the charges. Tai Mak's attorney declined to comment, and Chiu's 
attorney could not be reached.
    Chi Mak, 65, is the lead project engineer on a contract to develop a quiet electric-
drive propulsion system for U.S. Navy submarines at Paragon Power in Anaheim
He and Chiu, 62, are Downey residents who are originally from China . They became 
U.S. citizens in 1985.
    Tai Mak, 56, is a broadcast and engineering director for a Chinese cable network 
based in Hong Kong . Prosecutors alleged in court last week that he is a member of 
the Chinese military.
    Chi Mak allegedly transferred information about the propulsion system to his home 
computer, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
    Tai Mak and Fuk allegedly planned to carry a CD encrypted with that information 
to China .
    Tai Mak and Fuk, who live in Alhambra , were arrested Oct. 28 at Los Angeles  
International Airport as they awaited a flight to China . The couple, both Chinese 
citizens, are legal residents who arrived in the United States in 2001.
    Chi Mak and Chiu were arrested at their Downey home the same day. Chi and Tai 
Mak were ordered held without bond. Chiu's bond was set at $300,000. Fuk, who was 
also being held without bond, will be released as soon as possible, Mrozek said.


11/16/05 Associated Press: Chinese immigrants face single count after broad 
allegations,
by Jeremiah Marquez
    Los Angeles (AP) - The federal government's case against three Chinese 
immigrants first accused of a broad plot to steal secrets behind U.S. warship 
technology has yielded a single, dressed-down count of failing to register as foreign 
agents.
   
While government authorities said they may seek more charges, some 
counterintelligence analysts see parallels with other cases against alleged Chinese 
spies that eventually unraveled.
   
"In their eyes, they feel the biggest threat is going to come" from the U.S. Navy, 
Marushi said.


10/4/05 Associated Press: Muslim Chaplain Recalls Guantanamo Deal
In New Book, Muslim Chaplain Recalls Ordeal of Guantanamo, Arrest on Suspicion 
of Espionage,
By Ben Fox
    Army Capt. James Yee had just arrived at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at 
Guantanamo Bay when he got his first hint of trouble.
   
The man Yee would replace as Muslim chaplain showed him around the high-security 
base on the eastern edge of Cuba , and gave him a warning.
   
"The people down in Guantanamo probably know as much about Osama bin Laden 
and al-Qaida as any private in the military would know what's going on inside the 
Pentagon," he said


9/8/05
Associated Press: Berger fined $50,000 for taking classified documents; 
Judge stiffens suggested penalty for Clinton 's national security chief
, 
   
Washington Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser who 
was once entrusted with the nation's most sensitive secrets, was fined $50,000 
Thursday for taking classified documents from the National Archives.
   
U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson handed down the punishment in 
federal court, stiffening the $10,000 fine recommended by government lawyers. 
Under the deal, Mr. Berger avoids prison time but must surrender access to 
classified government materials for three years.
   
Mr. Clinton was among the Democrats who questioned the timing of the 
disclosure of the Berger probe three days before the release of the Sept. 11 report. 
Leaders of the Sept. 11 commission said they were able to get every key 
document needed to complete their report.


8/13/05
    The Asian American Journalists Associations National Conference next week 
(August 17-20) in Minneapolis will open its doors to the general public for a special 
Town Hall Forum on Thursday, August 18, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Hyatt 
Regency Minneapolis, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis .
    The August 18 town hall meeting will allow community members, leaders and 
journalists to examine the relationship between Asian American and Pacific 
Islanders, justice and the media. An esteemed panel will explore recent examples 
of Asian Americans that have been unfairly tried in the media.
    The AAJA convention has a long history of hosting lively, important town hall 
meetings and this year is certainly no exception, states Neal Justin, convention 
chair and TV critic for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "This is a great opportunity for 
the Twin Cities community to come together and converse with national 
newsmakers and have an impact on journalists from across the country.
   The event will be the first major public appearance this year by former Army Capt. 
James Yee, a West Point graduate and Muslim chaplain who was unjustly 
accused of espionage while on duty at Guantanamo Bay Cuba , detained and 
eventually released with all charges dropped and no apologies.
    The event will explore Capt. Yee's ordeal and several other high-profile stories 
involving AAPIs who have made national headlines.
    Capt. Yee will join a panel discussion with Minnesota State Sen. Mee Moua,
Bill Ong Hing, Professor of Law and Asian American Studies, University of  
Calif.
Davis, Jaideep Singh, Sikh Mediawatch and Sikh American Legal Defense 
and Education Fund.
    Journalists on the panel will include Steve Montiel, director, Institute for Justice 
and Journalism, USC Annenberg School for Communication, and Tram Nguyen, 
executive editor, Colorlines Magazine, and author of We Are All Suspects Now: 
Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities. Rekha Basu, columnist, Des Moines 
Register, will moderate the discussion.
    The event coordinator is Helen Zia, the journalist and author who exposed the 
injustice in Detroit in the Vincent Chin murder, as well as unscrupulous labor 
practices with Asian Americans in the Alaska canneries.
    Issues expected to be brought up for discussion include recent reports of 
anonymous tips to Homeland Security with claims of Chinese "dirty nuclear bomber 
terrorists" entering Boston . Wire services immediately identify four suspects and 
post artist renderings of them and the alert becomes national headline news; 
although the tip later proves to be hoax, no apologies are offered to the accused or 
those who might have been subject to their "profile."
    A local example will include Chia Vang, a Hmong hunter charged with shooting 
six people and wounding two in a hunting altercation in near Hayward , Wis.
The 
initial media coverage implied and in some cases expressed a direct link with the 
shooting to the suspect's cultural heritage, and fear the coverage has hurt his 
chances for a fair trial.
    With the perception that these cases and other are tried in the media through 
their coverage, the Town Hall will explore several issues: What are the hurdles to 
justice that AAPIs face? Is there a presumption of guilt when AAPIs are accused 
of certain crimes? How has the Patriot Act and the War on Terrorism affected 
AAPIs and what does the news media need to know to ensure fair and balanced 
coverage of the increasing numbers of such cases?
    The convention will also feature speakers such as former Vice President Walter 
F. Mondale and Sharshi Tharoor, award-winning author/writer and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.
    With more than 2,300 members, AAJA is the nations largest professional 
organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander journalists. AAJA encourages 
young people to consider journalism as a career, develops managers in the media 
industry, and promotes fair and accurate news coverage.
    For information and to RSVP call 1-877-570-9285 or aajatownhall@gmail.com
Visit the AAJA website at www.aaja.org.

 

July 11, 2005 Santa Fe New Mexican: Richardson could take prominent position 
in Wen Ho Lee lawsuit,
   
Santa Fe (AP) - Gov. Bill Richardson could play a prominent role in the lawsuit 
filed by former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee against the 
federal government.
    Lee claims government officials leaked classified and personal information 
about him to the media. Richardson was secretary of the Department of Energy 
at the time.
    After The Santa Fe New Mexican covered the story on Thursday, The 
Albuquerque Journal reported in Sunday editions that Richardson and several 
others were again identified in a recent federal court ruling as likely sources for 
the leaks in 1999 that identified Lee as a suspect in an FBI investigation into 
the loss of nuclear secrets to China .
    The governor has denied in sworn testimony that he was the source.
    The U.S. Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court ruling that journalists 
from The Associated Press, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and a 
former CNN corespondent were in contempt of court for failing to reveal their 
government sources.
    A spokesman for Richardson said the governor does not comment on pending 
litigation.
    "He does believe the court decision will have a chilling effect on the First 
Amendment and a reporter's right to protect confidential sources, a fundamental 
tenet of our democracy," spokesman Billy Sparks said.
    Brian Sun, Lee's attorney, said the journalists in Lee's lawsuit "still have a few 
more appeals they can exhaust" before they must reveal their sources or face 
possible fines or jail time.
    Richardson 's involvement in the case is on some political radars as he 
considers a run for the White House.
    Lee was arrested and indicted on 59 felony counts of mishandling classified 
information in 1999. He was exonerated of all but one of the felony counts in 2000.
    His lawsuit against the DOE, Department of Justice and FBI alleges they 
violated privacy laws.
    After questioning more than 20 government officials, Lee's attorneys were 
unable to find the source of the leak and began pressing for the media to identify 
the source or sources.


6/29/2005 Reuters: "Reporters in contempt over Wen Ho Lee, says court,"
    Washington : A federal appeals court yesterday found four journalists in 
contempt for refusing to disclose names of sources in the case of Wen Ho Lee, 
the Los Alamos nuclear scientist once suspected of espionage.
   
The US Appeals Court in Washington overturned a lower courts contempt ruling 
in the case of one other journalist, Jeff Gerth, who was also subpoenaed in the case.
    Lee filed a lawsuit accusing US officials of leaking personal information about 
him and the investigation against him. The journalists had all written about Lee and 
were ordered to testify in depositions but they refused to answer certain questions 
about their sources.
    Judge David Sentelle said the lower court did not abuse its discretion in holding 
four of the five reporters in contempt.
    It is clear that the information Lee is seeking goes to the heart of his case, he 
wrote for the three-judge panel. If he cannot show the identities of the leakers, 
Lees ability to show the other elements of the Privacy Act claim ... will be 
compromised. The journalists have refused to reveal even the employer of their 
unidentified sources, information that arguably would have been sufficient to support 
at least a portion of Lees claim.
    Lee was fired from his Los Alamos job in March 1999 amid allegations he was 
spying for China . The governments case against him collapsed, and Lee eventually 
pleaded guilty to one lesser charge.
   
After he was indicted, Lee sued the Department of Energy, the Department of 
Justice and the FBI for improperly disclosing personal information about him and 
the investigation.


May 2005
COMING IN OCTOBER FROM PUBLICAFFAIRS
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY
by James Yee, former Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay
with Aimee Molloy
   
In 2001, Captain James "Yusuf" Yee was commissioned as one of the first Muslim chaplains in the United States Army. After the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, he became a frequent government spokesman, helping to educate soldiers about Islam and build understanding throughout the military. Subsequently, Chaplain Yee was selected to serve as the Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , where nearly 700 detainees captured in the war on terror were being held as "unlawful combatants." 
    In September 2003, after serving at Guantanamo for ten months in a role that gave him unrestricted access to the detainees--and after receiving numerous awards for his service there--Chaplain Yee was secretly arrested on his way to meet his wife and daughter for a routine two-week leave. He was locked away in a navy prison, subject to much of the same treatment that had been imposed on the  Guantanamo detainees. Wrongfully accused of spying, and aiding the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Yee spent 76 excruciating days in solitary confinement and was threatened with the death penalty. After the government determined they had made a grave mistake in their original allegations, they vindictively charged him with adultery and computer pornography.  In the end all criminal charges were dropped and Chaplain Yee's record wiped clean. But his reputation was tarnished, and what was a promising military career was left in ruins.
    A third-generation Chinese-American and a 1990 graduate of West Point, Chaplain Yee served in the U.S. Army for 14 years, including a tour in Saudi Arabia during the aftermath of the first Gulf War.  His spiritual conversion to Islam in 1991 guided his travels to Damascus , Syria , where he studied for four years. He twice traveled to Mecca to make the Haj, the sacred Muslim pilgrimage. 
    Depicting a journey of faith and service, Chaplain Yee's FOR GOD AND COUNTRY is the story of a pioneering officer in the U.S. Army, who became a victim of the post-September 11 paranoia that gripped a starkly fearful nation. And it poses a fundamental question: If our country cannot be loyal to even the most patriotic Americans, can it remain loyal to itself?

Gene Taft
Director of Publicity
PublicAffairs
212-397-6666 ext. 234
http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com

 

2/2/05 http://binhan.home.netcom.com/DeniseK.htm
   
Denise K. Woo, 45 and a former FBI agent, was indicted on five criminal 
counts in late 2004 for allegedly disclosing an informant's name to a suspect 
under investigation and lying to other FBI agents back in 1999. According to the 
Los Angeles Times which obtained a copy of the indictment, the FBI was 
conducting a national security probe on a Chinese-American man, known only 
as JW (a distant relative of Ms. Woo), suspected of collecting information as 
an employee of a defense contractor and subsequently passing it to the Chinese 
government. Woo's pro bono attorney, Mark Holscher, stated that "Denise Woo 
was forced to assist in an espionage investigation of an innocent man, and the 
FBI unfortunately has sought to criminalize her efforts to prevent a terrible tragedy."
    Ms. Woo had an impeccable employment record with the Bureau prior to this 
assignment. She is out on a $50,000 unsecured bail. Trial is expected to begin 
in late 2005 or early 2006.
    After some efforts Ms. Woo concluded, using non classified information, that 
JW was innocent of any wrongdoing and reported her conclusion to her superior. 
They apparently did not like her report and waited until the last day of the statute 
of limitations to charge her with aiding and abetting the enemy, even though the 
FBI eventually came to the same conclusion that JW was innocent after realizing 
they had a dirty informant.
    JW does not speak Chinese, has never been west of Hawaii and has no 
contact with anyone from China .
    Even though Ms. Woo was recruited to work in counter intelligence, she has 
had no training in this area. It appears the only reason she was put into this 
position was because JW was a relative and both of them are Asians--Ms. 
Woo's father is Chinese and mother Japanese. Putting an agent in such a 
position simply makes no sense, even if it does not violate FBI policy. 
    The FBI seldom indicts one of its own and when it does, it generally holds a 
press conference. But no press conference was held on this case, giving the 
appearance that the FBI wants to sweep this case under the rug. The U.S. 
Attorney Central District of California office likewise did not issue a press 
release, see http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2004/pressindx.html.
    The prosecutor must know they have a weak case against Ms. Woo because 
they offered to settle with her for a guilty plea in exchange for probation. Ms. Woo 
decided to fight to clear her name rather than settling even though she risks a long 
prison term (10 to 15 years) if she loses.
    This seems to be no more than a vindictive payback by someone in the FBI. 
Her attorney, Mark Holscher, also defended Dr. Wen Ho Lee pro bono. JW's 
attorney, Brian Sun, represents Dr. Lee in his civil lawsuit against the 
government.
   
Ms. Woo's supervisor during her brief assignment in the counter intelligence 
division was none other than JJ Smith, Katrina Leung's handler. JJ Smith pled guilty 
to minor charges last year and is waiting for sentencing, which is expected to be 
probation. The judge dismissed the case against Katrina Leung due to prosecutorial 
misconduct. (see http://binhan.home.netcom.com/KatrinaL.htm).

Attorney Mark Holschers announcement on taking the case pro bono:
http://www.omm.com/communication/2004/12-15/fbi.htm
Click here for the court calendar. Her indictment has been sealed.
San Diego Union, December 11, 2004
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20041211-0217-ca-fbiagentindicted.html
San Francisco Chronicle article, December 11, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/11/MNGPDAAH681.DTL
Associated Press article, December 11, 2004:
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=19197
http://goldsea.com/Asiagate/412/11fbi.html
Washington Times (UPI), December 11, 2004
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041211-020345-5836r.htm
Taiwan Epoch Times (in Big 5 Chinese), December 14, 2004
http://www.epochtimes.com.tw/bt/4/12/14/n747301.htm

 

1/22/05

    Boston (AP) -- Gov. Mitt Romney said he has become "less concerned, not more
concerned" about a potential terrorist threat against the city of Boston . The FBI, meanwhile, is exploring possible theories for the reports - including a possible revenge motive.
    FBI agents have been looking into an uncorroborated tip that 16 people might be planning an attack on the city. Those allegedly involved in the plot include 13 Chinese nationals, two Iraqis and a man identified on the FBI's Web site as Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinones, whose nationality was not given.
    But the tipster who told federal officials about the alleged conspiracy may have fabricated the story out of revenge, a federal law enforcement official said Friday. The law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the tipster may have been angry because a group of illegal immigrants had failed to pay for smuggling them into the country.
    That scenario is one of many being examined in the case, said the official in Washington , who declined to describe other theories being explored.
    The original tip was received by the California Highway Patrol, according to another federal law enforcement official in Washington who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
    The tipster claimed four of the Chinese - two men and two women - entered the United States from Mexico and were awaiting a shipment of "nuclear oxide" that would follow them to Boston .
    Several radioactive compounds take form as oxides and could be used in a dirty bomb, said Charles Ferguson, a science and technology fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. Plutonium and americium oxides, in the right amounts, would be dangerous to human health, while uranium oxide would be less so, Ferguson said.
    Security was increased in Boston, where two of the planes were hijacked for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.


1/7/05 Los Angeles Times: Spying Case Tossed Out: Federal judge scolds prosecutors in her dismissal of criminal charges against a woman accused of working as a Chinese double agent,
By David Rosenzweig, Times Staff Writer
    Charging prosecutors with willful and deliberate misconduct, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed all criminal charges against a former FBI informant accused of serving as a Chinese double agent.
    In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper blasted the U.S. attorney's office for "conduct unbecoming a prosecutorial agency."
    Attorneys for Chinese American businesswoman Katrina Leung had accused the government of illegally and unethically exacting a commitment from her former FBI handler that barred him from talking to the defense.
    The pledge was contained in an agreement that retired agent James J. Smith reached with the government last year, allowing him to plead guilty to a reduced charge of failing to report his 20-year-long sexual affair with Leung.
    Under long-established rules, prosecutors are prohibited from obstructing a defendant's access to witnesses.
    At a hearing before Cooper last month, Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Emmick disavowed any intent to prevent Smith from speaking to Leung's defense team. He blamed "inartful" language in Smith's plea agreement.
    But Cooper cited a Nov. 18 e-mail message to Emmick from Robert Wallace, senior trial counsel in the Justice Department's counterintelligence section in Washington, saying that the wording was aimed at "preventing Smith from being interviewed by Leung's counsel because he is a repository of classified information."
    "In the face of that e-mail," Cooper wrote, "anything short of an admission and apology on the part of the government is hard to imagine. Mr. Emmick did neither. Rather, he chose to ignore the e-mail."
    The plea agreement clause in dispute specified that Smith would engage in "no further sharing of information relating to this case with Leung, counsel for Leung or the employees of counsel for Leung."
    Cooper said the evidence was abundantly clear that the clause was intentionally placed in the agreement to prevent Smith from talking to the defense. And to make matters worse, she said, the prosecution subsequently engaged in a series of explanations and denials that "compounds the problem by undermining the court's confidence in the integrity of the process."
    She accused the prosecution of misrepresenting to the court its true intentions in drafting the "no-further-sharing" clause.
    "While a certain amount of shading of the truth may be tolerated, even in judicial proceedings, prosecutors are subject to constraints and responsibilities beyond those which apply to other lawyers," the judge wrote.
    "In this case, the government decided to make sure that Leung and her lawyers would not have access to Smith. When confronted with what they had done, they engaged in a pattern of stonewalling entirely unbecoming a prosecutorial agency."
    U.S. Atty. Debra W. Yang issued a statement denying any prosecutorial misconduct. "I stand behind the work of the prosecutors of this case and I know that they have conducted themselves ethically," she said.
    Yang said her staff was analyzing the ruling and would consider an appeal.
    Leung's lawyers, John D. Vandevelde and Janet I. Levine, said in a statement that they were gratified by the dismissal.
    "Katrina Leung's nightmare is over," they said. "The courts have again made sure that truth and justice are not mere platitudes."
    They described their client as a loyal American who dedicated her life to serving her adopted country for 20 years. "She looks forward to moving on with her life as a loyal and patriotic citizen."
    Leung, a naturalized citizen, was recruited by Smith during the early 1980s to gather intelligence for the FBI during her frequent business trips to China , where she ingratiated herself with high-ranking government officials.
    But starting about 1990, prosecutors said, she began working for the Chinese as well, feeding sensitive, unauthorized information about the FBI to her handler at the Chinese Ministry of State Security.
    Smith, who had an extramarital affair with Leung for two decades, learned about her activities but covered it up and continued to vouch for her reliability, he admitted in his plea deal.
    Leung was not charged with espionage but with illegally copying and possessing classified documents that she could have used to harm the interests of the U.S. government. The documents were seized during a search of Leung's San Marino home.
    According to an FBI affidavit, Leung allegedly lifted the papers from Smith's briefcase during his many visits to her house.
    Through her attorneys, Leung denied any wrongdoing and insisted she had acted at all times at the direction of Smith and other members of the FBI's counterintelligence squad.
    An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the ruling Thursday.
    Smith, who retired from the FBI in 2000, was initially charged with gross negligence in handling classified documents and faced a possible 10-year prison term. Under terms of his plea agreement, the prosecution could recommend that he receive no time in jail.
    In her ruling Thursday, Cooper said that Smith still has "everything to lose" by talking to the defense.
    "Suspended over his head, like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, is the sure knowledge that if he violates any of the terms of his plea agreement, the deal is canceled and his future returns to its former bleak state."
    Consequently, the judge said, Leung has suffered substantial prejudice as a result of the prosecution's due-process violation.
    Reaction to the dismissal among leaders in the Chinese American community was marked by a mixture of relief and continuing concern.
    Assemblywoman Judy Chu ( D-Monterey Park ), who knew Leung well and had worked with her, said: "I am glad for Katrina, certainly. But I am terribly disturbed by the prosecutorial misconduct involved in the case. Katrina's life has been turned upside down. And I fear that the outcome was anticlimactic, compared to the charges that were leveled against her."
    "The community asked for a fair trial and restrained its judgment when this case first broke," Chu said. "I am glad that the justice system worked in responding to that request."
    David Ma, chairman of the Chinese American Rights Organization in Monterey Park and a sometime critic of Leung, said the case had damaged the image of Chinese Americans regardless of the dismissal.
    "The legal part is one thing, because you need to prove 100% that she is guilty," he said. "From the point of the view of a loyal Chinese American, I feel very painful about this incident, because people like Katrina are taking advantage of this country."
    Stewart Kwoh, president of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, said: "This is a very unfortunate matter that really required a fair trial to find out the truth." With the dismissal, he said, "we may never know what really happened."
    Lily Lee Chen, former mayor of Monterey Park , said: "It would have been better if we knew exactly what had happened. The damage has been done not only to herself, in terms of her reputation, but for the Asian American community."
    Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson said Cooper's decision contained a clear message for prosecutors: "Candor to the court is Job 1."
    Levenson, a former federal prosecutor, noted that Cooper dismissed the case on two grounds that there was a constitutional violation, and under the court's inherent supervisory powers.
    Given that, she said, the government will face "an uphill battle" if it appeals.


12/19/04 The New York Times: Evidence weak in Yee probe,
By Tim Golden
    Officials familiar with the inquiries said they also fed on petty personal conflicts: antipathy between some Muslim and non-Muslim troops at Guantnamo, rivalries between Christian and Muslim translators, even the complaint of an old boss who saw Al Halabi as a shirker.
   The military's aggressive approach to the investigation was established at the outset by Miller, the hard-charging Guantnamo commander. Along the way, some investigators and prosecutors suggested that the job of ferreting out spies at the base had put them, too, on the front lines of the fight against terrorism.
   Perhaps the most aggressive was the lead Air Force investigator in the Al Halabi case, Lance Wega, a probationary agent who took over the case after barely a month on the job. While he was later commended by superiors and rewarded with a $1,986 bonus, testimony showed Wega mishandled important evidence.
   Ultimately, Air Force prosecutors could not substantiate the vast majority of the charges they brought against Al Halabi, a translator at Guantnamo, who had faced the death penalty.
   He pleaded guilty to four minor charges of mishandling classified documents, taking two forbidden photographs of a guard tower and lying to investigators about the snapshots. He was sentenced to the 10 months imprisonment he had already served.
   Yee, a West Point graduate who was held for 76 days in solitary confinement, charged with six criminal counts of mishandling classified information and suspected of leading a ring of subversive Muslim servicemen, was convicted only of noncriminal charges of adultery and downloading Internet pornography. His conviction was dismissed altogether last April.
   Another Guantnamo translator, Ahmed Mehalba, has been jailed since September 2003 on charges that he lied to investigators about carrying a computer disc containing classified Guantnamo documents to Egypt .
   Coloring much of the episode, interviews and documents indicate, were simmering tensions over the military's treatment of the roughly 660 foreign men who were then held at Guantnamo without charge.
   "Lots of the guards saw us as some sort of sympathizers with the detainees,"
Al Halabi recalled in one of several interviews. "We heard it many times: 'detainee-lovers,' or 'sympathizers.' "
   Al Halabi has emphasized his loyalty as a naturalized American citizen. While insisting that he was careful not to share his views with anyone but close friends at Guantnamo, he said he was one of many servicemen and translators there who were deeply uncomfortable with the way detainees were treated.
   "I did disagree with what was going on," he said. "These people had been there forever and were blocked from the legal system. This country stands for justice and human rights, and there we were at Guantnamo doing none of that."



12/17/04:
Wrongfully Convicted in America,
by Lisa Wong Macabasco
    After serving 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, David Wong took another leap toward freedom on Friday Dec. 10, 2004, when Clinton County District Attorney Richard Cantwell dropped murder charges against him. Wongs conviction had been overturned on an appeal in October due in part to the potential bias of the trial judge, Timothy Lawliss. The judge has since recused himself from the retrial.
    In a letter from Clinton County Jail, Wong said the victory belonged to his support committee and his lawyers, whom he called the true heroes.
    My freedom did not come easy, but Im happy Im now able to put my nightmare behind me, and Im excited for my freedom and the prospect of my future, Wong wrote.
    He now awaits the courts official ruling and faces a new struggle against a pending order of deportation.
    His life is the biggest waste of all, says Wongs niece, Fei Yeung. She felt relieved but also angry that he has spent so much of his life incarcerated. Im 27, and Im ready to begin my life and career. Hes lost all that. Hes in his 40s, and hes going to start his life now? Its not fair.
    Yeung says Wong missed his sisters wedding and his fathers funeral while in jail. My family and I have lost a beloved uncle, brother and son, she says.
    Wongs supporters now face the difficult task of preventing his deportation due to his status as an undocumented non-citizen. Jaykumar Menon, Wongs lawyer, says he does not know of a case in which someone who was wrongfully convicted and subsequently ordered deported was allowed to stay in the United States . Wayne Lum says the committee was pursuing political and diplomatic channels to fight the deportation order and admitted, Legally, its very difficult to overcome.
    After 17 years, the David Wong Support Committee and his allies in the community will not allow Wong to be deported, says Kwong Eng.
    Wongs 20-year odyssey through the criminal justice system is an eye-opening look at one Asian in America in the between the cracks in the law. His story is the lesson of a man wrongfully convicted and trapped at the nexus of race, immigration, crime and the law.
    Coming to America
    Wong is one of three children raised by their mother (above) in the Fujian province and later in Hong Kong . He came to the United States in the early 1980s as a teenager, working long shifts at different restaurants at below minimum wage.
    Arrested and Sent to Prison: June 1984
    At 21 years old, as a busboy in Manhattan s Chinatown, Wong is arrested for participating with co-workers in an armed robbery of his employers Long Island house in 1983. Wong is sent to Clinton Correctional Facility in northeastern New York to serve an 8-to-25-year sentence.
    A Brutal Murder: March 1986
    On the afternoon of March 12, 1986, Tyrone Julius, a 32-year-old inmate at Clinton Correctional Facility serving a sentence for second-degree murder, is stabbed in the neck with a five-inch blade in the middle of the prison yard and dies 11 days later. Wong and Tse Kin Cheung, an inmate from Hong Kong , are the only Chinese inmates and the only ones searched out of the 70 to 100 inmates present at the time of the stabbing. No weapon and no blood are found on either man.
    Found Guilty: July 1987
    Wong, who speaks little English and claims he had never met Julius, is tried for Julius murder by an all-white jury in Clinton County Court. Four inmates testify to Wongs innocence. The prosecutions case is based on the testimony of two witnesses: Ryan LaPierre, a corrections officer who viewed the scene through binoculars from a tower more than 100 yards away, and inmate Peter DellFava. Wong is convicted and sentenced to an additional 25-years-to-life for second-degree murder. Cheung writes to prominent Asian American activists telling them that Wong was framed.
    Yuri Kochiyama Organizes the David Wong Support Committee: 1990
    Yuri Kochiyama (above), a longtime civil rights activist and staunch political-prisoners advocate, visits Wong in prison. Kochiyama creates the David Wong Support Committee, operating out of her Harlem apartment.
    New York Times Eye-opener: March 1999
    A New York Times article reveals new anecdotal evidence suggesting Wong is innocent. Reporter David W. Chen (left) quotes former prison employees who say Wongs innocence was common knowledge at the prison. Former inmates who witnessed the murder said it was an act of revenge by a former rival. Cheung says inmates were scared to speak up for Wong because they feared for their safety.
    Julius widow, Sharon Julius, states she never heard of Wong or his conviction for the murder of her husband. She also says she received threatening letters and phone calls well after Wong was arrested telling her to stop investigating the case and therefore assumed his murderer was still at large.
    Wong loses every major appeal since his 1987 conviction, but Wongs lawyers at Manhattan s Center for Constitutional Rights continue to question the credibility of witnesses and cite misconduct by the prosecutor, errors in Wongs defense and the lack of an adequate translator. LaPierre admitted in his testimony that he did not see the stabbing or the weapon. DellFava may have tried to gain early parole in exchange for his testimony. Wongs original lawyers also failed to interview witnesses who identified the attackers as two Hispanic men.
    Wong also did not have access to a translator who spoke his Fuzhou dialect; he had to use a translator who spoke Mandarin instead, which he barely knew. The Times article quotes Wongs translator during the trial, Jo-An Ting, who had never worked as a translator before and admitted to feeling nervous and unprofessional during the case: If some outside person evaluated my work and said that I was not competent, then I accept, she says.
    After the publication of the article, the Times receives a letter from a prisoner who claims to have witnessed Julius murder and asserted that Wong was innocent and nowhere near the scene at the time.
    Appeal Rejected: April 16, 1999
    A State Court of Appeals judge rejects hearing an appeal on Wongs case, saying there is no question of law.
    Within the year, Manhattan private investigator Joseph Barry locates DellFava. DellFava admits to having lied at Wongs trial in order to secure a parole recommendation and a prison transfer. He says that a corrections officer persuaded him to blame Wong because he knew little English and had few friends in prison.
    The Tide Turns: April 2002
    Almost one dozen current or former inmates sign affidavits or tell investigators that Julius was murdered by Nelson Gutierrez, a longtime rival with a record that included drug charges and first-degree manslaughter. One former peer counselor and inmate legally swears that Gutierrez confessed to the murder to him. DellFava recants his testimony, and LaPierre, while still adamant about Wongs guilt, supports a new trial.
    The wives of both Gutierrez and Julius verify that the two were rivals and had an earlier altercation at Rikers Island. In May, Sharon Julius signs an affidavit that says Gutierrez killed her husband. Inmates come forward who say they saw the stabbing but said nothing out of fear of retaliation. Gutierrez won parole in 1994 and returned back to the Dominican Republic, where he died of an apparent drug overdose in May 2000.
    The case is one of very few taken up by criminal law professor William E. Hellerstein, head of Brooklyn Law Schools Second Look Clinic, which focuses on investigating wrongful convictions.
    It was clear to me and to the students that David Wong was innocent from the beginning of the case, Hellerstein says. The facts didnt make any sense going the other way.
    A Glimmer of a Chance: Jan. 7, 2003
    Judge Timothy Lawliss, acting judge of the Clinton County Court in Plattsburgh, N.Y., agrees to hear the fresh evidence in the case and then decide whether the murder conviction still stands.
    Reversing the Story: April 2003
    At the evidentiary hearing, DellFava admits he lied in order to get the hell out of that prison even though no official deal was made. Three former Clinton inmates, including friends of Gutierrez, testify to seeing Gutierrez stab Julius.
    Judge Deals a Blow: October 2003
    Lawliss denies Wong a new trial, ruling there is not enough evidence and questioning the credibility of the witnesses. Clinton County District Attorney Richard Cantwell now says DellFavas past fraud and perjury convictions made him an untrustworthy witness.
    Judge in Question: Dec. 2, 2003
    The New York State Appellate Division in Albany reviews the case. The court looks at whether Lawliss should have recused himself from the trial because of his close connections to the prosecutor, who used to be his law partner.
    A Ray of Hope: Oct. 21, 2004
    A five-judge panel in New Yorks Appellate Division unanimously overturns Wongs murder conviction based on the new evidence. Unlike the county court, the state court does not find DellFavas testimony incredible. The decision questions LaPierres testimony because of his great distance from the murder scene and says the testimony of the former inmates should not be discounted. The case is sent back to Clinton County Court for a new trial.
    Behind the Scenes of the Case: The David Wong Support Committee
    The David Wong Support Committee was formed in 1990 by longtime civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, but members say it is often Wong who inspires the committee to stay optimistic.
    Hes the spirit of the committee he keeps everyone else up when were down, says Siddhartha Joag, an artist and member. Hes so selfless. Hes constantly asking what were doing to support others. Hes not just indulging in his own case, even though hes lost most of his life for no reason. It shakes you.
    Joag says his impression of Wong upon meeting him was that he was calm, friendly, well-read and just a good guy.
    On Sept. 8, three dozen supporters went to Albany to show their support at the Appellate Division hearing. Even though none of the committee knew Wong before his case, many have developed a close relationship with him.
    A lot of us feel personally attached to him, Joag says. Hes a friend.
    Hes using his case as a vehicle for change in the system, Joag says. He doesnt even believe in his own exoneration being important. For every one David Wong that gets a retrial, there must be 1,000 that are on death row for a crime they didnt commit.
    While Joag admits it has been difficult to get support from the Asian American community for someone who is both an undocumented immigrant and a convicted felon, William E. Hellerstein, Wongs lawyer, says the communitys support has been strong and that support for the case shouldnt stop there.
    The fact the Asian American community has been so supportive has been a blessing, Hellerstein says. The entire world should care about this case. Any decent, right-thinking human being should care.
    This is a grievous injustice, Hellerstein states. This man is innocent. Everyone knows it.  


12/14/04 OMelveny & Myers website
O'Melveny Represents Ex-FBI Agent Indicted in Spying Probe

    O'Melveny partner Mark Holscher is leading an O'Melveny team representing Denise K. Woo on a pro bono basis. Woo, a former FBI agent, was indicted December 6 on charges that she tipped off the target of a national security probe that he was under investigation. Holscher argues that Woo was actually trying to help an innocent man, and that the FBI is trying to use her as a scapegoat. Los Angeles counsel Michael Camunez and associates Angela Machala and Kelly O'Donnell are also working on the high-profile case.
    Woo, who is Chinese-American, was briefly assigned to the FBI's Chinese counterintelligence squad in Los Angeles . In 1999 she was recruited for a covert operation involving the investigation of a family friend, a Chinese-American man who worked for a defense contractor and who was suspected of passing sensitive information on to the Chinese government. He was never charged with any crime. Woo, however, was placed on administrative leave and subsequently fired. 
    At her arraignment, Woo was charged with disclosing the existence of a national security wiretap, revealing the identity of a covert operative, and lying to FBI agents. 
    ''Denise Woo was forced to assist in an espionage investigation of an innocent man, and the FBI unfortunately has sought to criminalize her efforts to prevent a terrible tragedy,'' said Holscher, who previously led the successful defense of Taiwanese-American physicist Wen Ho Lee against 58 espionage charges brought by the Department of Justice. The American Lawyer later described the representation "one of the most conspicuous acts of pro bono daring in 2000." 



11/22/04 Sacramento Bee: Ex-spy suspect receives award, hero's welcome,
By Emily Bazar
   When Army Capt. James Yee was presented with a "Courage and Inspiration Award" by a local Muslim organization Saturday night, a diverse audience rose to its feet to congratulate him:
    Muslims and Christians, Arab Americans and African Americans, imams and politicians.
    Asian Americans made up an especially large contingent at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) fund-raiser, which drew more than 400 people to the Hilton near Arden Fair mall.
    Many Asian Americans said they attended because they felt a special bond with Yee, a Muslim Army chaplain formerly stationed at the U.S. military prison in Guantnamo Bay , Cuba .
    Yee, who is Chinese American, was charged last year with mishandling classified information, and spent 76 days in solitary confinement. Military officials had said they might have a Guantnamo-based spy ring on their hands, but the government's case against Yee disintegrated. The criminal charges against him were dismissed earlier this year.
    "Things like this should stop," said Linda Ng, president of the Sacramento chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans. "That's why all of us are standing together."
    One of Yee's assistants at Guantnamo, Ahmad Al Halabi, also attended the fund-raiser. Al Halabi was tried this year at Travis Air Force Base as a member of the alleged Guantnamo spy ring.
    As in Yee's case, the espionage charges against Al Halabi unraveled. In September, Al Halabi pleaded guilty to relatively minor charges of mishandling military materials; his rank was reduced to airman basic and he was given a bad-conduct discharge.
    Al Halabi had originally been accused of attempting to spy for his native Syria . The naturalized U.S. citizen spent 10 months behind bars and could have faced execution.
    When Yee accepted his award Saturday night, he acknowledged Al Halabi, saying the two were victims of "this new culture of eroding civil liberties."
    "There are many others who are considered heroes, who are considered courageous and inspiration(al). Many of those who may even be here tonight in this audience," he said.
    The West Point graduate told the crowd that the Army has accepted his resignation, and he will be honorably discharged Jan. 7. He is stationed at Fort Lewis , Wash.
    "At this time just one short year ago, I was still fasting Ramadan and praying the Ramadan prayers, alone, without the benefit or the rewards of praying in congregation, while still locked up in the naval brig down in Charleston , South Carolina ," Yee said. "So I'm thankful that this year is different."
    Yee and Al Halabi declined to be interviewed Saturday. Earlier in the week, Yee's civilian defense attorney, Eugene R. Fidell, said his client was warned by military officials that his public statements would be scrutinized.
    "He was handed a letter that contained a not-so-veiled threat of disciplinary action in case he said anything critical of the Army," said Fidell, who is based in Washington , D.C. "To a person who had already spent 76 days in solitary confinement, you can't overlook a threat like that."
    The letter, dated April 6, informed Yee that "speech that undermines the effectiveness of loyalty, discipline, or unit morale is not constitutionally protected."
    Military officials also declined to comment on Yee's Sacramento speaking engagement and his case.
    "No one's talking about the Yee case. It's pretty much an 'over' issue," said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Loundermon, a spokesman at U.S. Southern Command in Miami . "He can tell you what he wants to tell you."
    Though the military has deemed Yee's case "over," the chaplain's story continues to reverberate.
    Area Muslims believe the government singled out Yee because of his religion.
"I do think it was a witch hunt," said Frank Johnson, a 53-year-old Pocket resident who attended Saturday's event. "If you say you're Muslim, it's almost like you're open to harassment."
    Yee's case also has become a flash point for Chinese Americans. A host for Cantonese-language talk radio in the Bay Area made it the focus of her show. The Chinese American Political Action Committee, active in the Sacramento area, co-sponsored an online petition asking the Army to apologize to Yee.
    "As Chinese Americans, we need to speak out," Ng, of the Organization of Chinese Americans, said Saturday. "We should all be treated equally."
    Chinese American activist Alberta Lee, 31, was asked to present Yee's award, but couldn't because she was out of town.
    Lee, a University of California , Davis, law student, is the daughter of Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist formerly at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
    Wen Ho Lee was suspected of spying, but the case against him largely fell apart. He received a rare apology from a federal judge.
    Alberta Lee said she feared from the outset that Yee's case was similar to her father's, particularly when she learned that Yee is Chinese and Muslim.
    "My first thought was, 'This is going to be exactly like my dad's case all over again,' " she said. "The government really painted them both to be very sinister people."
    On Saturday, Yee addressed the issue of profiling, albeit indirectly. He asked audience members whether they carry copies of a "Know Your Rights" card distributed by CAIR.
    "If you don't," he said, pausing, "please get one. You may need it, at least for the next four years."  


9/24/04 AsianWeek.com: James Yee's Story,
 
By Joseph Yee, father
    James Yee was born in Naperville , Ill. in 1968 but spent most of his early years in
Springfield
, N.J.
, where he attended public schools. He graduated from Jonathan Dayton  
High School in Springfield in 1986, where he played soccer and was an outstanding 
wrestler. He was named Student Athlete of the Year when he was a senior.
    He chose to attend United States Military Academy at West Point because he was 
impressed by the discipline and the cadet honor code. He was a member of the wrestling 
team for all four years at West Point . He was commissioned in 1990 and served at 
various bases in the States, Germany , and Saudi Arabia . At the end of the first Gulf War, 
he served as a Patriot missile officer in Saudi Arabia . It was during these tours that he 
met many Muslims and became acquainted with Islam. He visited Mecca while stationed 
in Saudi Arabia . All these occurrences piqued his interest and led to his decision to 
convert to Islam.
    Due to cutbacks in the military, he left the Army in the early 90s and worked as a pharmaceutical representative. He decided to pursue his goal of becoming the first 
Muslim chaplain in the military, since there were none at that time. He chose to go to 
Syria to study the Arabic language and Islam since the teachings were much more 
liberal than in Saudi Arabia .
    James is the middle child of five siblings: older sisters Gloria and Patricia, and 
younger brothers Walter and Jason. All attended the Springfield schools. Jason, the 
youngest, also graduated from West Point . All three sons are or have served in the 
military. Walter is a doctor at Fort Lewis , Wash.
    While he was studying in Syria , Yee met his wife, Huda. They have a soon-to-be 
5-year-old daughter, Sarah. They reside in Olympia near Fort Lewis where he was 
assigned prior to Sept. 11, 2001. He was very instrumental in making the public aware 
of the difference between terrorism and Islam; his skill was much in demand. Similarly, 
he was much in demand when the media was permitted to visit Guantanamo in early 
2003. Then came his detainment on Sept. 10, 2003.
    It is too bad that he will be leaving the service. I think he had so much to offer, 
especially now when the country needs people who understand both the American 
ideals and the Muslim culture and can speak the Arabic language. He respected the 
military and wanted a career as a Muslim chaplain. Unfortunately, the Army has ruined 
his career and his future and refused to admit any wrongdoing.


8/27/04
San Francisco Chronicle: "Questions Continue to Swirl Around Wen Ho Lee,"
    From all appearances, these would seem to be days of vindication for Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos National Laboratory weapons scientist whose politically charged fight with the federal government is still being waged four years after he settled charges he mishandled nuclear secrets. 
    A suit Lee filed claiming the government improperly leaked private information about him has made progress, with a federal judge ruling that five journalists must disclose the sources of damning information they printed about Lee. And his former employer, Los Alamos , has suffered from a string of security scandals that mirror comments he and his attorneys had made about lax procedures. 
    However, more quietly, new details about the crime Lee committed are emerging, and they are reviving some of the unanswered questions and ambiguities over why he downloaded a trove of nuclear weapons secrets. 
    Lee never denied that he had downloaded a virtual library of data on weapons tests and designs and placed some of the material on 10 portable cassettes that he took home, seven of which he said he had destroyed and were never found. He insisted, though, that he had not leaked the data to anyone else and that the downloading had been for work purposes. 
    In order to learn some lessons from a security standpoint, the federal government recently concluded a long and careful technical reconstruction of all Lee's actions at Los Alamos . Several experts and government advisers who received a highly classified briefing at the Department of Energy on the results of that forensic analysis said in interviews that its conclusions were extremely critical of Lee, showing an extensive pattern of deceptions on his part in circumventing computer security safeguards, some of which were disclosed at hearings in his criminal case. 
    None of the experts would disclose what Lee had allegedly done to defeat computer restrictions on handling classified data, but during those hearings, the government described how Lee had allegedly transferred data from secure to unsecure computers improperly or borrowed workstations from colleagues to download secrets to cassettes. 
    Of even greater concern, said the experts, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, the analysis also made clear that the information Lee downloaded included some highly sensitive secrets relating to warhead designs and performance that posed a national security threat if they had been leaked. In hearings in his case it was disclosed that the information related to computer-based testing of different warhead designs. 
    "I was very surprised at how bad this was," said one of the experts.
    During a hearing in Lee's case, one senior official had called the information "the crown jewels" of the weapons labs, while Lee had once referred to most of it as flawed "garbage" that would be of little use in actually designing a warhead.
   
The experts who heard the recent briefing said that the truth was somewhere in between and that at least some of the information on warhead specifications was highly important and its loss would have been quite serious for the United States .
   
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the government would have no comment on the litigation.


8/19/04: FAIR Calls for Revealing Sources in Plame, Lee Cases - Courts should Respect Anonymity of Genuine Whistle-blowers

     New York - FAIR, the national media watch group, encourages the reporters and news outlets who have been asked to reveal their sources in the Valerie Plame and Wen Ho Lee cases to cooperate with investigators. Protecting the identities of confidential sources is a journalistic right that should be recognized by the courts, but only when it protects genuine whistle-blowers, not when it shields government wrongdoing.
    Plame is the covert CIA officer whose identity was apparently leaked after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, charged the Bush administration with misuse of intelligence. Lee was a scientist falsely charged by the Clinton administration with being a Chinese spy, and officials seem to have leaked selective information about him in an effort to discredit him in the press.

    Reporters in both cases are being told by investigators to reveal the specific members of the government who transmitted information. FAIR believes that prosecutors' attempts to discover these sources is legitimate, and the ethical journalistic choice is to assist their efforts.
    The ability to protect confidential sources who reveal government wrongdoing is an important journalistic protection that deserves judicial respect. In both the Plame and Lee cases, however, the journalist's sources were not revealing government wrongdoing, but committing government wrongdoing.
    In both cases, the alleged crime was the act of revealing protected information to journalists in order to harm the government's enemies. Given that the alleged criminal acts apparently involved oral conversations between government officials and journalists, it is likely that no evidence of these purported acts would exist except for the journalists' potential testimony.
    Unless one believes that the government ought to be able to surreptitiously use its enormous information-gathering powers to attack opponents with impunity, investigators must have the ability to ask journalists for their sources in such cases, and to compel them if necessary.
    Some have presented these cases as government assaults against the freedom of the press. "Journalists should not have to face the prospect of imprisonment for doing nothing more than aggressively seeking to report on the government's actions," declared Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times (8/13/04), whose reporters have been subpoenaed in both cases. But in neither case were reporters reporting on governmental activities; rather, they were taking part in a governmental activity, namely the selective and illegitimate revelation of information to damage an individual.
    Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for a Free Press told AP (8/18/04): "All this has to do with secrecy. The government is trying to keep more and more secrets all the time, and journalists are working harder to uncover those secrets." Dalglish misses the larger context, which is that the government's misuse of the power of information involves both concealing and revealing information as it suits its purposes.
    The reporters who revealed protected information about Wen Ho Lee were not exposing government secrets, but violating an individual's privacy. And the journalists who are protecting the identity of the officials who outed Valerie Plame are actually participating in a cover-up of official wrongdoing.
    The motive and effect of government leaks are the critical questions, and courts can and should make a distinction between legitimate whistleblowing and illegitimate governmental attempts to use information as a weapon. If Valerie Plame's name had been leaked to expose an illegal covert operation, it would be an entirely different matter and should be treated as such by the legal system. The First Amendment exists so that the press can be a check on government abuse of power, not a handmaiden to it.

8/4/04 Honda: Investigation Granted into Chaplain Yee Case Inspector General Agrees to Request for Formal Inquiry 
    Washington, DC - US Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) today announced that the Inspector General (IG) of the US Department of Defense has agreed to his formal request for an investigation into the US Army's court martial of James Yee, the Muslim chaplain who resigned from the Army on August 2 after being subjected to months of questionable military legal procedures. 
    "Chaplain Yee's treatment by the US Army clearly warrants an investigation into the handling of his entire case, including whether his detention was supported by adequate evidence and appropriate legal charges," Congressman Honda said. "I have grave concerns about the government's track record of unsubstantiated charges - most notably in the case of Wen Ho Lee - and Chaplain Yee's case raises serious questions about the way the military administers justice." 
    Citing "irreparabl[e] injur[ies]" to his personal and professional reputation due to the Army's "unfounded allegations," Chaplain Yee on August 2 submitted a letter of resignation to the Army, requesting formal discharge as of January 7, 2005.
    The issue stems from the September 10, 2003 arrest of US Army Chaplain Yee, a commissioned officer of Islamic faith whom Army officials held in solitary confinement for 76 days on a variety of charges ranging from treason to mishandling classified documents. 
    The Army later dropped all criminal charges, opting to pursue a non-judicial punishment that Chaplain successfully fought on appeal before his full reinstatement. 
    In response to allegations that the Army denied Chaplain Yee the military courtesies commensurate with his rank and targeted him because of his religious affiliation with Islam, Rep. Honda publicly called for an investigation into the matter to ensure that the Army complies with accepted rules of law. 
    On June 4, Rep. Honda sent a letter to Joseph Schmitz, Inspector General of the Department of Defense, formally requesting an investigation into the Army's criminal probe and court martial of Captain Yee. 
    Rep. Honda authored the letter in conjunction with House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Ike Skelton (D-MO), House Armed Services Total Force Subcommittee Ranking Member Vic Snyder (D-AR), and Armed Services Committee member Adam Smith (D-WA). 
    In the wake of Yee's announced resignation, Rep. Honda contacted the IG's office seeking an update of his request for an investigation. The IG informed him that, in response to his request, it "will conduct an investigation into the issues raised with respect to" the matter of Chaplain Yee's treatment by the Army. The IG will initiate its investigation this fall. 
    "I am pleased that the Defense Department has decided that they will investigate the circumstances surrounding Captain James Yee's detention," Rep. Smith said. "It is important that this matter is investigated and that any improprieties surrounding this case are resolved."


8/3/04 Seattle Post-Inbtelligencer: Army chaplain Yee to resign: Muslim cleared of spying charges cites 'irreparable damage' to career,
    Army Capt. James J. Yee of Fort Lewis, a Muslim chaplain cleared of espionage charges when the government's case against him collapsed in March, has decided to leave the military.
   Yee, 36, a West Point graduate, cited continuing frustrations, including "irreparable damage" to his career that began with unfounded leaks last year, his 76 days in prison last fall without a hearing and a continuing gag order imposed by the Army that prevents him from defending himself publicly.
   Yee, who lives with his family near Olympia , asked to be discharged next Jan. 7 and expects to pursue a graduate degree in international relations, said his lawyer, Eugene Fidell of Washington , D.C. Because of the military gag order, Yee cannot comment, Fidell said.
   The Army must approve the resignation. Fidell said he believes the Army will grant it.
     Fort Lewis spokesman Lt. Col. Bill Costello confirmed that Yee's superiors had received the letter, but said he did not know when Yee might get an answer.
   "It'll go through the chain of command, and they'll either approve it or disapprove it," Costello said.
    A portion of Yee's letter, released through Fidell, cited several reasons the chaplain is leaving the service.
    "In 2003, I was unfairly accused of grave offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and unjustifiably placed in solitary confinement for 76 days. Those unfounded allegations -- which were leaked to the media -- irreparably injured my personal and professional reputation and destroyed my prospects for a career in the United States Army," Yee wrote.
    "The only formal punishment I received (on matters having nothing to do with national security) was overturned, but at the same time official statements again unfairly tarnished my reputation," Yee said.
   Indicating frustration at the Army's gag order since then, Yee said "my ability to defend myself against this pattern of unfairness has been impeded by official correspondence, the clear purpose of which is to chill the exercise of my right to free speech."
   Yee said he has waited months for an apology from the government "but none has been forthcoming. I have been unable even to obtain my personal effects from Guantanamo Bay , despite repeated requests. In the circumstances, I have no alternative but to tender my resignation."
   Yee, who studied Islam and Arabic in Syria , was arrested Sept. 10 while serving on temporary duty at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba , where suspected Islamist terrorists are held. Federal authorities initially arrested Yee for carrying purported classified documents out of Guantanamo and linked him to a possible espionage ring.
   Espionage charges never were filed. Instead, the Army charged Yee with failing to obey orders by mishandling classified materials and wrongfully transporting them without proper containers.
   In November, the government added more charges: making a false statement, storing pornography on his government computer and committing adultery with a female military officer. The woman was granted immunity to testify against him.
   The government's case unraveled, however, as Yee's hearings were postponed six times over several months. The government's legal staff accidentally mishandled classified materials, and prosecutors eventually acknowledged they were uncertain whether Yee had classified materials when he left Guantanamo .
   After the criminal charges were dismissed in March, Yee was reprimanded on the adultery and pornography charges. A general, however, overturned those final blemishes on Yee's record.
   Yee's case, though, has drawn national attention. Democratic members of Congress, led by Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, last month calling for an investigation into the fairness of the military justice system and Yee's treatment. In April, Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts in April voiced similar concerns to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


7/22/04 Associated Press:  15 on Investigative Leave at Los Alamos,
    Los Alamos, N.M. - Fifteen employees at the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory were placed on leave amid an investigation into the 
disappearance of two computer disks containing classified information, 
the director of the nuclear weapons lab said Thursday.
   
Four other employees also were placed on leave by Director Pete Nanos 
in a separate investigation involving an intern at the lab who suffered a 
serious eye injury from a laser.
   
The Energy Department has responded by putting the contract to manage 
Los Alamos up for bid for the first time in Los Alamos ' 61-year history. The University of California has operated the lab for the government ever since it 
was created during World War II to build the atomic bomb.


6/25/04 www.asianweek.com: Federal Probe Urged for Capt. James Yee,

    Four Democratic members of Congress are calling on the Pentagon to investigate the Armys treatment of Capt. James Yee, a Muslim chaplain who had been falsely accused of espionage and imprisoned for 76 days before all charges were dropped.
    Yee, 35, was investigated for alleged espionage at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba , where the military is holding suspected terrorists.
    The June 4 letter was signed by Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Vic Snyder (D-Ark.). Skelton is the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, while Snyder and Smith serve on the panel.
   The letter follows an April 23 request by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts for a Pentagon investigation of the case to which there has been no response by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
   Rep. Honda believes an independent investigation is the only way to hold the Defense Department accountable for its actions.
   In this administration, who is going to inspect themselves? Honda asked. Well back up the Senate request, but I think our request with the inspector general makes a little more sense. An investigation will be the basis for an apology and reparations. We asked for an IG investigation on Rumsfelds policies on the PATRIOT Act and we got one. [The IG] came back with 26 points of concerns, and we wrote a letter to Rumsfeld asking him to respond to those points, and he as yet has failed to respond.
   If the right wing accuses me of using this as a campaign issue, I say theyre right. I want them to answer it, Honda said.
   The governments additional reprimand against Yee for adultery and pornography also has been overturned.
   Those developments raise important questions about the strength and legitimacy of initial assertions by Army officials that Capt. Yee had engaged in espionage and treasonous conduct at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , said Smith and three other House members in a letter to the Pentagons inspector general.
   Gov. Gary Locke also pushed for an investigation into the cases of other individuals accused of having connections to terrorism, like Yee, who after a lengthy imprisonment returned to Ft. Lewis , Wash.
   Theres a lawyer in Portland , Ore. , who was accused of being connected with the Madrid , Spain train bombing. And yet the fingerprints dont even match. And they had to issue an apology, Locke said.
   Why is our government time after time ruining the reputations of people, charging them with being in concert with terrorists and then having to drop all of the charges and then releasing them? There are too many abuses that are occurring and we need to make sure that innocent Americans are not being dragged under like they have, he said.
   Joseph and Fong Yee, the parents of chaplain Yee, were heartened by the calls for an investigation.
   This will add a little more pressure so there will be an investigation. The military has left a cloud over our sons head, Joseph Yee said.
   I want Jimmys name cleared, Fong Yee added, Every bit of help is appreciated.  


6/12/04 Oakland Tribune: Wen Ho Lee flap should never have surfaced,
    The flap over the Asian legislative caucus proposal to present a "profile in courage" award to Wen Ho Lee on the floor of the state Assembly is a 
controversy that should never have gotten as far as it did.
   
If you erase race from the issue -- which is hard to do -- it becomes a question of whether a state governing body, the Legislature, should honor a person who has pleaded guilty to a lesser federal offense after a failed investigation into espionage allegations. Under almost all circumstances, such a ceremony wouldn't and shouldn't be held. Politically, it's too questionable.
   
The choice of Wen Ho Lee was certain to be controversial, guaranteeing the war of words it evoked. We trust a better, less divisive choice would have received a warmer reception.


6/12/04 Alameda Times-Star: "Wen Ho Lee flap should never have surfaced,"
    The flap over the Asian legislative caucus proposal to present a "profile in courage" award to Wen Ho Lee on the floor of the state Assembly is a 
controversy that should never have gotten as far as it did.
   
If you erase race from the issue -- which is hard to do -- it becomes a question of whether a state governing body, the Legislature, should honor a person who has pleaded guilty to a lesser federal offense after a failed investigation into espionage allegations. Under almost all circumstances, such a ceremony wouldn't and shouldn't be held. Politically, it's too questionable.
   
The choice of Wen Ho Lee was certain to be controversial, guaranteeing the war of words it evoked. We trust a better, less divisive choice would have received a warmer reception.  


6/12/04 Pasadena Star News:  Lawmakers withdraw honor: Asian American former scientist was once accused of being a spy,
    By Cindy Chang 
    Since the September day nearly four years ago when he triumphantly emerged from a highly publicized imprisonment, the federal government having dropped all but one of the 59 espionage-related charges against him, Wen Ho Lee has spent his days fishing, writing scientific papers and puttering around his garden. 
    He says he wants to forget that nightmarish time when his name was regularly splashed across the front pages of newspapers, first as the charges against him became known, then as a public outcry forced investigators to acknowledge that they may have overreacted to indications that he might be a spy for China
    But last week, when Lee, formerly a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, went to Sacramento to accept an award from a group of Asian-American state legislators, he again found himself at the center of a controversy. As a conservative political group accused him of being a "domestic enemy,' Republican legislators closed ranks, and plans to honor Lee on the floor of the state Assembly were scrapped. 
    An army of Asian-American activists posed for a photo-op in his defense, declaring in language echoing that of four years ago that Lee continued to be a victim of a "perpetual foreigner' stereotype by which Asian-Americans are suspected of having divided loyalties, even if their families have lived in this country for generations. 
    Wen Ho Lee remains a powerful symbol for many civil-rights activists. They claim the FBI unfairly focused its espionage investigation on Lee because of his race, and that it also was his race that led authorities to deny him bail and hold him in solitary confinement under unduly harsh conditions. 
    The same "perpetual foreigner' stereotypes that underlie the Lee case have potential consequences for every Asian American, from glass ceilings at the workplace to hate crimes to the most extreme case, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, they say. 
    But other Asian Americans, while acknowledging that stereotypes are a problem, question whether Lee is an appropriate civil rights symbol when he did plead guilty to one charge of mishandling state secrets. 
    "Probably every Asian Pacific American can relate to the perpetual foreigner stereotype,' said Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park , who led the effort to honor Lee. "For instance, I will be asked, 'Where are you from?' I'll say I was born in L.A. They'll say, 'No, where are you really from?'' 
    Howard Kaloogian, a former assemblyman and chairman of the group Move America Forward, set off last week's controversy when he said to the Oakland Tribune, "I wonder if they (caucus members) have ever considered whether a domestic enemy could possibly be the man that they are honoring. I would think they would be able to find other role models.' 
    While many Asian-American activists stood with Chu in condemning Kaloogian's remarks, others say they are not so sure that the legislators should have chosen such a controversial figure to honor. 
    Virtually all acknowledge that the government treated Lee unfairly. But some argue, using language not so far removed from that of Kaloogian's group, that Lee was not completely exonerated and therefore should not be honored particularly in a post-Sept. 11 climate where ethnic minorities are under extra pressure to prove their patriotism. 
    "He has not exonerated himself of those accusations, so he fell short. Therefore it put us in limbo about whether to honor him or not,' said Saykin Foo of Los Angeles, grand president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, who fought for Lee's release from prison but believes Chu and the other legislators should have picked someone else to honor. "We want to honor the contribution made, but where is the contribution? I don't know.' 
    Federal agents began investigating Lee on suspicions he might have given information about an advanced nuclear warhead to China . The focus on him intensified when investigators discovered that he had downloaded reams of classified material onto computer tapes. 
    The investigation was later criticized for targeting Lee to the exclusion of other suspects. After initially insisting Lee was spying for China , prosecutors later backed down, saying he might have downloaded the information to enhance his job prospects in countries including Australia , Switzerland and France
    Lee's case galvanized Asian- American groups, which rallied to his defense. When he was released from prison in September 2000, the judge apologized for holding him without bail under "extraordinarily onerous conditions.' 
    But even though Lee went through a harrowing ordeal during his nine-month imprisonment, he should be seen as more of a passive sufferer than a true hero and was not the best person to receive the Profile in Courage Award from the Asian-American legislators' group, some say. 
    After withdrawing their plans to honor Lee on the assembly floor, the Chu-led Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus presented him with the award at a banquet in Sacramento on Monday.
    "He hasn't done anything on his own symbolizing that he is a hero in the interests of Asians. Yes, he's gone through a lot of painful experiences due to the mishandling of the situation by the U.S. government,' said Paul Zee, a former South Pasadena councilman and a member of the California Republican Party's Central Committee. "I'm 100-percent sympathetic, I understand the situation, but I don't think he's done anything as a hero.'
    For many civil-rights activists, though, Lee remains an emotionally charged symbol of how a U.S. citizen of foreign extraction might be unfairly singled out for prosecution when important national security interests are at stake. Investigators in the case admitted that Lee's ethnic origins he was born in Taiwan and is a naturalized U.S. citizen were part of the reason he initially came under suspicion.
    "To see him accused and put into solitary for what turned out to be baseless charges really rung true for a lot of Asian-Americans,' said Kathay Feng, director of the voting rights and hate crimes programs at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and the national secretary for the Organization of Chinese Americans. "The basis is the feeling of always being labeled as an outsider, or even less than an outsider, that we're seen through the eyes of people as second-class citizens or foreigners.'


6/11/04: Rep. Honda Demands Investigation Into Chaplain Yee Case Calls on Army to Demonstrate Due Process Washington, DC - 
US Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) has formally requested an investigation into the US Army's court martial of Chaplain James Yee, a commissioned officer of Islamic faith who was held in solitary confinement for 76 days on a variety of charges ranging from treason to mishandling classified documents. Ultimately, the Army dropped all criminal charges. On June 4, Rep. Honda submitted a letter to Joseph Schmitz, Inspector General of the Department of Defense, formally requesting the investigation into the Army's criminal probe and court marital of Captain Yee. Rep. Honda authored the letter in conjunction with House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Ike Skelton (D-MO), House Armed Services Total Force Subcommittee Ranking Member Vic Snyder (D-AR), and Armed Services Committee member Adam Smith (D-WA).

6/10/04 by Bill Wong: "Why Would The API Caucus Honor A Person Convicted of A Crime?  This 60 Year Old Story May Jog Your Memory."
The Korematsu Case
    Fred Korematsu was an American citizen of Japanese descent.  He was 22-years-old in 1942 when General DeWitt ordered everyone of Japanese ancestry in the Western United States to report to assembly centers.  But Korematsu refused to report for internment.  Government authorities finally tracked him down on May 30, 1942 and they arrested him for remaining in a military area barred to anyone of Japanese ancestry.
    After his conviction in a federal court, the judge sentenced Korematsu to five years probation and the military immediately took him into custody and sent him to the relocation camp at Topaz, Utah.
    When Korematsu's case reached the Supreme Court in October 1944, the attorneys for the government pointed to the constitutional war powers of Congress and the president.  The attorneys presented a report from General DeWitt, which repeated many of the unproved rumors about Issei and Nisei disloyalty. The government also cited those in the camps which had refused to sign the loyalty oath.
    Korematsu's attorneys showed that during the nearly four months between Pearl Harbor and General DeWitt's first evacuation order, not one person of Japanese descent had been convicted of espionage or sabotage.
    The attorney's for Korematsu charged that General DeWitt accepted the prejudiced views of those hostile to the Issei and Nisei and was himself a racist. To prove their point, they quoted a statement DeWitt made before a congressional committee in 1943: "A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not. I don't want any of them . . . . They are a dangerous element, whether loyal or not . . . ."
    On December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court decided, 6-3, to uphold the conviction of Korematsu.  Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority, fully accepted the views of General DeWitt.
    Korematsu had one more day in court. Researchers discovered that the government had withheld important facts at his trial. Forty years later, in 1984, a federal judge agreed that Korematsu probably did not get a fair trial and set aside his conviction.


6/9/04 Pasadena Star News:  
"Poor judgment in Lee brouhaha,"
   
Local Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park , chairman of a new legislative caucus, stirred up a hornets nest when the group honored a nuclear scientist once accused of spying. 
    It seems the newly formed Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus was on the right track in awarding a "profile in courage' award to an Asian American, but their choice of recipients is suspect. 
   
Los Alamos computer engineer Wen Ho Lee no doubt showed great courage during a nine- month incarceration, half in solitary confinement, while federal officials pursued charges of espionage that were eventually dropped in 2000. 
    Lee, who worked in the nuclear weapons program at the national laboratory in the late '90s, was never charged with passing nuclear secrets to the Chinese, allegedly the main focus of his case. But neither was he completely cleared. He pleaded guilty to using an unsecured computer to download "information related to national defense' onto personal tapes, which he then supposedly discarded. Seems suspicious to us, despite Chu 's characterization of Lee's case as a "racially charged inquisition.' 
    While our hindsight view is that Lee's treatment may have been overly harsh, neither is the possible trading of nuclear secrets to be taken lightly. 
    Tapping Lee for the award was bound to leave many scratching their heads. Another Chinese immigrant living in caucus member Assemblywoman Carol Liu's district displayed genuine courage when he and fellow dissidents faced down bullets and tanks June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square . Hundreds of pro- democracy demonstrators were killed in an unprecedented massacre that stunned the world. 
   
Pasadena resident Yongun Zhou was among those brave university students 
as a leader of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing . Made an example by the Chinese authorities, Zhou was arrested and spent four years in prison. After his release, he escaped to the United States where he continues to fight for the rights of imprisoned activists in his home country.
   
As chronicled by Staff Writer Cindy Chang, Zhou's activism hasn't been dampened even after spending another three years at hard labor after Chinese authorities again arrested him when he returned to China in 1998. Talk about courage.
   
Let's just call this unfortunate brouhaha poor judgment on all sides.


6/7/04 Pasadena Star News: Assemblywoman defends decision to honor scientist,
    By Gary Scott and Cindy Chang
    Sacramento -- Assemblywoman Judy Chu said Monday those who objected to a planned ceremony to honor former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee are perpetuating a racist stereotype: that Asian Americans have divided loyalties.     
    Speaking at a press conference outside the state Capitol, Chu, D-Monterey Park , chastised Howard Kaloogian and his Move Forward American group for comments she said vilified Lee and questioned the patriotism of the lawmakers who chose to honor him. 
    "Dr. Lee is a victim of the stereotype that plagues (Asian Pacific Islanders) the perpetual foreigner stereotype,' Chu said. "That is, we are loyal to countries in Asia no matter how many generations we've lived in this country.' 
    The Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, which includes Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D- Pasadena, had planned to present Lee with its "profile in courage' award in a ceremony on the Assembly floor. 
    Kaloogian, a conservative who helped lead the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, first raised his objections in an interview with the Oakland Tribune. 
    Kaloogian questioned whether Chu and the other members of the API caucus were upholding their oaths to defend the nation against foreign and domestic enemies. 
    "I wonder if they have ever considered whether a domestic enemy could possibly be the man that they are honoring,' Kaloogian said.
   
Kaloogian could not be reached for comment Monday, but Sal Russo, a strategist for Move Forward American, said the charges of stereotyping are baseless.
   
"It is preposterous. It has nothing to do with race or gender,' Russo said. "It has to do with poor judgment.
    "We should not be honoring people who are convicted of crimes and who are suspected of committing even more crimes,' Russo continued. "There are certainly better role models.' 
   
Chu ultimately canceled the event after a staff member from the Republican Caucus called her office to object. The award was presented later that day at a dinner banquet.
   
A spokeswoman for GOP Assembly Leader Kevin McCarthy said the Republican Caucus had taken no formal position on the ceremony.
   
Chu said she chose to honor Lee because he was unfairly targeted in the 1999 espionage probe at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
   
Federal prosecutors filed a 59- count indictment against Lee, a Taiwanese immigrant, for allegedly passing on secret nuclear weapons data to China .
   
The fact that members of the Republican Caucus appear to have agreed with Kaloogian's objections, Wang added, "shows they have little regard for the truth and even less regard for the Asian-American community.'


June 5, 2004 PR#: CO.04-22 
Assembly Member Chu Statement on GOP Objection To Wen Ho Lee Ceremony
    I regretfully cancelled the Assembly Floor ceremony honoring Dr. Wen Ho Lee in order to spare him from an awkward situation arising from the Assembly Republican Caucus' objection to the presentation. The Assembly GOP Caucus informed our office of their objection to honoring Dr. Lee late Friday afternoon. 
    I am outraged by the Republican Caucus objection to the ceremony and Howard Kaloogian's inflammatory remarks in Friday's Oakland Tribune. 
    Dr. Lee has already been victimized by an overzealous prosecution by the government and I do not want him to be brutally victimized again by unwarranted, racially-charged, inaccurate and irresponsible accusations. 
    It is my great honor to honor Dr. Lee with an award that celebrates and recognizes an Asian Pacific Islander American individual who has shown tremendous courage in the face of overwhelming odds and inconceivable injustice. Dr. Wen Ho Lee, survived nothing less than a racially charged inquisition by runaway government officials and a justice system that was asleep at the wheel. 
    Dr. Lee is a 60-year-old Taiwanese American scientist who was unfairly singled out and charged with mishandling restricted nuclear data at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had been an employee for over 20 years. 
    Contrary to erroneous press accounts and the inflammatory rhetoric, Dr. Lee was never charged with "spying". 
    Despite a lengthy investigation involving over 1,000 interviews and review of over one million files, the FBI did not uncover any evidence that Dr. Lee passed on classified or restricted information to any foreign agents. 
    The conditions of Dr. Lee's confinement were severe for a 60-year old scientist. He was placed in solitary confinement, shackled with leg irons and chains every time he left his solitary cell, he was denied access to daily exercise and showers, and had very limited access to phone calls, visitors, or outside information.
    Nevertheless, Dr. Lee persevered and justice was eventually served. Dr. Lee walked out of court a free man on September 13, 2000 after a federal judge repeatedly apologized for incarcerating him for nine months without trial and angrily rebuked the federal government for its handling of a case that "embarrassed this entire nation." 
    The government dismissed 58 counts against Dr. Lee. In a sworn statement provided as part of the deal, Dr. Lee said that he did not intend to harm the United States and that he had not passed the tapes or their contents to anyone. 
    In the end, the FBI admitted that it had no evidence that Lee was a spy and he was not charged with espionage. 
    Dr. Wen Ho Lee's courage in the face of such overwhelming persecution inspired Asian and Pacific Islander Americans all over the country. His perseverance and dignity during this horrendous ordeal is a beacon for all of us to follow and for that I am proud to honor him with the inaugural API Legislative Caucus "Profile In Courage" Award.


Dear Editor of Oakland Tribune:
    I was dismayed by the title of your June 4, 2004 article on the California API Legislative Caucuss decision to honor Dr. Wen Ho Lee (Asian Caucus to Fete Former Accused Spy). 
    Dr. Lee was never formally accused of spying, although anonymous government sources made this claim without support or merit. The governments charges against Dr. Lee for mishandling classified data was so weak that federal District Court Judge James Parker made this extraordinary statement when Lee was released: I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner in which you were held in custody by the executive branch. 
    The government held Lee for nine months in solitary detention, shackled and chained whenever he left his cell in an attempt to coerce a confession. 
    For right-wing zealots to now accuse the Caucus of honoring a domestic enemy is slanderous and only illustrates the role that xenophobia played in the original prosecution of Dr. Lee. 
    Lees ability to withstand the governments relentless pressure and mistreatment with dignity is heroic. 
    His example is particularly relevant as the U.S. government today continues to detain individuals in the U.S. and abroad in the name of national security without criminal charges, due process or access to counsel. The Caucus is right to honor Dr. Lee and to remind us that in our democratic system of government, power should never go unchecked. 
    Ted Wang 
    Policy Director 
    Chinese for Affirmative Action

5/14/04 www.AsianWeek.com: James Yees Family Calls for Congressional Investigation,
By Sam Chu Lin

   Revelations of Americas controversial treatment of Iraqi prisoners could vindicate U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain James Yee if a congressional hearing is held, said his family.
   So far, the Yee case has generated congressional interest, but the military has not responded to appeals to investigate the Army captains case. The West Point graduate was recently released and returned to active duty after being detained for 76 days on suspicion of helping suspected terrorist detainees at a Guantanamo Bay prison.
   A letter co-signed by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was sent to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to encourage the military to finally apologize and assume responsibility for its actions against Yee.
   Joseph Yee, father of James, is hoping for an investigation into his sons case. The original charges were dismissed out of concern for national security, and a letter of reprimand for possessing pornography and adultery was later pulled from the captains personnel services file.
   Im happy [the senators] wrote the letter, but Im a little disappointed because I havent heard anything yet, he said.  It looks like the military or the Defense Department isnt responding. Our senator [Jon Corzine] has also written to Gen. James Hill [head of the U.S. Southern Command who oversees the prison], and I still havent heard anything yet.
   The Yee family patriarch said that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) last week queried Rumsfeld and the Army brass in a recent congressional hearing about the case.
   Yee recalled that Clinton asked why the military had leaked the stories about his son, ruining his career, while keeping the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners under wraps.
   But he said that Sen. Clinton also pointed out that the military dropped all of the charges against him.
   Joseph Yee believes a hearing would help divulge any connection between his sons case and controversies surrounding U.S. military prisons.
   There were probably things going on at Guantanamo Bay that James was disturbed about. I believe he was trying to do his job as a chaplain. They couldnt back him up and make it hard on the detainees at the same time. They should have never sent him down there. A congressional hearing would put Jim in a better light and reveal why he had all of these problems. I want to know who set him up.
   One military officer may have some answers, said Eugene Fidell, Yees civilian attorney.
   Brigadier General Geoffrey Miller, the man now in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad , was responsible for Chaplain Yees long incarceration, said Fidell.
   It looks like [Millers] going to be on the hot seat for a while. Jim has been muzzled by the Army, and cards and letters to the president and to Congress calling for a congressional hearing into his case will help.
   Joseph Yee said his son has returned to Fort Lewis , Wash. , with his family after an extended leave. But Yees military career as a chaplain is at a crossroads with his tour of duty ending in January 2005. In civilian life, Yee had worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative for about two years before he rejoined the Army as a Muslim chaplain.
   Now he is setting up a social project, his father said. It has nothing to do with being a chaplain.
   He added,  The letter of reprimand has been removed, but the Army has made him a marked man with the way theyve treated him. They havent even cleared his name from the original charges.
   Although Captain Yee has attracted congressional interest, community help hasnt been strong. Captain Yees legal fees now total nearly $200,000. While the elder Yee recognizes a slumping economy has dampened financial support, he feels the Asian Pacific American community in particular should mobilize around his sons fight.
   Community indifference only leaves the door wide open for a James Yee case to repeat itself.
   Its tough, the elder Yee said. Its probably going to discourage many APAs and Muslims from considering working for the government or [joining] the military in the future.
   Yee, a retired mechanical engineer, has sent a letter to Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos scientist who was once incarcerated on suspicion of giving nuclear weapons secrets to China but never convicted. He has sent letters to Lees supporters, attorney and family and noted the similarities between his sons case and Dr. Lees.
   I think it would be very important for Dr. Wen Ho Lee to support my sons case, Joseph Yee said.  Dr. Lee was railroaded and really never got a true apology from the government. We need to know what really happened to Jimmy and hear an apology from those responsible.
   Yee is hoping that Lees daughter, Alberta , a law student at UC Davis, will encourage her father to voice his support when he appears June 7 at the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus Policy Summit.

 

4/30/04 press release
Contact: Janelle Hu, 202-223-5500

OCA CALLS FOR FULL GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION INTO HANDLING OF CHAPLAIN JAMES YEE'S HOLLOW ESPIONAGE CHARGES

   
Washington, DC - The Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), a national Asian Pacific American (APA) civil rights advocacy and educational organization with over 80 chapters and affiliates nationwide, objects to the unfounded charges brought against Army Chaplain Captain James Yee.  
   
Chaplain James Yee is a captain in the U.S. Army who served honorably at Guantanomo Bay, where his primary duty was in ministering to detainees and suspected terrorists of Islamic faith. After the U.S. military initially linked him to a possible espionage ring, Chaplain Yee spent 76 days in custody on suspicion of espionage and treason.  When the military brought formal charges against Chaplain Yee, none of these accusations appeared.  As a result, government prosecutors failed to establish any credible espionage case against him.
   
Chaplain Yee's vanishing resembles those of the thousands of immigrants of Arab, Islamic, and South Asian decent who disappeared through secret arrests, detention, and deportations, and became forcibly separated from their wives and children.
   
Joining Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, OCA supports a full exoneration and justice for Chaplain James Yee and calls upon the U.S. Government to initiate an immediate investigation into the handling of this case.  Furthermore, OCA demands an apology and compensation from the government for creating this unjust and prolonged ordeal suffered by Yee and his family, and also destroying Chaplain Yee's career as a military chaplain through false accusations, arrest, detention, and reprimand.  Finally, OCA advocates that the war on terrorism cannot become an excuse for any government to trump basic rights or to profile on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion.
   
"Although all charges against Chaplain Yee were dropped, this case must not be overlooked without a full investigation into the inadequate handling of his case," stated OCA National President, Raymond Wong. "After suffering 76 days in solitary confinement in vain, Chaplain Yee deserves a thorough investigation into whether the U.S. Government had any substantial evidence to support the charges brought against him." 
   
"Chaplain Yee endured the invasion of his privacy, infringement of his civil liberties, and violation of his basic civil rights of human dignity.  Including the case of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, there are too many examples where APAs have been deemed guilty without evidentiary support," said Christine Chen, OCA Executive Director.  "The U.S. Government must prevent similar, unsubstantiated arrests from afflicting innocent APAs in the future." 

 
4/13/04 Associated Press:  "Judge Says Prosecutors in Leung Case Must Supply More Evidence,"
    Los Angeles -- Prosecutors must more strongly back up their indictment of a woman accused of being a double agent for China by providing details about documents seized from her home, a federal judge ruled.
    The indictment against Katrina Leung is so vague that Leung has been unable to prepare an adequate defense, U.S. District Judge Florence-Maria Cooper wrote in a ruling made public Friday.
    Leung, 49, is a naturalized U.S. citizen accused of taking classified documents from the briefcase of her former lover and FBI handler, James J. Smith. She is not accused of relaying the papers to Chinese officials. She faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of illegally copying and possessing national security papers.
    Defense attorneys acknowledge that Leung was a double-agent, but say she was loyal to the United States, not China.
    Leung was recruited to work for the FBI 20 years ago and gathered intelligence during her frequent business trips to China. But prosecutors allege she started working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security sometime around 1990.
    In response to a defense request, Cooper gave prosecutors until April 29 to answer 19 questions about three documents seized in a December 2002 search of Leung's home.
    One of the documents is a list of agents assigned to investigate Peter Lee, a scientist at defense contractor TRW Inc. who pleaded guilty in 1997 to passing classified secrets to Chinese scientists.
    Cooper ordered prosecutors to explain how the documents are connected to national security, how Leung knew their significance and how she intended to use them to harm the United States.
    Smith, 60, is accused of gross negligence for allegedly allowing Leung access to classified materials and with mail fraud for filing false reports to FBI headquarters about her reliability. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

4/6/04 Associated Press: "Feds Drop Probe of Deal with Chinese Lab,"
    Denver (AP) -- The Justice Department won't press charges against a Fort Collins businessman accused of illegally diverting U.S. technology to a Chinese laboratory suspected of making military weapons.
    The U.S. attorney's office in Denver said in a Feb. 25 letter to Lee Yu that it was closing the investigation against him because ``we feel we cannot, after investigation, prove the matter beyond a reasonable doubt.''
    Yu's attorney said that a federal agent with the Commerce Department in California based her investigation on inaccurate information.
    Yu, a naturalized U.S. citizen who grew up in China, said he believes he was targeted because of his background.
    ``I thought this was a great freedom country (where you) don't have to be afraid of the police as long as you are a law-abiding citizen,'' Yu said.
    Federal agents searched his home in early 2003.
    He drew the attention of federal investigators after buying a high-speed video camera used by physicists and engineers. He acknowledged helping send the $50,000 camera to a Chinese research institute, but said the transaction was legal.
    Yu's attorney, Trip Mackintosh, said a federal investigator mistakenly reported the Beijing facility that received the camera was banned from getting U.S. goods. Such facilities are suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction.
    ``The agents were clumsily investigating a legal transaction and they misinterpreted the law,'' Mackintosh said.
    The Justice and Commerce departments declined to comment, saying the letter from the U.S. attorney's office speaks for itself.
    Yu said his business has fallen off since the investigation became public. He works as a middleman between American companies and Chinese factories.
    Yu came to the United States from China in 1987 to study mechanical engineering at Brigham Young University in Utah and stayed after graduation.

For Immediate Release
March 24, 2004
Contact: Janelle Hu, 202-223-5500 

    Washington, DC - The Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), a national Asian Pacific American (APA) civil rights advocacy and educational organization with over 80 chapters and affiliates nationwide, heralds the abandonment of all criminal charges against Army chaplain Captain James Yee.  Nevertheless, OCA is deeply concerned these unfounded charges were brought against Yee in the first place. As doubt and speculation regarding the validity of these charges continue to surface, OCA urges the government to properly investigate and explain why these charges were filed against Captain Yee. James Yee, a Chinese American born and raised in New Jersey, graduated from West Point in 1990.  He served in the Persian Gulf War and later spent several years in Syria, where he converted to Islam and changed his name to "Yousef."  At the time of his detention, Yee was stationed as a Muslim chaplain for the Muslim detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
    "OCA is disturbed that government prosecutors have indicted innocent parties of espionage charges without solid evidence.  As with the case against Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the most serious charges brought against Yee were dropped," said OCA National President, Raymond Wong.  "Because of the government's unwarranted charges, Captain James Yee's reputation has been unnecessarily tarnished and may never be restored." The Organization of Chinese Americans, a national civil rights organization with over 80 chapters and affiliates across the country, was founded in 1973 to ensure the civil rights of the Asian Pacific American community.  It maintains its headquarters in Washington, D.C.


3/24/03 New York Times: "Military Injustice,"
   More than six months after Capt. James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at Guantnamo, was arrested on suspicion of espionage, the military has dropped the charges. Military officials insist that the prosecution was halted only to keep sensitive information from becoming public. What they really are trying to hide from view, it seems clear, is not national security secrets, but the incompetence and mean-spiritedness of their prosecution.
   Captain Yee was arrested last September after inspectors found what they claimed were suspicious, perhaps classified, papers in his luggage. Captain Yee spent 76 days in a naval brig, much of the time in leg irons, and prosecutors suggested that they might seek the death penalty. As the investigation proceeded, it became evident just how weak the accusations were. The military downgraded the charges to mishandling classified data. But it added charges that Captain Yee had engaged in an extramarital affair and had kept pornography on his government computer.
   At a hearing in December, the government revealed that it had never bothered to make a formal determination that the documents Captain Yee was charged with carrying were actually classified. The hearing was adjourned so prosecutors could make this basic determination. But before it was, the government made public the more salacious charges. As Captain Yee's wife and 4-year-old daughter looked on, a fellow officer testified under a grant of immunity about having an affair with him.
   In dropping the prosecution last week, the military refused to clear Captain Yee, contending that it had acted only because of "national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence." But there is no reason to believe this is true. Lawyers on both sides had security clearances, and sensitive evidence, if any existed, could have been kept confidential. In a final unpleasant touch, rather than letting go of the accusations of possessing pornography and having an affair, the military formally reprimanded Captain Yee this week, based on those allegations. These are matters the military rarely investigates. The reprimand appears to be the military's feeble attempt to make Captain Yee look bad.
   The case raises many questions not about Captain Yee, but about his accusers. Did Captain Yee's position as a Muslim chaplain make him suspect in the eyes of the military, even in the absence of significant evidence? Why did prosecutors begin their case before determining whether the information at issue was classified? Why were embarrassing sexual allegations included, and emphasized, in a case that claimed to be about national security?
   The damage this case did to Captain Yee is incalculable, but the military has also hurt itself. It has cast further doubt on its detention policies in Guantnamo. It has diminished public confidence in military justice. And it has weakened its own credibility for future cases when it tries to invoke national security. For Captain Yee's sake and its own, the military should apologize for its misguided prosecution and put in place procedures to prevent a case like this from
happening again.


3/23/04 Associated Press: "Yee reprimanded for two infractions: Army chaplain accused of adultery, downloading porn,"
    Arlington, VA. -- An Army chaplain once accused of mishandling classified documents while ministering to terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay was reprimanded yesterday for minor infractions.
   
The hearing for Capt. James Yee on accusations of adultery and downloading pornography to his Army computer concluded a prosecution that began with Yee suspected of crimes that could have resulted in execution.
   
On Friday, Army officials dismissed all criminal charges against Yee, saying national security concerns prevented them from seeking a court martial, which would have to be conducted in open court.
   
Yee, a Muslim convert, was arrested last year and held for 76 days after the military initially linked him to a possible espionage ring.
   
He was eventually charged with lesser counts of mishandling classified material, failing to obey an order, making a false official statement, adultery and conduct unbecoming an officer.
   
He could have faced 14 years in prison on those counts.
    After yesterday's hearing, Yee's lawyer said his client should have received an apology instead of a reprimand.
    The lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said he thinks Yee's Muslim faith led authorities to improperly suspect him of sedition. He also criticized the government for leaking information about Yee's case, saying his client was "a victim of an incredible drive-by act of legal violence."
   
"There's no effective remedy other than the court of public opinion," Fidell said. "People concerned with the military justice system have watched this case with a growing sense of horror."


3/19/04 Associated Press: Charges Dropped Against Muslim Chaplain,
    Miami - Citing national security concerns, the Army on Friday dropped all charges against a Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified documents at Guantanamo Bay , which houses suspected terrorists.
   
Capt. James Yee will be allowed to return to his previous duty station at Fort Lewis , near Tacoma , Wash. , said the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the detention center in Cuba
    "Chaplain Yee has won," his attorney, Eugene R. Fidell of Washington , said in a statement late Friday. "The Army's dismissal of the classified information charges against him represents a long overdue vindication." 
    In dismissing the charges, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which operates the detention center, cited "national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence" if the case proceeded. 
    "In the grand scheme of things, and in the interest of national security, Gen. Miller felt like the charges needed to be dropped," said Lt. Col. Bill Costello, a Southcom spokesman. "It seemed to be the prudent way to proceed."
   
Yee spent 76 days in custody after the military initially linked him to a possible espionage ring at the Naval base in Cuba . But the government failed to build a capital espionage case against him. Prosecutors have not disclosed much about their case.
   
Some Asian-American activists and Yee supporters have accused the government of racial and religious profiling in Yee's case.
   
The Army charged Yee last September with mishandling classified material, failing to obey an order, making a false official statement, adultery and conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly downloading pornography on his government laptop.
   
Fidell rejected the notion that security concerns played a role in the dismissal of charges. He said Yee, who was in the Washington, D.C.-area on Friday, was entitled to an apology.
   
Miller said Yee, a 35-year-old Chinese-American, will be offered nonjudicial punishment for allegations of adultery and pornography.
   
That would come through an Article 15 proceeding, the military's method for dealing with minor infractions. The penalties would be minor, such as duty restriction or a temporary pay cut.
   
"We anticipate that Yee will be returned to his home duty station at Ft. Lewis , Washington , at the conclusion of any Article 15 proceedings," Southcom said in a news release.
    
If convicted of all the original charges, Yee could have faced dismissal and a maximum of 14 years in prison. 
    Yee previously was a chaplain at Fort Lewis , and his wife and child live in Olympia , Wash. At Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, he counseled suspected Muslim terrorists and dispensed religious guidance.
   
He was arrested Sept. 10 as he arrived at a Jacksonville, Fla., naval base, from Guantanamo, carrying what authorities said were classified documents. Some of the documents were taken from his backpack, and others came from his laptop and his quarters at Guantanamo , officials said.
   
Before he was charged, Yee had told The Associated Press in a January 2003 interview that one of his goals as chaplain was to clear up misunderstandings about Islam.  Telephone messages seeking comment from Yee's wife in Olympia , Wash. , were not immediately returned.  


2/4/04 www.ap.org: Army Chaplain Yee's Father: Charges a Result of Ethnic Profiling,
    New York (AP) -- The father of a Muslim Army chaplain accused of mishandling classified information said the charges against his son are based on ethnic and religious profiling.
    Capt. James Yee, 35, is a Chinese-American who had been serving as a chaplain to suspected terrorists at the military's detention camp at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba .
    Joseph Yee, 76, called on the government Monday to drop charges against his son.
    ``They've smeared the Yee family name,'' he said. ``I think they are running a conspiracy against him. It's a waste of time and of taxpayers' dollars.''
    A Pentagon spokeswoman referred questions to a spokeswoman at Guantanamo , who did not immediately return a call for comment.
    The elder Yee spoke at a news conference before flying to Fort Benning , Georgia , for the resumption Wednesday of a hearing in his son's case.
    Capt. Yee was arrested in September at the Jacksonville , Florida , airport on suspicion of espionage. Customs officials confiscated notes found on him during a search.
    The elder Yee said he wants to know why another Army officer, Col. Jack Farr, accused of mishandling classified material and making false statements was allowed to remain on duty.
    Charges of spying and aiding the enemy -- both capital offenses -- were never brought against Capt. Yee. He faces lesser allegations of mishandling classified data, disobeying orders, adultery and storing pornography on an Army computer.

 
6/18/03 UPI: "Oops: Los Alamos Lab Loses Plutonium,"
    Los Alamos, N.M. The Project on Goverment Oversight 
quotes sources as saying about 2 grams of plutonium is 

missing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
   
The plutonium has been missing since 2001 but was 
reported only last week to Department of Energy officials 
responsible for overseeing the lab. DOE requires any 
missing weapons-grade nuclear material of a half-gram or 
more be reported.
   
POGO said the fact the missing material was not 
reported is a violation of department policy and raises 
serious questions about the level of confidence in DOE's 
Material Control and Accountability System that tracks 
hundreds of tons of weapons-grade nuclear material.
   
A former DOE official advised POGO that even small 
quantities of missing plutonium are a potential threat to 
public health and safety and are taken very seriously.


6/6/03 Associated Press: "Justice Department Refuses to 
Release Report on Wen Ho Lee Case,"
   
Albuquerque, N.M. -- A watchdog group is appealing to the 
U.S. Department of Justice to release a new report about the 
bungled case against former Los Alamos National Laboratory 
scientist Wen Ho Lee.
   
The Washington-based Federation of American Scientists 
filed an appeal Wednesday seeking to reverse the government's 
decision not to release the report by the Justice Department's 
Office of Professional Responsibility, said Steven Aftergood, 
a federation senior research analyst.
   
Lee, who was indicted in December 1999 on 59 felony counts 
alleging he mishandled nuclear weapons information, was held 
in solitary confinement for nine months before he was released 
in September 2000 as the federal case crumbled. Lee, in a 
negotiated settlement, pleaded guilty to a single felony count 
and was sentenced to the time he had already served.
   
In handing down that sentence, U.S. District Judge James 
Parker apologized to Lee, saying the government's handling of 
the case ``embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is 
a citizen of it.''
   
Then-Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the internal review 
after a private meeting with President Clinton to patch up their 
differences following Clinton's public comment that Lee's 
detention ``just can't be justified.''
   
Justice officials said at the time the internal review would start 
with criticisms made by Parker and would encompass the whole 
handling of the case by the Justice Department and the FBI, 
including Reno's role.
   
Aftergood noted in his appeal that White House spokesman 
Joe Lockhart said of the report at the time ``the American public 
should look forward to an accounting there, and I think that will be 
done.''
   
Marlene Wahowiak, assistant counsel for the Freedom of 
Information and Privacy Act at the Office of Professional 
Responsibility, wrote in a May 29 letter to the scientists 
federation that she had determined the report ``should be 
withheld in its entirety,'' according to a copy provided by 
Aftergood.
   
Wahowiak cited exemptions to the law that allow the 
withholding of certain information for security, privacy and law enforcement reasons.
   
Aftergood said he understands that not all the information 
may be appropriate for public consumption but that an outright 
denial of access to the entire report was unreasonable.
   
``The whole point of this exercise was to provide public 
accountability, not to educate the Justice Department about 
itself,'' Aftergood said Wednesday. ``And while I can imagine 
that portions of the report are properly withheld because they 
contain classified information or privacy information, other 
portions should be released.''
   
The Justice Department did not return Associated Press 
calls seeking comment Wednesday.
   
Department spokesman Mark Carallo told the Albuquerque 
Journal that the agency has ``a strong feeling of openness'' in 
most cases but must abide by certain confidentiality rules.
   
The Justice Department in December 2001 released a 
massive review of the FBI's bungled investigation of Lee. That 
report, by federal attorney Randy Bellows, criticized the FBI for 
never considering the Lee investigation a priority; failing to allot 
it proper resources or properly supervise agents on the case; 
failing to consider a CIA report that challenged the underpinnings 
of the Lee case, and moving too slowly.
   
It condemned the communication breakdown between the FBI 
and the Energy Department and chastised investigators for not immediately searching Lee's computer files when suspicions 
first arose.
   
Aftergood said the Bellows team only reviewed the case up 
through March 1999, whereas the more recent report covers the 
entire life span of the case up through Lee's release.
   
``There were matters that were left unanswered,'' Aftergood 
said of the Bellows report, ``including possible professional 
misconduct by Justice and FBI personnel.''
   
Aftergood said he is willing to go to court if the department 
denies his appeal.
   
``If they are willing to compromise, I think that's the best option,'' Aftergood said.

 

5/8/03 Associated Press: "Researcher Acquitted of
Economic Spying Sues UC Davis,"
    Sacramento -- A former biology researcher sued the University of California Monday, nearly a year after he was
freed from jail and acquitted of economic espionage charges raised by his bosses at a Davis campus laboratory.
    Bin Han, 41, accused his former employer UC Davis of
firing him because he was Chinese and was about to expose wrongdoing in the lab where he worked. In the civil suit filed in Sacramento Superior Court, Han also accused the university
of orchestrating his arrest and 18-day incarceration last year.
    Han is suing the University of California Regents and
seeks an unspecified monetary award.
    UC Davis officials couldn't be reached late Monday, but
have maintained race never played a part in their firing Han.
    Han was accused of stealing 20 vials of a protein gel
researchers were using in attempts to grow replacement
corneas for the blind. Police found vials of the gel in his
freezer in his home and a plane ticket to his native China.
    He was originally charged with three felonies, including the theft of trade secrets and embezzlement.
    Han, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was held without bail in
solitary confinement because authorities considered him a
flight risk. Prosecutors later threw out all but one charge,
which a judge reduced to a misdemeanor.
    A jury acquitted Han of the remaining count in August.
    Han maintained he stored the vials in his freezer as a
convenience and was fired before he could return them
to the school.
    Some critics called the case ethnically motivated and
compared it to the saga of former Los Alamos National
Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee.
    Lee, who was prosecuted for making copies of sensitive
nuclear weapons data, pleaded guilty to a single count
of downloading data to computer tape at Los Alamos
National Laboratory. He has said he made backup copies
to protect data from being erased.


9/12/02 Associated Press: "Wen Ho Lee case spurs political activism,"
    Fremont, CA -
Cecilia Chang says she used to look the other way 
when people talked about "heavy stuff' civil liberties, constitutional 
rights, discrimination.
   
Now she carries a stack of petitions, cajoling signatures from 
strangers to bolster a presidential pardon campaign for her friend 
Wen Ho Lee, the Taiwanese-American scientist once suspected of spying against the United States.
   
Two years ago today Sept. 13, 2000 Lee was freed from nine 
months of solitary confinement as the investigation around him 
crumbled.
   
While convicted on a single count of copying sensitive nuclear 
weapons data, Lee received an apology from a federal judge for his treatment. The activism his case inspired continues to flourish in 
Chang, along with many other Asian- Americans who have no 
personal connection to Lee.
   
"It was really a watershed moment in terms of Asian-Americans 
coming of age,' said Karen Narasaki, president of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium in Washington. "For the first time, 
you had Asian-American professionals thinking about criminal justice 
and the issue of whether the government is always right.'
   
In Fremont, Chang has started a new group inspired by the Lee 
case, Justice for New Americans. In Sacramento, activist Ivy Lee 
created the Chinese American Political Action Committee, which has about 30 members. And in Detroit, Marie-Ange Weng formed the 
Council of Asian Pacific Americans, a coalition of organizations with about 1,000 members.
   
Weng helped create her group shortly after Lee was released.
   
Like Chang, she never considered herself a civil rights advocate. 
But two summers ago, the nursing professor marched outside a 
federal building in downtown Detroit at a Lee case protest she'd organized, waving a red sign that read "Stop Racial Profiling.'
   
"I was hoping that by building such a coalition, in case another 
event like Wen Ho Lee occurred, I would be able to reach out to 
people much faster,' said Weng, 64.
   
Other people have joined existing national groups, such as the Organization of Chinese Americans.
   
Lee, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, was suspected of stealing what officials called the "crown jewels' of U.S. nuclear weapons science with the intent of handing them over to 
China. He was fired, then later arrested though charged with 
unlawfully copying material, not spying and imprisoned.
   
In September 2000, he pleaded guilty to a single count of 
downloading data to computer tape. He has said he made copies to protect data from being erased.
   
The government dropped 58 other counts, and U.S. District Judge James Parker apologized to Lee, saying the Justice and Energy departments had "embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who 
is a citizen of it' by the way they handled the case.
   
Lee's case raised the specter of a stereotype that runs throughout Asian-American history, "of being the foreigner, not necessarily being trusted,' Narasaki said.
   
"No matter how hard you work and how much you've contributed to 
the community, how well you raise your children, your loyalty is still 
going to be questioned just because of what you look like.'
   
Chang plans to mark the two- year anniversary of Lee's freedom 
with an event today in San Francisco's Chinatown. Lawyers and advocates are scheduled to speak on how Lee was "perceived as 
a foreigner and therefore racially profiled and imprisoned, and how 
the Muslim and Arab population have gone through the same thing' 
since the Sept. 11 attacks, she said.
   
She'll also be soliciting more signatures to add to the 16,000 she's collected for the petition.
   
The 51-year-old Chang met Lee when she was living in New Mexico more than 20 years ago. Though a friend of the family, her advocacy 
work is not directed by the Lees.
   
Aside from a brief tour for his book, "My Country Versus Me,' Lee himself has stayed out of the public eye. He spends his days at his 
Los Alamos, N.M., home fishing, cooking, writing and looking for 
another job in private industry or at a university.
   
Chang's activism has moved beyond the Lee case. In February, 
she left her job as a high-tech marketing executive to work on civil 
liberties issues full time out of her home in the San Francisco Bay 
Area.
   
Her group, Justice for New Americans, will focus on minorities 
who face discrimination because they are perceived as foreigners.
   
For Scarsdale, N.Y., engineer Peter Lew, the Lee case was a 
political awakening. He began writing letters to the editor to protest 
Lee's treatment. Now he continues to write, sending notes on issues 
such as the environment and Middle East policy to President Bush 
and other government officials.
   
"My parents always told me, 'Be humble, don't speak out,'' said 
Lew. But with the Lee case, "I said, 'If I don't speak up, it's going to happen to me.''


9/2/02 Associated Press:
"Richardson, Freeh Differ Over Info Released in Wen Ho Lee Case,"
   
Albuquerque, NM -- Nearly two years after a guilty plea freed 
nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, former FBI director Louis Freeh and ex-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson are at odds over whether Richardson's comments about Lee hurt the government's case.
   
Richardson, now running for governor, said no one told him not to release sensitive information in the case, according to his deposition 
in Lee's invasion of privacy lawsuit against the government.
   
But Freeh said in his deposition that he repeatedly told Richardson 
to keep quiet because disclosure of a failed polygraph and other information could violate Lee's privacy rights and hurt the investigation.
   
``I told him on several occasions before that he should not discuss 
the investigation, Mr. Lee, the evidence, the course of the inquiry, etc., because that was prejudicial to the case and to Mr. Lee,'' Freeh said 
in a deposition reviewed recently by The Associated Press.
   
Lee, a Taiwan-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was fired March 8, 
1999, from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Nine months later, he 
was arrested and indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to unsecured computers and tape. He 
was held in solitary confinement for nine months. Lee supporters 
alleged racial profiling.
   
The government's case later fell apart, and Lee pleaded guilty to a single felony count of downloading sensitive material. He was freed in September 2000 -- with a passionate apology from the judge.
   
The lawsuit filed by Lee and his wife, Sylvia, accuses federal 
agencies of leaking misleading -- and sometimes classified -- 
information designed to convince the public that he had spied for 
China.
   
After Lee was fired, Richardson mentioned in several interviews 
that Lee had failed a polygraph test.
    In his Oct. 29 deposition, Freeh said he was ``upset about'' Richardson's talking about the failed polygraph during a March 1999 edition of CNN's ``Crossfire.''
   
``I think I had another conversation with him (Richardson). I think the attorney general had another conversation with him,'' Freeh said.
   
Richardson told Lee's lawyer in May that no one told him to stop 
talking about the case, or that information he disclosed was classified. 
He denied again Friday ever releasing classified information related to Lee.
   
Ed Curran, who was Richardson's counterintelligence director, said Friday that he sat in on the secretary's meetings with Freeh and never heard Freeh try to stop Richardson's comments.
   
``If that's the case, someone should have told me and I would have been the first one up in Bill's office saying, 'Hey, stop that,''' Curran said 
by phone from Chittenden, Vt. ``To specifically finger Bill on this is very unfair.''
   
Richardson said he told reporters about the polygraph results and 
other information because they were reasons for firing Lee and thus related to policy rather than investigative issues.
   
Freeh did not return messages for comment.
    Lee lawyer Brian Sun read Richardson a Justice Department memo suggesting that information about Lee's polygraphs and identity were classified at the time. The memo also said evidence suggested that the government was revealing information to the media to pressure Lee.
   
Richardson said he hadn't seen the memo.
    Lee's privacy lawsuit was filed in December 1999. No trial date has been set.

8/20/02 Sacramento Bee: "Ex-UCD scientist acquitted of theft: He was accused of stealing vials of protein gel to take to China. The defense called it a 'manufactured case.'"
    A Yolo County jury found former UC Davis researcher Bin Han not guilty of embezzlement Monday, three months after he was arrested and charged with stealing 20 vials of protein gel used in university research.
    The prosecution's case, which had started with allegations of economic espionage and felony charges, dwindled to nothing as the 12-person Superior Court jury acquitted Han of the only remaining misdemeanor charge.
    The verdict brought strong applause from the courtroom full of more than 20 Han supporters and tears to the eyes of his wife, Hongxia Wen. It came four hours after the trial's closing arguments.
Han, who was originally jailed for 18 days without bail, said he would look for another job, but that it would take some time for his life to return to normal.
    Deputy District Attorney David Akulian said earlier that such a verdict does not mean Han is innocent, but that he could not be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
    The prosecution dropped its charge of theft of trade secrets in June, and a judge later reduced the embezzlement charge to a misdemeanor because the gel was worth less than $400.
    The case had provoked accusations that Han, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Chinese origin, was a victim of ethnic discrimination. The prosecution argued that Han intended to use the gel, found in his freezer, to set up a company in China.
    "I think that UC Davis needs to treat their people fairly," Han said after the verdict. "Race discrimination is a big problem for this university."
    Defense attorney Stewart Katz called the prosecution a "manufactured case" originating from an employment dispute. Han had argued over whether he would receive premier authorship on a research paper, and when his employment contract was later discontinued, he threatened to be a laboratory whistleblower.
    "When he made clear he didn't intend to go quietly into the night, they -- with little regard to the truth or common sense -- threw anything they could at him," Katz said. "This case was UC Davis versus Bin Han."
    Steve Drown, a UC Davis attorney, said in an earlier interview that the case was in the hands of the justice system and the university would accept the verdict. He said UC Davis is investigating Han's complaint of employment discrimination.
    "We really hope that other postdoctoral researchers learn from Bin Han's case and will stand up for themselves," said Ivy Lee, president of the Chinese American Political Action Committee.
    During closing arguments, Katz presented an extensive timeline of events to show that although Han took the protein gel, used in corneal research, to his home freezer, he had no intention of using it for profit.
    Han meant to return it, Katz argued earlier, but was distracted by other problems at work.
    Katz highlighted e-mails among Han's superiors to try to show an intent to persecute the researcher. One suggested taking away the prestigious position of first author on an academic paper.
    "I think it might be ugly -- Bin would be very, very unhappy, and might seek a way to appeal? Or worse yet, get back at us," read the e-mail.
    The prosecution had presented as evidence a plane ticket to China in Han's name and a PowerPoint presentation, also with Han's name, that proposed taking corneal research to China.
    But Katz said Han simply intended to travel to visit his ailing mother.

8/14/02 Associated Press: "Ex-Los Alamos Scientist Wen Ho Lee 
Still Hasn't Found Job,"
    Former government researcher Wen Ho Lee says he hasn't found 
a job since he was fired and prosecuted for making copies of 
sensitive nuclear weapons data.
   
 

8/15/02 Sacramento Bee: "UCD scientist didn't steal gel, defense says:
Bin Han's lawyer says he was trying to protect the material, not make a profit,"
    The lawyer for former UC Davis researcher Bin Han told a Yolo 
County Superior Court jury Wednesday that Han was only protecting the vials of protein gel he is charged with embezzling.
    After the prosecution's opening statement that Han stole 20 vials of 
the gel -- used in university cornea-replacement research -- and kept 
them in his freezer to turn a profit later, defense attorney Stewart Katz 
said Han wanted to keep them out of the Davis heat and later lost track 
of them.
    Han, a 40-year-old researcher with the UC Davis Medical Center's department of ophthalmology, was arrested May 17 on charges of theft 
of trade secrets and embezzlement when police found the 20 vials at his Davis home.
    On May 7, Han picked up 40 vials from Rancho Cordova-based Thermogenesis Corp., but only 20 vials were delivered to the medical center.
    Prosecutors later dropped the theft of trade secrets charge, and in 
July a Yolo County Superior Court judge reduced the embezzlement charge to a misdemeanor. Han could serve up to a year in jail if 
convicted.
    Katz said Han intended to return the other 20 vials to a different lab. 
But after eating lunch and picking up his youngest son from school, he worried that the container in which the vials were packed was running 
out of dry ice, so he took it home.
    There was no hurry to bring the vials back because Han was working 
on another project, Katz said. When Han's employment contract was discontinued on May 13, the gel was far from his mind, his lawyer said.
    "If you wanted to steal the stuff and you have the keys to the lab ... 
walk out on a Sunday or a Saturday -- you don't tell everyone, 'I'm going 
to take this,' " said Katz, adding that Han told co-workers he had the 
vials at his house.
    Deputy District Attorney David Akulian said the researcher was planning to use the vials and his experience to bring UC Davis' cornea-replacement technology to China.
    He highlighted a PowerPoint presentation, reportedly found on 
Han's computer, that was titled with Han's name and Northern 
American Biotech Inc., a company that on other court documents is 
linked to Han's home address.
    The presentation details corneal and other stem-cell research and 
its potential for profit, ending with the statement, "NABT is very glad to supply the technique in China to treat the patients and to serve the 
public."
    More than 30 protesters from Asian advocacy organizations and a 
UC Davis professional and technical union marched in front of the courthouse Tuesday to condemn what they see as a case persecuting Han, a naturalized U.S. citizen, for being Chinese.
    The issue arose in Wednesday's testimony when UC Davis Police 
Lt. Matt Carmichael explained why police reported "eyeballs" found in Han's freezer in addition to the vials.
    Carmichael said he found what appeared to be meatballs but, in a "late-night joke," said they were eyeballs, which accidentally ended up 
in a report.
    "Are we savages?" exclaimed Ivy Lee, president of the Chinese American Political Action Committee, during a trial recess. The 
eyeball reference also angered several other committee members attending the trial.
    UC Davis attorney Steve Drown said the university follows anti-discrimination policies and is "terribly sensitive to these issues."
    Judge Charles Van Court estimated the trial will last until 
Wednesday.


8/5/02 Associated Press: "In Biotech Espionage Prosecutions, Echoes
of Wen Ho Lee?"
    Former University of California eye researcher Bin Han is one of four Asian-born scientists working in U.S. labs who has been jailed in recent weeks, accused of stealing valuable research material.
    UC Davis officials said 20 vials of a biological ``glue'' used in stem 
cell experiments found in Hans freezer were worth $1 billion in the 
right hands. They told police they feared Han was planning to return to 
his native China and launch a biotechnology company with the school's property.
    When police also found Han had a plane ticket to China, 
investigators decided it all added up to economic espionage.
    So Han was arrested and charged with three felonies that could 
have sent him to prison for 25 years. He was held without bail in 
solitary confinement for 18 days.
    But today, Han is out of jail and the felony charges have been 
dropped. Han is scheduled to go trial Aug. 13 on a single 
misdemeanor theft charge, the legal equivalent of shoplifting.
    As it turned out, Han had innocent explanations for most of his 
actions.
    He said he stored the vials in his freezer because he didn't have 
time to drop them off on campus the day he picked them up from a Sacramento biotechnology company. He said he was fired before he could take the vials to the lab.
    The ticket to China turned out to be round-trip, for a long-planned journey to visit his parents. He said he was leaving his family behind
in the Davis home they own.
    The Yolo County District Attorney's office, which is prosecuting Han, didn't return telephone calls. UC Davis officials say race had nothing 
to do with Han's case and still maintain he stole school property.
    Separately, federal prosecutors in Boston have agreed to delay an economic espionage case against former Harvard Medical School scientists Kayoko Kimbara and Jiangyu Zhu as a potential plea 
bargain on lesser crimes is negotiated.
    One possible sticking point for prosecutors is the fact that two, who were arrested in June, are accused of stealing genes they themselves discovered. Their defenders say it's common for such post-doctoral scientists to take their work with them when they change jobs.
    Kimbara, of Japan, and the China-born Zhu are accused of sending 
the genes to a Japanese biotechnology company. They signed routine agreements that gave Harvard ownership to any discoveries they made while working there. They contend they meant only to further their 
research and never intended to profit from it.
    A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston declined to comment on the case.
    That prosecution followed one from the Cleveland Clinic in which economic espionage charges were dropped against Alzheimer's researcher Hiroaki Serizawa in exchange for his admission that he lied 
to the FBI to cover up for Takashi Okamoto, a fellow Japanese scientist now in his homeland resisting U.S. extradition attempts.
    Okamoto is accused of stealing and destroying vials of genetic material key to Alzheimer's disease research from the Cleveland Clinic and taking them with him to Riken, a Japanese government-sponsored research facility.
    The alleged theft and destruction of genetic materials led to the termination of the clinic's Alzheimer's studies.


7/17/02 Sacramento Bee: "Shrinking case: UC researcher charge now
a misdemeanor,"
   Woodland, CA - On Tuesday, the case against former UC Davis researcher Bin Han shrank when a Yolo Superior Court judge Thomas Warriner ruled that the embezzlement charge against Han is -- if proved -- only a misdemeanor.
    The vials of the protein gel that Han is accused of stealing from UC Davis -- though they hold the potential to be the key ingredient in valuable research -- are themselves worth less than $400, the threshold for felony theft, the judge ruled Tuesday.
    Han had earlier faced a felony charge of theft of trade secrets that was
dropped by prosecutors. Police initially speculated that Han had plans for the gels after his lab co-workers told investigators Han had ordered scientific materials sent to a business at his home address and paid for supplies with his own credit card.
    Han was arrested in May by UC Davis police after officials searched his home and found 20 vials of protein gel, as well as data related to his university research and a plane ticket to China in Han's name.
    Police searched the researcher's Davis home after co-workers told officials they believed Han had ordered scientific materials and had 
them sent to a business at his residence.           
    Co-workers made the accusation days after Han, a staff researcher in the ophthalmology department of the UC Davis Medical Center, was told his research grant would not be renewed at the university.
    Supporters of Han claim university officials singled out the researcher for retaliation because he questioned why he didn't receive top billing on an important scientific paper. They also claim he was about to blow the whistle on officials for allegedly unapproved lab practices.
    Han's backers also believe the naturalized citizen is being targeted
because of his ethnic background.
    "The only thing Bin Han is guilty of is being Chinese," said Pilar 
Barton, a field representative for the University Professional and Technical Employees Union, which represents Han.
    About 50 supporters of Han rallied in front of the Yolo County courthouse in Woodland on Tuesday before the researcher's preliminary hearing.
    During the two-hour hearing, co-workers of Han testified that on 
May 7, Han picked up the vials of protein gel from Thermogenesis Corp., a Rancho Cordova company that synthesizes blood products. Han was supposed to deliver 40 of the vials to the UC Davis laboratory, but only 
20 made it to the lab. Police found the other 20 in Han's freezer.
    Co-workers also testified that Han was told May 13 that his grant 
would not be renewed and he must return all university property, 
including his lab keys. Han still had the vials when police searched his home May 17.
    Since 1989, Han has worked in various research capacities at the
university. Most recently he has worked in the lab of Dr. Ivan Schwab, a
professor who specializes in disorders of the cornea. Schwab told The Bee in an earlier interview that he and his colleagues are experimenting with making a new ocular surface for people whose corneas have been damaged.        
    The protein gels found in Han's freezer were an integral tool in that process.  They would be of no value to anyone who didn't know how to 
use them, Schwab added.
    Trista Madsen, director of clinical affairs for Thermogenesis, said the
protein gels used by Han and his colleagues were given to the university at no cost. The gels have not received Food and Drug Administration approval for sale in the United States. She estimated that they cost the company about $5,000 to make, but the plasma itself from which the 
gels are made was purchased for about $125 from a blood bank.
    Han is scheduled to appear in court July 22 for a pretrial hearing on 
the misdemeanor charge of embezzlement. If convicted, he could face a year in jail.
    Han's attorney, Stewart Katz, called the ruling a victory. He said Han also would contest his termination by the university.
    Han's supporters likened his case to that of Wen Ho Lee, the 
Chinese American scientist accused of espionage in 1999. The government claimed Lee sent nuclear technology secrets to China. But dozens of those charges were dropped against Lee before he went to trial. The lab where Lee's alleged espionage took place was the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is run by the University of California.
    Speaking at Tuesday's rally, Cecelia Chan, executive director of the Wen Ho Lee advocacy group, WenHoLee.org, called for prosecutors to drop all charges against Han.
    "Any one of us can suffer from the same kind of discrimination," she said.

7/15/02 Associated Press: "Wen Ho Lee Supporters Gather 15,000 Signatures Seeking Pardon,"
    Albuquerque, NM -- Supporters of former Los Alamos scientist 
Wen Ho Lee have gathered 15,000 signatures seeking a presidential 
pardon they hope will clear his name.
    Lee, who was prosecuted for making copies of sensitive nuclear weapons data, pleaded guilty to a single count of downloading data to computer tape at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has said he 
made copies to protect data from being erased.
    Lee was held in solitary confinement for nine months, though never charged with spying. He was sentenced to time served.
    The petition was sent to President Bush on July 2 on behalf of Lee 
and was to be sent Friday to the Justice Department, said Cecilia 
Chang of Fremont, Calif., who launched the petition drive.
    A telephone message left for the White House Thursday seeking comment was not returned.
    Almost 10,000 signatures were gathered in the last few days of 
June, and organizers hope to have 30,000 by Labor Day, Chang said.
    The letter to Bush said Lee was held unnecessarily without bail and 
had to plead guilty to get out of jail. The petition said the case ``stands 
as an example of a miscarriage of justice that should be remedied.''
    Lee was arrested in December 1999 and indicted on 59 felony 
counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to 
unsecure computers and tape.
    As the government's case crumbled, Lee was set free in September 2000 after pleading to the lone felony count.
    The Lee investigation caused nearly two years of controversy over 
the alleged loss of nuclear secrets to China and lax security at the 
Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratories.


7/15/02 San Francisco Chronicle: 
"Chinese community crusader: Wen Ho Lee case her call to action,"
    For nearly two years, Cecilia Chang, who grew up in Hong Kong and
moved to the United States in 1969, has been on a personal crusade to win a presidential pardon for her friend Wen Ho Lee. 15,000 people 
have signed her petition.
    The Taiwanese-born Lee is the Los Alamos, N.M., scientist fired in 1999 and then held for nine months in solitary confinement amid 
suspicion that he passed nuclear weapons design information to China.
    Although Lee was never charged with espionage, he was held for downloading secret files from the lab's secure computers and 
transferring them to computer tapes. He was freed in September 2000 after pleading guilty to a single felony count of mishandling security information.
    On July 2, Chang sent the petition to Washington, asking President Bush to clear Lee's name.
    Chang, 52, has pursued the case beyond the bounds of her friendship with the Lee family, which does not want a presidential apology. Chang has her reasons.
    "They are so timid that I can't wait for them to agree," said Chang, 
who moved to Fremont in 1996 and serves on the city's human relations
commission. "I've done things sometimes without their approval."
    The case against Lee hit Chang hard, too. Her husband, Dan, worked at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque at the time, as a scientist, and she'd worked there as well, as a technician.
    But that wasn't it.
    "I never really thought about what it meant to be a citizen of this 
country until I saw my friend's face plastered on the cover of every paper 
in the country," said Cecilia Chang. "Is this how people really view us?"
    Things also deteriorated at work for Dan Chang, who took early retirement within six months after Lee's arrest. After 20 years on the job, colleagues sometimes questioned whether he should be attending sensitive meetings.
    "I felt the wound very deeply because it's my commitment to my 
country they are doubting, and that really hurts me," said Cecilia Chang.
    Lee's treatment at the hands of federal authorities left her little to
be optimistic about. The FBI investigation proved nothing and stripped Lee of everything: his job, his name and his pride.
    Upon his release from prison, Judge Parker apologized to Lee.
"I feel I was led astray by the executive branch of our government through
its department of Justice, by its Federal Bureau of Investigation and by 
the United States attorney for the District of New Mexico," Parker said.
    Parker's letter isn't enough for Chang, who believes that admitting to even one of the charges is too much for an innocent man to bear.
    She has asked for the support of congressional leaders and received warm if cautious responses. Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, accepted 
the petition in his Washington offices and has promised to deliver it to 
the president's office. Honda is expected to deliver the petition to the White House later this week.
    "His case is an embarrassment to our judicial and political system," said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Atherton. "He deserves an apology from the federal government and to have this stricken from the record."
    Eshoo wouldn't sign a support letter without the support of the Lee family, she said.
    Many of the signatories are first-generation immigrants who saw what
happened to their neighbors, friends and relatives who spoke out 
against the Chinese regime.
    And issuing a pardon to Lee, a power usually exercised at the end of 
a presidential term, wouldn't be out of the question considering others who've been spared in past years.
    President Bill Clinton issued at least a half-dozen pardons, including that of ex-CIA chief John Deutsch, who was accused of mishandling secret information, the same charge leveled against Lee.
    Most of Clinton's pardons were issued to people who had actually 
done something illegal. It was never proved that Lee did.
    But for Chang, having the freedom to set up a Web site, www.wenholee.org, lobby Congress and raise the roof to demand Lee's
release underscores one of the nation's greatest rights.
    "Do you know where I'd be had I tried to wage a campaign like this in
China?" Chang asked. "I'd probably be in jail right now."


6/4/02 Daily Cal: "Fueled by New Reports, Boycott of National 
Weapons Labs Continues: Study Reveals Possible Discrimination, Racial Profiling: UC Berkeley professor Ling-chi Wang is leading the boycott against Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia 
National Laboratories."
    Amid new reports of possible discrimination at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories, a UC Berkeley professor 
vowed yesterday that the Asian American boycott of the national 
weapons labs will continue. 
   
UC Berkeley Asian American Studies Department Chair and 
boycott leader Ling-chi Wang said a report released May 21 provides further proof of discrimination and racial profiling at the nation's 
weapons labs.         
    "The report confirms everything I have been telling the labs," Wang said. Produced by the U.S. General Accounting Office, the report documents "statistically significant" differences in both pay and 
promotion rates between white males and minorities and women. 
    The study found the promotion rate for minority men and all women generally was 80% that of white men. Also, when comparing men and women of the same ethnicity, the General Accounting Office found Caucasian, Asian and Hispanic women earned less than men in the same positions. 
    Officials at Livermore lab disagreed with the report, however. "If we look at our totals across the board for promotion opportunities, we 
come up with much different numbers," said lab spokesperson Lynda Seaver.         
    The U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the labs, also disagreed with the report's findings. "The numbers they used were inaccurate," said Department of Energy spokesperson Lisa Cutler.  
But Cutler said the department did agree with the "broader point" that 
the labs needed to do more to increase diversity. 
    Allegations of discrimination at the labs began in 1999 when the 
federal government arrested Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee and charged him with espionage. The government later released and then exonerated Lee, a Taiwan-born American citizen. 
    Lee's allegedly unjust treatment prompted Wang to launch a boycott 
in 2000 that called on Asian American scientists to not seek 
employment with Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia 
National Laboratories. He said he will not call off the boycott until the 
labs produce an "accountable plan" to deal with the alleged problem. He also said the issues raised by the report must be addressed. 
    Wang sent a letter to Rep. David Wu, D-Portland, yesterday 
supporting Wu's efforts to increase diversity in the labs. Wu requested 
the employment study and has called for investigative hearings before 
the House Science Committee, of which he is a member. 
    Wu has also made allegations of discrimination at the laboratories. 
"It's not only an issue of fairness, it's important to our country (for 
national security) that our weapons labs can recruit the best and brightest," said Wu's spokesperson Jennifer Hellburn. 
    Hellburn said U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham has been responsive to calls for improving diversity, but the lab management has resisted change. Of the three labs, Livermore lab has been the most resistant, Hellburn said. "It's ironic because the Bay Area is one of the most diverse areas, but Livermore has the worst track record," she said.     
    But Livermore lab has made progress, Seaver said. "In the early 
1990s our numbers (weren't) as they could have been, but we have 
been working to get those numbers up," she said. 
    Wang is continuing to work with the labs to make changes and 
"assist in the recruitment, retention and promotion of Asian American 
and other minority and women employees."


5/22/02 San Francisco Chronicle: "Congressional report hints at bias at weapon labs,"
   
A congressional report released Tuesday found racial and sexual disparities in employment at the nation's premier weapons laboratories, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Alameda County, California.
   
Auditors with the watchdog General Accounting Office looked at employment data from 1995 to 2000 regarding 22,000 employees at 
Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. 
They found statistically significant differences in the way Asian Americans, women, African Americans and Latinos fared versus white men.
   
Salaries for minorities and white women at the labs, operated by the Department of Energy, were generally lower than for white males. White males also held 64% of managerial and professional jobs, while they represented just 54% of the workforce.
   
"Our findings . . . do not prove or disprove discrimination," concluded the report, but "they do, however, raise questions about the reasons for these statistical differences." Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, 
said the report "paints a disturbing picture of inconsistency in the way minorities and women are treated in certain personnel actions."
   
Johnson and Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., asked for the study in October 2000, in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee case. Lee, a naturalized citizen originally from Taiwan, was working as a scientist at Los Alamos when 
he was accused of spying.
   
Such charges were never proved, and he later pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified data.
   
Susan Houghton, a spokeswoman for Lawrence Livermore, said the laboratory disputed the way auditors interpreted some employment statistics. For example, she said, while the study found that the lab promoted just one Asian American manager, the laboratory's data showed that 41 Asian American employees were promoted.
   
"To suggest that the GAO statistics are a reflection of what's really going on in the lab is inaccurate," Houghton said.
   
However, Houghton said, the lab is trying to improve its record and 
has expanded leadership and training opportunities for minorities and women.
   
"Since the Wen Ho Lee issue surfaced, we have really tried to listen 
to our minority communities," she said. "Things don't change overnight. We recognize that. Have we made significant gains? You bet."
   
Among the other findings in the report was that the proportion of the work force drawn from minority populations varied among the labs. Just 19% of Lawrence Livermore staff members in 2000 were from minority groups, compared with 27% at Sandia and 34% at Los Alamos.
   
Each lab saw about the same increase in minority employees from 1995 to 2000: 1%.
   
The Department of Energy's three weapons laboratories have been under fire for their hiring and promotion practices before.
   
In early 2000, two Asian American academic groups began urging Asian American scientists to boycott the labs by not applying for jobs there. The labs have since moved to change their hiring and promotion practices.
   
At Lawrence Livermore, two separate class action lawsuits were filed on behalf of women and Asian American employees alleging job and wage discrimination.
   
Wu, chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said the statistics were not absolute proof of discrimination, but he said they indicated potentially deep problems when combined with 
employees' anecdotal reports.
   
He cited the findings of an Energy Department survey that asked employees if problems existed with racial profiling, stereotyping and 
other disparities at the labs. Some 26% of whites said there were problems, versus 62% of Latinos, 74% of Asian Americans and 80% of African Americans who said there were. . A copy of the report, "DOE Weapons Laboratories: Actions Needed to Strengthen EEO Oversight" (GAO-02-391), can be found online at www.gao.gov.


4/19/02 AsianWeek.com  "Taiwanese American on Trial for 
Suspected Espionage: Family Says It Is Entrapment,"
   
This week a Taiwanese-born American citizen is being tried on 
federal charges of attempting to export military encryption devices to China.
   
Eugene You-Tsai Hsu, an international businessman based in Blue 
Springs, Mo., faces federal charges stemming from inquiries he made last May into purchasing two encryption units. He was arrested in 
August of 2001, after a four-month-long investigation by customs 
agents, but then later released.
   
According to documents released by U.S. Customs officials at the 
time he was arrested, Hsu was attempting to buy the devices to export them to Singapore en route to China. The documents say Hsu was repeatedly warned the sale was illegal.
   
His family says Hsu was just making business inquiries for overseas acquaintances, and that the case smacks of entrapment and racial 
bias. Employees of the company Hsu contacted regarding the 
encryption devices have testified that Hsus race was not a factor in 
their decision to refer him to the federal government.
   
Hsu stands trial with David Yang, who Customs officials said owned 
a freight company in Compton, Calif., that would ship the units. A third man, Charlson Ho, who lives in Singapore, was allegedly arranging the sale for Singapore-based company Wei Soon Loong Pte. Ltd.
   
Hsus family says the case frames a man whose queries were no different than the any other international business calls. Hsus son, Michael, believes his father was the victim of racial discrimination because he speaks with what could be considered a thick Asian 
accent.
   
"He was the target of an undercover sting because he had an 
Asian-sounding voice when he called this company," said Richard 
Gordin, Hsus attorney. Gordin said the government has turned over a record of four people who made inquiries with the company who were referred to customs agents for suspicious conduct. All had Asian-sounding surnames. The company has denied in court 
testimony that race was a factor the decision to refer Hsu to the 
federal government.
    Business Inquiries
   
The case against Hsu began on May 1, 2001, when Hsu contacted 
Mykotronx Inc., based in Maryland, for information on the devices, 
known as KIV-7HS. Mykotronxs parent company, Rainbow 
Technologies Inc., has regional offices around the globe, including 
Taiwan and China. Steven Aftergood, the director of the FAS Project 
on Government Secrecy, said the KIV-7HS is six inches by eight 
inches and weighs three pounds. The unit sells for $3,355. But though 
the unit is small, he said it handles heavy-duty government work. Aftergood said the units guard highly classified information, and are 
only to be used by the government and its contractors. "This is what 
the government uses when it wants to protect top-secret information," Aftergood said. "The whole KIV family is only available 
to authorized government contractors."
   
The day after Hsu called Mykotronx, he was referred to a man who posed as an intermediary for the company. The man said his name 
was Dan Stevenson and that he worked for a company by the name of Stellar International. He was actually an undercover customs agent. For four months the agent taped conversations with Hsu and the other men involved with the case.
   
While the government alleges that the agent made it clear that the 
deal they were arranging was illegal, Hsus attorney said his client did 
not understand the implications of the deal. "The agent posed as a fast-talking salesman," Gordin said. "I think that it is clear from the tape 
[of their conversations] that Mr. Hsu isnt following what he was saying."
   
Chinese American Equals Spy
   
Hsu is being charged with conspiracy and attempt to violate the Arms 
Export Control Act, two charges which carry a maximum sentence of 10 
years in prison and a $1 million dollar fine. The U.S. Customs office and U.S. Attorneys office  would not comment on a case currently being 
tried. The Rainbow Technologies website, Hsus first resource as he sought information about the product, carries information on both government and commercial security systems. The KIV-7HS is not 
clearly labeled on the site as classified material. The companys site is currently advertising a convention for KIV-7 users, which will take place next year. The only indication it gives that some of the information may 
be classified is a mention of government-only sessions.                 
   
Another company that sells the same units, Titan Systems, lists the KIV-7HS as a "controlled cryptographic item" only to be sold to 
authorized government agencies. Other sites and sources are not as clear in their labeling of the product.
   
But the units are considered so top secret that information about 
them is not common knowledge in the encryption industry, Aftergood 
said. "Because the KIV device is not in general use, even people who know cryptography may not be familiar with it," Aftergood said.
   
Hsu has no criminal record, and no ties to China. His wife, Nancy, 
and his two sons live and work in the United States. Micheal Hsu 
believes the case is similar to that of scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of spying for the Chinese government. Most of the charges against Lee were ultimately dropped.
   
Professor Ling-Chi Wang, the head of the Asian American Studies 
Department at UC Berkeley, said the Cox report - the government 
report that was relied upon heavily in the Wen Ho Lee case - cast a 
pale of suspicion upon all Chinese Americans. "The Cox report alleged that the Chinese government used Chinese American scientists working in these labs to steal secrets and information," Wang said. "Immediately being Chinese American became synonymous with espionage and treason."
   
Lester Lee, the president of Recortec, an industrial computer manufacturer in the Silicon Valley, pointed out these types of cases 
force Asian Pacific Americans to be very careful in the way they handle potentially sensitive technology. "The encryption devices have different levels, and that takes an expert to decide on the degree of importance, 
be it commercial or military; when you talk about this type of thing, its 
very difficult to come to a black and white judgement," he said. "You 
have to protect yourself as much as you can."


3/27/02 San Francisco Chronicle: "Ling-chi Wang Activist fights for 
Asian Americans at U.S. labs Berkeley professor leads boycott 
aimed at alleged inequities,"
   
The 63-year- old coordinator of the Asian American studies 
program at the University of California at Berkeley has been called 
the "Asian Martin Luther King" for his four decades of activism. Now 
he appears to be on the brink of winning his toughest challenge yet -- improving the lot of Asian American scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and the nation's other weapons research 
facilities.
   
Wang is no stranger to big causes. He successfully fought for 
bilingual education in San Francisco in the '70s, the establishment of 
an ethnic studies department at UC Berkeley in the early '90s and 
revised height requirements for San Francisco police and firefighters. Two years ago, in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee spy case, Wang and 
an Asian American academic organization instituted a boycott of the 
two labs run by the University of California, in Livermore and Los 
Alamos, N.M.
   
Lee, a Los Alamos weapons scientist, was accused of leaking 
codes to the Chinese and mishandling data. He pleaded guilty two 
years ago to one count in a case that made international headlines 
and prompted Energy Department scientists to charge that 
authorities were engaging in racial profiling.
   
Wang has urged top Asian American scientists not to apply for positions at the lab until progress is made toward wiping out what he describes as hiring, promotion and pay inequities. "The short answer
is, no, the boycott is not over yet," Wang said this week. "But I have 
been in active negotiations, and we're coming close. The labs need 
to be held accountable for everything from promotion to racial 
profiling on security issues."
    'NOT AFRAID TO FIGHT'
   
Lab officials at Los Alamos and Livermore confirmed that an agreement addressing Asian American scientists and other minority groups has been drafted and sent to the Energy Department in Washington for review. But Wang says he will continue to keep the pressure on the labs until the agreement is approved. In addition,
 300 Asian American lab employees at Livermore say they will move ahead with a class-action discrimination suit.
   
Wang moved to San Francisco in 1969, shortly after he founded 
the Chinese for Affirmative Action civil rights group.
   
In 1996, he angered some liberal Asian Americans by speaking 
out against President Bill Clinton and fund-raiser John Huang in the Democratic Party fund-raising scandal. In 1984, he received death 
threats from people in Taiwan for chairing the Committee to Obtain Justice for Henry Liu, a Daly City journalist killed by gangs linked to 
the Taiwanese government. He has also drawn rebuke from San 
Francisco's Asian community for trying to prod it to, in Wang's words, 
"not remain huddled together by themselves." "One time, in the '60s 
and '70s, when integration of schools was the big issue, I almost got lynched in Chinatown by Chinese Americans for supporting 
integration," Wang said, laughing. "They were going after me at the school board meeting. And later, when I escorted the (school) superintendent through Chinatown, they chased us away, and when 
we hopped into the car, they surrounded us and started jumping on 
the car. It was scary." But he didn't back down. "I just do what needs 
to be done," he said.
    That is what led Wang to organizing Asian American scientists at UC-run labs. He sees the Lee case, and the lack of upper-level Asian American supervisors at Livermore and Los Alamos, as consistent 
with the way his people have been treated in the United States since 
the Gold Rush.
    'PERPETUAL ALIENS'
   
"We are the perpetual aliens, seen as foreigners, even if you're a 
sixth- generation Asian American," Wang said. "If there wasn't a 
protest here at Livermore, there would be many more Wen Ho Lees. Some Asian Americans say I shouldn't have started a boycott, 
because they feared a backlash against Asians. But why shouldn't 
Asian Americans stand up for equal rights, equal protection and due process like anyone else?"
   
In the past year, C.K. Chou has been promoted to an associate director's position at the Livermore lab, the highest position ever for 
an Asian American. But an Energy Department ombudsman at 
Livermore lab, Jeremy Wu, recently left for a position with the 
Department of Transportation. He has yet to be replaced. "It's been 
hard," Wang said. "And we won't stop until the labs actually 
implement comprehensive plans to deal with racial profiling and promotion. We don't want them to go back to business as usual."


3/19/02 Associated Press: "Asian-American Scientists End Two-Year Lab Job Boycott, 
    LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) -- After two years of urging Asian-American
scientists to pass up jobs at nuclear weapons labs, the Berkeley professor who organized the boycott says he's proven his point.
    ``I am committed not only to ending this boycott, but also to becoming
actively involved in recruiting Asian-Americans to these labs,'' Ling-chi
Wang said.
    Officials at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories agree a negotiated deal is near.
    Wang, a longtime activist, is still waiting for a written plan that would
address issues of promotion, disparity in pay and a workplace culture that
sometimes leaves Asian-American employees feeling left out.
    ``As long as that type of discrimination exists, there's no reason an
Asian-American scientist would want to go in there and work in these
Department of Energy labs,'' he said.
    Wang, the head of the ethnic-studies program at the University of
California-Berkeley, initiated the boycott at a conference of Asian-Pacific
Americans in Higher Education in Long Beach in March 2000. He persuaded the organization to pass a resolution calling for ``all Asian-American scientists and engineers not to apply for jobs at the national labs.''
    The resolution came at a vulnerable time for the labs. As a result of the
Wen Ho Lee case, Los Alamos and Livermore had already seen a drastic drop in the number of Asians, both U.S. citizens and foreigners, applying for assignments at the labs. The effects of the boycott were magnified by the booming Internet economy, which offered ample opportunity for jobs
elsewhere.
    Lab managers and Department of Energy officials felt the sting. They have been politely asking Wang to call off the boycott ever since.
    But recent months have seen a number of management promotions for Asian Americans. At Livermore, C.K. Chou, the associate director of the Energy and Environment Directorate, is now the highest-ranking Asian in the history of the lab.
    ``I understand their feelings,'' he said of the boycott advocates. ``But I
believe that boycott is not the answer to the problem.''
    A series of studies, lunch meetings, a survey and a recent three-day
off-site conference of senior management have all dealt with ethnic issues, Chou said.
    Wang makes no apologies for initiating the boycott.
    ``As professors, we feel obligated to inform people about what's going on in those labs.''

2/19/02 Associated Press: "Judge Dismisses Defamation Case
Against Wen Ho Lee,"
   
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit against former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee after government attorneys warned that national security could be compromised if the case went to trial.
   
Notra Trulock, the Energy Department's former security chief, sued Lee and two government investigators. Trulock claimed they damaged his reputation by claiming that he singled out Lee because of his ethnicity as the prime suspect behind a series of security breaches at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
   
Lee, a Taiwanese-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested in December 1999 on suspicion of spying for China and indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes.
   
Although Lee denied giving information to China and never was charged with spying, he was held in solitary confinement for nine months. As the government's case crumbled, Lee pleaded guilty to a felony count of downloading sensitive material and was set free. 


2/6/02 Associated Press: "Los Alamos Director Defends Firing Lee, Hopes To Restore Image"
    The director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory said last Thursday that the firing of scientist Wen Ho Lee was just and he would make the same decision today because of the severity of Lee's mishandling of classified information.
    `They were the most serious violations of security I've seen in 30
years,'' said John C. Browne, director of the nuclear laboratory.
    Browne said Lee downloaded 400,000 pages of classified information to his computer -- enough to make a pile that would be 13 stories tall. ``That's a lot of classified information,'' he said.
    In his recent book, My Country Versus Me, Lee wrote that he was trying to back up important files, most of which were unclassified, to protect him
from a computer failure. Three earlier failures had wiped out files, he
said. Lee said others at the lab did the same thing.
    ``I knew I had committed a security infraction for making my tapes. I
deserved to be punished for it,'' he wrote. ``But before me, no one was
ever fired for this.''
    Browne took issue with Lee's assertion that other scientists kept
sensitive material on their computers.
    ``Well, that's not true. We looked and we did not find any evidence of
anyone else doing anything else similar to what Dr. Lee did,'' he said.
    Lee was held in solitary confinement for nine months and indicted on 59
felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to
portable computer tapes. He was never charged with spying and denied
giving information to China.
    As the government's case crumbled, Lee pleaded guilty in September 2000 to a single felony count of downloading sensitive material. The judge in the case apologized to Lee and then-President Clinton said his imprisonment ``just can't be justified.''
    The high-profile Lee case, and the FBI and Energy Department's botched investigation, were damaging to the lab, Browne said. Morale was a problem and young scientists didn't want to work there.
    He said that has changed, and that since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
more young scientists want to be part of the labs and their newly
refocused efforts to improve national security.
    The labs have played an important role since the terrorist attacks, he
said.
    For example, the DNA analysis of anthrax mailed to media and political
figures was done at the Los Alamos lab and Northern Arizona University.
    Browne said it was made possible by earlier research done at the national labs.
    Now he said the lab is focusing on finding ways to stop global terrorism,
detect weapons of mass destruction moving across U.S. borders, and sensors to detect potential chemical or biological assaults.
    The more prominent national security focus will need to be met with more money, he said. While spending on the physical sciences has increased, he said it needs to continue to increase for the next decade.
    For the coming year, Browne said he is expecting President Bush to
recommend a $120 million spending increase to the lab's $1.5 billion
budget.

1/21/02 Associated Press: "Wen Ho Lee Criticizes Federal Government," 
    San Francisco (AP) -- Being singled out as an espionage suspect may have damaged Wen Ho Lee's career and reputation but not his sense of satire.
   
Promoting his memoir, ``My Country Versus Me,'' and trying to rebuild his public image, Lee used humor Friday to strike back at the government that prosecuted him.
   
He remembers 10 FBI agents trailing him to a New Mexico fishing hole 
that charged $10 admission and made $100 on all the agents.
   
``When I went there, this guy was very happy,'' he said. ``He asked if I could come back tomorrow.''
   
Lee, 62, spoke briefly and answered questions with co-author Helen Zia at the World Affairs Council of northern California to a crowd of 180.
   
The Taiwanese-born naturalized citizen was arrested in December 1999 and indicted on 59 felony counts alleging he transferred nuclear weapons information to unsecured computers and tape. He was held in solitary confinement for nine months. He was never charged with spying and swore he never passed any secrets to anyone.
   
U.S. District Judge James Parker in Albuquerque apologized to Lee upon his Sept. 13, 2000, release. Lee pleaded guilty to one count of downloading restricted material to tape and was released.
   
Lee said he downloaded the material because his earlier work had been lost on three occasions at the national lab during computer upgrades.
   
``I decided to copy my work and data onto one tape,'' he said. ``I'm a cautious person.''
   
He said jail conditions were harsh, that he was denied TV, newspapers, daylight, the ability to exercise and was not offered warm clothing or personal hygiene products during his first month in custody.
   
``They wanted me to be as miserable as possible,'' he said of the FBI.
   
Zia said the pretrial imprisonment was designed to get a confession from Lee.
   
``These are the worst conditions a federal prisoner can be subjected to,'' Zia said.
   
She presents Lee as an innocent person ``caught in the eye of a hurricane'' and said the book is a ``cautionary tale for all Americans that shows racial profiling does not work.''
   
Lee said he has had a difficult time getting a job. He sent his resume to several universities but received no offers to teach. He said he fills his time fly fishing, exercising and doing scientific research on his own.
   
Lee joked he would like to move to San Francisco if housing prices drop and indicated he was grateful for support from the Asian American community, a large segment in San Francisco.
   
When answering a written audience question about what was learned from his experience, he said he did not know whether the FBI learned anything -- but that he did.
   
``I do know if the FBI knocks on your door, you should tell them to go away, to talk to your lawyer,'' he said.

1/18/02 Associated Press: "Wen Ho Lee Begins Book Tour," 
    About 200 people lined up at a Santa Fe bookstore to purchase 
``My Country Versus Me,'' a new memoir written by former Los Alamos 
scientist Wen Ho Lee.
    Retired scientists and co-workers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, 
Lee's daughter's fifth-grade teacher and even his former jailer were among 
those who showed up at Borders bookstore Tuesday.
    In the book published by Hyperion, Lee describes himself as a loyal 
``Cold Warrior'' for the United States, yet says the FBI threatened him with 
execution if he did not confess to giving nuclear secrets to China.

10/14/01 Associated Press: "Unsealed Documents Show Wen Ho Lee Among Ethnic Chinese Targeted in Probe,"
    Wen Ho Lee was among a dozen Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, many of them ethnic Chinese, who were investigated on allegations they mishandled classified nuclear weapons research, his defense attorneys said in recently unsealed court documents.

   
Lee's attorneys questioned why those employees were singled out when more than 500 people who had access to the same data were not investigated, according to documents released last week.
   
The government has denied engaging in racial profiling. Prosecutors also said only half of the dozen employees investigated were ethnic Chinese, the documents said.
   
The unsealed documents detail defense attorneys' arguments that Lee -- a Taiwanese-born naturalized citizen imprisoned for nine months on charges of breaching national security -- was a victim of racial profiling.
   
Lee was freed in September 2000 after pleading guilty to one count of using an unsecured computer to download a defense document. The government dropped 58 other counts.
   
U.S. District Judge James Parker unsealed 20 of 22 documents in the case last week. The papers, many partially censored, were made public Friday after a government security review.
   
San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action and other civil rights groups requested the documents be unsealed so they could look for evidence of racial profiling against Lee.
   
The group is still reviewing the documents for ``information that would allow us to identify any policies that were in place or are continuing and to determine any impact on Asian-Americans,'' director Diane Chin said Thursday.
   
She said the documents have provided a ``good road map'' for pursuing more precise information from the federal government through several Freedom of Information requests the group has filed.
   
Days before Lee's case was settled, prosecutors had been ordered to produce more documents that could have shed light on whether the government engaged in racial profiling. That information was never produced because the case was settled.
   
The investigation that eventually led to Lee's arrest was triggered by fears that China had gotten access to secrets regarding America's prized W-88 nuclear warhead.
   
Lee's attorneys detailed four incidents in the late 1990s which they said showed other lab employees mishandled secret information.
   
``To our knowledge, none of the employees is ethnic Chinese, and none has been prosecuted,'' they said in the court documents.
   
One incident was censored. The others were:
   
--An employee who unintentionally saved information on 1998 annual certification reports for safeguarding nuclear weapons programs, including the W-88, for several months on an unclassified hard drive. The employee was suspended for 90 days without pay.
   
``We understand the document to be one of the most sensitive maintained at (the lab),'' defense attorneys said in the documents.
   
--An employee who kept classified data on an insecure interoffice computer network for 15 days. The information was penetrated by Moscow, and could have been accessed via the Internet. When security officials tried to confiscate her computer, she allegedly tried to remove two floppy disks and only ``reluctantly'' turned them over, said an FBI report included in the documents. The documents did not say whether she was disciplined.
   
--An employee failed to properly classify a graph and a foreign citizen who did not have clearance saw the information. The employee was reprimanded, his clearance was suspended and he was reassigned so he would not have access to classified information.
   
Prosecutors said in an August 2000 session that Lee's attorneys mischaracterized government officials' statements as evidence of racial profiling.
   
Prosecutors also said in one transcript that three of the cases cited were not like Lee's because the people involved created the documents they were working on. They said the other involved someone who did not know the computer was not secure and who informed supervisors upon discovering that.
   
Defense attorney John Cline on Thursday declined to comment on the prosecutors' statements.
   
A DOE spokesman declined to comment Friday, saying he hadn't seen the unsealed documents. He referred questions to the U.S. Justice Department, which did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
   
One of Lee's attorneys, Mark Holscher, said in an August 2000 hearing that two former federal counterintelligence directors referred to a policy of profiling ethnic Chinese -- even though they were not aware of evidence that ethnic Chinese were more likely to spy for China than other Americans.
   
Holscher also cited ``at least 38 State Department cases in which people passed information and nothing was done.''
   
He discussed cases of people committing offenses similar to Lee's who were not prosecuted, including former CIA director John Deutch, who was pardoned by then-President Clinton before a case was filed against him.

10/11/01 Associated Press: "Depositions Begin in WH Lee's Privacy Act Lawsuit,"
   
A Justice Department official has been questioned under oath in the first deposition of Wen Ho Lee's Privacy Act lawsuit, and more depositions are planned before a Dec. 31 cutoff date, Lee's lawyer said.
   
The first deposition was taken last Friday in Washington, D.C. Lee's attorney, Brian Sun, would confirm only that sworn testimony was given by Myron Marlin, a Justice Department spokesman.
   
Sun, who represents Lee and his wife, Sylvia, in their civil suit, declined to discuss the substance of Marlin's testimony.
   
``We expect to take a number of depositions before the end of the year,'' Sun said Tuesday night during a visit to Albuquerque.
   
Sun has informed U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in Washington, D.C., that additional depositions are anticipated from former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, former Attorney General Janet Reno, former FBI director Louis Freeh, Edward Curran of the Energy Department counterintelligence branch and others.
   
Richardson, who is running for governor of New Mexico, is likely to be questioned in Washington, D.C., sometime before the court-imposed Dec. 31 deadline for completion of all depositions.
   
Asked about the likelihood of a settlement in the lawsuit, Sun said there was an exchange of correspondence discussing such possibilities early in the case but nothing recent.
   
The lawsuit alleges government officials illegally leaked confidential and even classified information and, in the process, prejudiced the case against the Taiwanese-born scientist.
   
Lee was charged with 59 counts of mishandling nuclear data at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He pleaded guilty to one count in September 2000 and the rest were dropped, freeing him after he was sentenced to the nine months he already had spent in jail.
   
In March 1999, two weeks after Lee was fired from Los Alamos lab, the lawsuit says, Lee's lawyers sent a letter asking Freeh to have the FBI investigate illegal leaks of confidential information. That letter enclosed copies of more than 80 news articles suggesting ``senior FBI officials'' had ``repeatedly made improper disclosures of confidential investigative information.''
   
A letter sent the same day to the Justice Department expressed concern that the leaks would ``inevitably cause irreversible prejudice to Dr. Lee.''
   
The lawsuit cites examples in news stories this year ``that quoted government officials revealing classified information concerning Dr. Lee,'' including descriptions of ``secret debriefings of Dr. Lee at Kirtland Air Force Base'' in Albuquerque.


10/3/01 Associated Press: "Judge Unseals WH Lee Race Profiling Paper,"
    A federal judge unsealed 20 of 22 documents sought by Asian-American advocacy groups trying to prove racial profiling in the prosecution last year of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
    The papers unsealed Tuesday by Judge James Parker had been reviewed for national security purposes, and most had been censored to protect classified and sensitive information, Assistant U.S. Attorney 
Paula Burnett said.
    Burnett told Parker the government did not oppose unsealing nearly all the documents, which were referred to in court by number only. Their contents were not immediately disclosed.
    Roger Myers, lawyer for San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action, said he hadn't had a chance to argue about what was censored.
    Parker said if Myers and other lawyers want any of the censored material made public, they could return to court. The judge added, however, that he believed the material would be "of no importance whatsoever."
    The government has denied it engaged in any racial profiling.
    One document remained sealed at the request of one of Lee's
attorneys. The judge ordered another document kept secret because of national security concerns.
   
The 61-year-old Lee, who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory for 20 years, spent nine months in solitary confinement before pleading guilty in September 2000 to one count of breaching national security.
   
The government dropped 58 other counts when Lee admitted using an unsecured computer to download a defense document.
   
At the time, Parker apologized for keeping Lee jailed in the months before the plea deal, saying the Justice and Energy departments had misled the judge and "embarrassed our entire nation."
   
The prosecution came after congressional investigations into suspected espionage on behalf of China. There was sharp disagreement within the government, including the FBI and CIA, over whether Lee was a possible spy.
   
Taiwanese-born Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was never charged with espionage. Asian-American groups believe he was arrested at least partly because of his Chinese ancestry.
   
"I think this case far more than any other has resonated with the Asian-American community," said Diane Chin, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.

10/2/01 Associated Press: "Depositions Of Former WH Lee Case Officials To Begin,"
    A court this week will consider unsealing documents sought as evidence of racial profiling in the Wen Ho Lee case as lawyers get set to question Bill Richardson and other ex-officials about news leaks that led to Lee's prosecution.
   
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Parker will hear Asian American advocacy groups who seek documents from the Lee criminal case. The groups believe the papers contain evidence that Lee was singled out for prosecution partly because he is of Chinese ancestry.
   
The scientist, who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory 20 years, was born in Taiwan, came to the United States in 1965 and became a U.S. citizen in 1974.
   
The hearing comes as Lee's separate Privacy Act lawsuit against the FBI, Justice Department and Energy Department moves into its depositions phase. Lawyers are expected to begin taking depositions in the next week or so; they have until Dec. 31 to complete depositions from Richardson, a likely candidate for New Mexico governor; former Attorney General Janet Reno, a candidate for Florida governor; FBI ex-director Louis Freeh and others who talked about Lee before his December 1999 arrest.
   
``These unlawful leaks were designed to divert attention from defendants' inability to maintain proper security procedures at the nation's nuclear laboratories,'' the lawsuit says. ``The illegal leaks promoted the FBI's and the DOE's efforts to pressure the (Justice Department) to bring criminal charges against Dr. Lee.''
   
Meanwhile, publication of Lee's memoir, My Country Versus Me, has been delayed until next year, said Katie Long, spokeswoman for Hyperion Books. The book, once set for October release, had been undergoing a government secrecy review, according to its editor, Will Schwalbe. Long said Friday that Jan. 15 is ``the new and final publication date.''
   
Others expected to give depositions include Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant FBI director Neil Gallagher and Edward Curran of the Energy Department counterintelligence office.
   
The lawsuit quotes an interview Curran gave The Nation, saying Los Alamos scientists had a record of mishandling information more sensitive than material Lee downloaded.
   
The lawsuit includes excerpts from the 1999 President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board report on DOE security lapses, citing ``numerous incidents of classified information being placed on unclassified systems,'' nuclear weapon designs left unsecured on Los Alamos National Laboratory library shelves and says copying files from classified computers to unclassified computers was not unusual.
   
Lee attorney Brian Sun of Santa Monica, Calif., hasn't said yet whether Richardson's deposition will be taken here or in Washington, D.C. Both Lee and his wife, Sylvia, are plaintiffs.
   
Richardson, reached Saturday at United World College, said: ``I can't say anything'' about the deposition. He was at the school near Las Vegas, N.M., to help welcome Queen Noor of Jordan during her U.S. visit.
   
Lee, 61, last year pleaded guilty to one count of unsecurely transferring nuclear weapons data to computer tape at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1994, and 58 counts were dismissed. Some lab officials said Lee jeopardized ``the crown jewels'' of U.S. nuclear science. Other eminent scientists disagreed, calling that an exaggeration.
   
Parker, in releasing Lee, apologized for jailing him without bail based on those exaggerated claims.
   
Prosecutors alleged Lee intended to use the information to land a job overseas after being listed among employees facing layoffs in 1994. However, the layoff never happened, and Lee stayed until Richardson fired him March 8, 1999.
   
Lee's lawsuit alleges several instances in 1999 when Richardson and others leaked confidential information to news media, including alleged polygraph results. In some instances, information had been classified and only declassified later for use in the criminal case.
   
Lee was never charged with espionage.

9/1/01 Dallas Morning News (AP): "FBI knew of flaws in Lee case in 1997: Freeh advocated revoking scientist's security clearance"
    Former FBI Director Louis Freeh supported stripping Wen Ho Lee of his security clearance as early as fall 1997 because of suspicions the nuclear scientist was spying, but his advice went unheeded, secret sections of a government report show.
    The unreleased chapters also divulge Mr. Freeh and other FBI officials received a CIA analysis in September 1997 that challenged the underpinnings of the Lee case.
    Instead of re-assessing the stalled investigation, the FBI "fumbled an extraordinary opportunity" to recognize three years earlier than it ultimately did that the espionage inquiry was off the mark, according to the chapters reviewed by the Associated Press.
    "This [CIA] report could have and should have caused the FBI to re-examine the predicate for the entire Wen Ho Lee investigation," wrote Randy Bellows, the prosecutor who conducted the review of the government's handling of the Lee matter.
    The consequence, the report said, was that "From May 30, 1996 until 1999, the FBI investigated the wrong crime."
    FBI Assistant Director John Collingwood said Mr. Freeh was focused on other issues - guarding against additional losses of nuclear secrets - when the CIA assessment was offered in 1997.
    "Because the investigation was stalled, Freeh was focused on preventing even greater damage to the weapons program and was fully engaged in helping the Energy Department establish a more vigorous counterintelligence effort," Mr. Collingwood said.
    He said the FBI recognizes now that it should have discovered flaws in the investigation much earlier and has made significant changes - including those recommended by Mr. Bellows.
    Mr. Bellows has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
    The still secret chapters reveal that Mr. Freeh told the Energy Department in 1997 that it should withdraw Dr. Lee's security clearance at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico, given the suspicions he was a spy.
    But Dr. Lee kept his clearance for months until investigators discovered he had transferred many weapons secrets to unsecure computers.
    The report also questioned why the FBI did not redirect a misguided spy inquiry in 1997 when the secret CIA assessment indicated the original Energy Department information that caused investigators to focus on Dr. Lee was flawed.
    The FBI was "handed and fumbled an extraordinary opportunity to discover the fact that the administrative inquiry fundamentally mischaracterized the predicate for the investigation," one secret portion of the report states.
    The CIA assessment disputed key elements of the Energy Department's findings, and although Mr. Freeh was aware of the discrepancies, lower-level bureau officials needed to understand them, Mr. Bellows wrote.

8/27/01 Washington Post: "Report Details More FBI Blunders in Wen Ho Lee Probe,"
   
The FBI's investigation of Wen Ho Lee was more seriously bungled than officials have previously disclosed, with inept agents making amateurish mistakes and ignoring orders to consider other suspects, according to an unreleased portion of a classified Justice Department report.
   
The 166-page chapter, part of a larger report on the Lee probe, outlines a succession of blunders, misjudgments and faulty assumptions by the FBI that contributed to the government's shoddy investigation of the former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist. Lee was suspected of giving nuclear secrets to China.
   
Inattentive FBI supervisors in Washington compounded the problem by failing to correct the mistakes or to keep the investigation on track. The chapter says FBI Director Louis J. Freeh was not kept informed of the case's shortcomings, including problems with the investigation in New Mexico and disagreement among government experts over the seriousness of the suspected security loss.
   
"This investigation was a paradigm of how not to manage and work an important counterintelligence case," says the report, written by federal prosecutor Randy I. Bellows. If Lee was a spy, Bellows concludes, the FBI let him get away. If he was not, the bureau blew repeated opportunities to consider other options -- including the possibility that nuclear weapons secrets were not obtained by the Chinese in the first place.
   
Originally charged with 59 felony counts, Lee pleaded guilty in September to one felony charge of mishandling classified information after the government's case against him fell apart. He was not charged with espionage and has repeatedly denied giving information to China.
   
Two other chapters of the exhaustive Bellows inquiry were released by the government earlier this month. They faulted the FBI and the Energy Department for their "slapdash" investigation.
   
But the latest chapter, obtained by The Washington Post with some sensitive information blacked out, underscores how investigators botched the case. Among its revelations:
    - Investigators in the FBI's Albuquerque office ignored an order from top FBI officials in December 1997 to open inquiries into suspects other than Lee and his wife, Sylvia. Those inquiries were not begun until 15 months later, after Lee had been fired.
   
- The photocopying of the outside of Lee's mail, known as a "mail cover" operation, was allowed to lapse for three months in 1997 because investigators failed to file a routine renewal application.
   
- Most of the supervisors and agents on the case didn't bother to read or question a flawed 1995 Energy Department report that Bellows called a "virtual indictment" of Lee. That report was the basis for opening a full FBI investigation. When the new head of Albuquerque's FBI office finally read the report in December 1998, he described it as a "piece of junk" that called into question the entire probe.
   
- The agent in charge of the case for its first three years, from 1994 to 1997, did not see the document obtained by the CIA that detailed what the Chinese knew about the W-88 nuclear warhead, the weapon Lee was suspected of compromising.
   
For years, the Lee probe was handled by solo agents who also investigated robberies and other duties, and it was frequently ranked as the lowest intelligence priority in the Albuquerque office. Top Washington officials also were unaware that when two rookie agents were sent to Albuquerque to bolster the Lee case in November 1996, they were assigned to other cases.
   
Several agents assigned to the probe were unqualified for the task, Bellows found. One supervisor said working with the first agent was "like pushing a cart with a dead donkey." Another supervisor called the second agent on the case "a goddamn reject." Taken together, FBI Assistant Director Neil Gallagher told the Bellows team, the first two agents to head the probe added up to "a third of an agent."
   
The report by Bellows, an assistant U.S. attorney in Alexandria, is the government's official account of the botched probe that led to Lee's nine-month incarceration. The prosecution of the former Los Alamos scientist spawned congressional hearings, civil lawsuits and a strong rebuke from the judge in the case, who said the treatment of Lee "had embarrassed this entire nation."
   
Bellows's assessment is another in an extraordinary string of embarrassments for the FBI this year, including the compromise of national security secrets by spy Robert P. Hanssen; the FBI's failure to turn over thousands of pages of documents to defense attorneys in the Oklahoma City bombing case; and the loss of weapons and laptop computers by FBI agents. At least six reviews of FBI conduct are underway.
   
FBI officials said the Bellows report, which was delivered to former attorney general Janet Reno in May 2000, has formed the foundation for wide-ranging reforms in the way the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies deal with national security investigations.
   
FBI spokesman John Collingwood also said the bureau deserves criticism for its early mistakes in the Lee case. "Clearly, when the institution turned its full attention to the case [in 1999] as it should have from day one, the resources and expertise were in abundance," Collingwood said. "We should have done that earlier on."
   
Lee's attorney did not return a telephone message left for him Friday. Bellows has not commented publicly on his report and could not be reached for comment.
   
For 4 1/2 years, Bellows wrote, the case "proceeded at a pace that can only be described as languid, if not torpid," and "suffered from neglect, faulty judgment, bad personnel choices, inept investigation and the inadequate supervision of that inept investigation."
   
The chapter, which serves as the report's overview of the FBI's role in the Lee case, also confirms and expands on many previously publicized missteps. These include the failure to examine Lee's computer use despite waivers allowing the FBI and the Energy Department to do so; the diversion of agents from the case; and the failure to monitor two trips that Lee made to Taiwan in 1998.
   
Lee, a U.S. citizen born in Taiwan, was charged in December 1999 with 59 felony counts of mishandling classified information and violating the Atomic Energy Act, which could have brought a life sentence on conviction. After pleading guilty to the charge of mishandling classified information, he was sentenced to the time he had already served. Lee ultimately acknowledged copying classified nuclear data onto portable computer tapes and removing them from Los Alamos. Despite an intensive debriefing by the FBI under the terms of his plea agreement, the tapes have never been found. Lee has not publicly explained why he made them or what became of them.
   
Lee is pursuing a civil lawsuit against the FBI and the departments of Energy and Justice for violating his privacy by leaking his name as a suspect. He is also sparring with the government to obtain clearances for the release of his memoirs.
   
Because the 800-page Bellows report was completed in May 2000, when Lee was in jail, it focuses largely on ways in which investigators failed to be aggressive enough in pursuit of the case. Nonetheless, Bellows also faults the FBI and the Energy Department for focusing exclusively on Lee and ignoring the possibility that the alleged crime -- providing nuclear weapons secrets to China -- may never have occurred.
   
The FBI is not the only target of the critique. Another chapter of the report, also obtained by The Post, faults the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review for not granting the FBI a warrant to secretly monitor Lee's computer -- although it says in hindsight that the bureau misstated facts underlying the request.
   
Bellows also devotes chapters, including those already released, to criticism of the Energy Department for being too quick to focus on Lee and his wife as espionage suspects. The 1995 Energy report that prompted the FBI investigation, Bellows wrote, included "misleading representations" that further sharpened the focus on the Lees to the exclusion of others.
   
But much of the most withering criticism is aimed at the FBI, which conducted an inquiry of Lee from April 1994 to November 1995 and launched a full-blown investigation in May 1996. For the next three years, Bellows concludes, the probe faltered and was often dormant because of the incompetence of the agents assigned to it.
   
For extended periods, Bellows found, the investigation essentially ground to a halt. An agent said he did nothing on the probe for several weeks because he was working on other crime cases. In another instance, the investigation stalled for four months in late 1997 while the Albuquerque office awaited instructions from FBI headquarters.
   
Yet when the investigative plan finally arrived that December from Washington, "they largely ignored it," Bellows found. One of the items was a mandatory directive to open preliminary inquiries on other suspects, which did not happen until March 1999. These and other blunders went largely unnoticed by Freeh, Bellows found. The FBI director was not briefed on the investigation until more than a year after it began, and important decisions -- such as a 1996 memo requesting mail cover authority -- were made by subordinates. As a result, Bellows concludes, "the Attorney General received a written briefing on the FBI's Wen Ho Lee investigation before the Director did."
   
After June 1997, Freeh got regular updates on the case but was not informed that the Albuquerque office was, in the words of an FBI official, "screwing up and sitting on a time bomb." "By the time Director Freeh was finally briefed on the case, it was in trouble and the prognosis for the case seemed grim," Bellows wrote. "So much had already gone wrong."


8/23/01 Associated Press: "Hearing Set on Asian-American Race Profiling Inquiry"
    The judge who apologized in sentencing Wen Ho Lee last year has scheduled a hearing on a petition to unseal documents that Asian American groups want to examine for evidence of ethnic profiling.
    U.S. District Judge James Parker on Wednesday scheduled the Albuquerque hearing for Oct. 2 at 2 p.m.
    ``I think it's very positive that the judge has set a hearing in this case. We have always been under the impression that Judge Parker takes this case very seriously and took very seriously the allegation of selective prosecution (in the original Lee case),'' said Diane Chin, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.
    The San Francisco-based civil rights group filed the petition to unseal June 6, contending the documents may reveal profiling was used in deciding to selectively prosecute the Taiwanese-born Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen and former Los Alamos scientist. The Asian Law Caucus and American Civil Liberties Union supported the motion.
    ``We are excited about the opportunity to get the motion heard and hopeful that the result will be that we can get most, if not all, the documents unsealed relating to the racial profiling issue,'' said Zenobia Lai, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus. She said her group would not necessarily push to unseal all documents if national security issues were clearly shown.
    The petition said the sealing of the documents did not satisfy First Amendment rules for denying public access.
    ``The sealing of records in this case violated the public's common law right to inspect judicial records,'' it said.
    ``The court has apologized to Dr. Wen Ho Lee for the manner in which his rights were violated in the course of his prosecution. However, the American public's rights continue to be violated,'' it said.
    The group said Parker observed last Sept. 13 that the rapid conclusion of the Lee prosecution ``occurred shortly before the executive branch was to have produced, for my review in camera, a large volume of information that I previously ordered it to produce.'' Those documents related to selective prosecution, the petition says.
    The group contends it's the court's duty to decide what documents must remain under seal and not delegate it to the court security officer.
    Last week, a Justice Department report criticized the Energy Department, which oversees the Los Alamos lab, and the FBI for the Lee investigation. The report completed by federal prosecutor Randy Bellows concluded Lee was singled out for an investigation into suspected Chinese espionage because the Energy Department misled the FBI.
    Lee was never charged with espionage, but the report said: ``The message communicated to the FBI was that the FBI need look no farther within DOE for a suspect. Wen Ho Lee was its man. The FBI never should have accepted this message, as is.''
    While the report says the DOE inappropriately targeted Lee, it concludes it was not because of his race.
    Lee has also sued the government for allegedly leaking information to the media that made it appear he spied.
    A motion filed by Lee's attorneys a year ago suggested profiling may have been used in charging him with 59 counts of mishandling nuclear data.
    Lee pleaded guilty to one count last September, and the government dropped the other 58 counts.
    Lee was sentenced to the nine months already served.
    Chin said Wednesday she believed ``the breadth of government misconduct'' had moved ``Judge Parker to that amazing apology from the bench.''
    Parker had said: ``I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner in which you were held in custody by the executive branch.'' He said the Justice and Energy departments ``embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.''

8/17/01 Las Vegas Sun (AP): "Groups question Wen Ho Lee report"
   
A report that criticized federal investigators for the botched probe of scientist Wen Ho Lee is being questioned by Asian-American advocacy groups, which say statements that Lee was the victim of racial profiling weren't fully investigated.
   
The groups are asking President Bush to appoint an independent commission to examine the racial profiling claims. The White House will respond when it receives the groups' formal request, Bush spokesman Ken Lisaius said.
   
Two chapters of a Justice Department report declassified this week say the Energy Department inappropriately singled out Lee, a former nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, while investigating suspected Chinese espionage at the facility.
   
The report criticizes the FBI for accepting the DOE assertion that Lee was the only one who had opportunity, motive and legitimate access to nuclear weapons information believed to have been leaked to the Chinese.
   
Lee was indicted on 59 counts of mishandling nuclear weapons secrets.  He eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading sensitive material.
   
The Justice Department report, by federal prosecutor Randy Bellows, found no evidence of racial bias against Lee.
   
But the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, the Asian Law Caucus and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center contend not enough attention was paid to statements that Lee was targeted because of his Taiwanese heritage.
   
The Asian-American groups cite affidavits that were unsealed in September saying former counterintelligence officials Robert Vrooman and Charles Washington believed Lee was singled out because of his race.
   
Vrooman, a former Los Alamos counterintelligence chief, said in his statement that Lee became the focus of an investigation to the exclusion of other potential suspects who fit a profile based on access to certain information and travel to China. He said others with those characteristics were not pursued.
   
"It is my opinion that the failure to look at the rest of the population is because Lee is ethnic Chinese," Vrooman said.
   
Vincent Eng, legal director for the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, said the report doesn't say enough about those comments.
   
"I don't think anyone will be satisfied until Vrooman's sworn statements are fully investigated," he said. "They don't really go into what stood behind his comments, why he made these comments."
   
Washington, who led the Energy Department's counterintelligence branch for several years in the 1990s, said in his affidavit he had "concluded that if Dr. Lee had not been initially targeted because of his race...he may very well have been treated administratively like others who had allegedly mishandled classified information."
   
Notra Trulock, the former chief investigator for the Energy Department who led the Lee inquiry, has sued Vrooman and Washington over their statements.
    The Bellows report said the team reviewing the Lee investigation "has seen no evidence that the selection of Wen Ho Lee was based upon an investigation of Chinese Americans to the exclusion of any other group of potential suspects."
    No files were assembled of only Chinese American employees and potential suspects were not all Chinese, the report said. The investigation "had many serious problems. Racism was not among them," it said.
    A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment further on Thursday, saying the report speaks for itself.
    That didn't satisfy the advocacy groups, which want Bush to appoint an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate whether Lee was subjected to racial profiling.
    "The only way one can get to the bottom of these issues is to have some type of independent investigation outside of the Department of Justice," Eng said.

8/15/01 Los Angeles Times: Commentary: "What, If Not Race, Tagged Lee?" by Thomas W. Joo, a professor of law at the UC Davis School of Law
    This week, the Department of Justice released part of an internal
report that called the investigation of Los Alamos nuclear scientist
Wen Ho Lee "deeply flawed." However, the report "found no evidence
of racial bias" in the handling of the case. That conclusion has flaws
of its own.
    When Department of Energy officials suspected China had obtained U.S. nuclear secrets, they singled out the Taiwan-born Lee as a suspect.
They ignored the many others who had access to the same information.
According to the Justice Department report, the DOE's inquiry pointing 
to Lee "was so poorly written and organized that this alone made it difficult to evaluate and comprehend." The Justice Department also criticized the Energy Department's inquiry for "inconsistent and
contradictory statements as well as unsubstantiated assertions."
Nonetheless, Energy Department officials were so convinced of Lee's
guilt that they misled the FBI by falsely pointing to Lee as "the only individual ... who had opportunity, motivation and legitimate access." Why?
    The Justice Department report also faults the FBI for its "unhesitating and unquestioning acceptance of DOE's identification of Lee as the 
most logical suspect." The FBI readily agreed to focus the investigation on Lee. Despite the DOE's unconvincing inquiry, FBI officials did not 
find it necessary to independently verify the choice of Lee as the prime suspect. Why? If the evidence was so flimsy, what convinced the DOE and FBI that Lee was "the most logical suspect"? Lee's race, of course.
    Racial stereotyping is deeply ingrained in our culture. Racial profiling causes some people to believe that all young African American men are criminals or that all Latinos are undocumented immigrants. The stereotype of Asian Americans portrays them as foreigners who lack loyalty to the United States. This belief made it easy for a liberal 
champion like Franklin D. Roosevelt to put innocent Japanese 
Americans behind barbed wire during World War II.  And it made it easy for the DOE and FBI to choose a suspect.
    Is it likely that the investigators were so incompetent that they would pick an innocent suspect at random and waste years of investigation on him? It is more likely that they were influenced-- whether consciously or not--by the same kind of race-centered reasoning that contaminates so many aspects of our society.
    Acting on this kind of bias does not mean that the investigators were
a sheet-wearing lynch mob. But it doesn't mean they are innocent,
either. They were quick to focus on Lee, but never stopped to ask
themselves, "Why?"

8/14/2001 Los Angeles Times: "Report rips Wen Ho Lee probe: FBI, Energy Dept. are both faulted,"
    Federal authorities in the Wen Ho Lee espionage case ''investigated the wrong crime'' for three years and zeroed in too aggressively on the nuclear scientist as the prime suspect, according to a government report released yesterday. 
    Investigators ignored evidence that might have led them in other directions, mischaracterized their findings, and relied on scientific analysts with suspect credentials, the long-awaited Justice Department review found. 
    Misled by the Energy Department, ''from May 30, 1996, until early 
1999, the FBI investigated the wrong crime,'' the report said.  ''Even a cursory investigation'' by the FBI would have disclosed the department's assumptions were ''woefully inadequate.'' 
    The collection of gaffes means that investigators may never know how - or even whether - the Chinese government stole technology on the design of US nuclear warheads, the heavily censored report suggests. 
    The report, offering a host of new details about an investigation that led to Lee's nine-month incarceration, amounts to the Justice Department's strongest admission yet of just how badly officials botched their work. 
    But the report rejects one of the central claims from Lee's supporters: that he was unfairly branded a spy because he is Asian-American. A 1995 Energy Department plan for investigating possible nuclear breaches did in fact say that ''an initial consideration will be to identify those US citizens, of Chinese heritage, who worked directly or peripherally with the (nuclear warhead) design development,'' the report reveals. 
    Even so, Assistant US Attorney Randy Bellows, who wrote the report last year at the request of then-Attorney General Janet Reno, said there is ''no evidence of racial bias'' in the Lee probe. The Lee investigation ''had many serious problems. Racism was not among them,'' the report concludes. 
    The finding troubled some of Lee's supporters, who pointed out that Bellows' report was completed before sworn declarations from two Energy Department officials who said Lee was targeted partly because of his race. 
    But overall, Lee's backers were pleased with the report. ''We've said from the beginning of this investigation that the government should not have focused on Dr. Lee as an espionage suspect, and this report appears to support our concerns,'' said Mark Holscher, Lee's defense attorney. 
    Fired from the lab at Los Alamos, N.M., in 1999, Lee was under investigation for more than three years for allegedly passing nuclear secrets to China.  But the case against Lee collapsed last September when the Taiwanese-born scientist was allowed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of mishandling nuclear secrets, as prosecutors dropped 58 other counts. 
    Even now, nearly a year later, the case continues to resonate.  Lee is preparing to publish a book about his experience, which he has submitted to the Energy Department for review to determine whether it reveals any nuclear secrets.  An Energy Department official accused of racism in the investigation is bringing a defamation lawsuit against Lee.  
    And the report sparked a new round of recriminations yesterday from leaders in Congress who are pushing for widespread reforms at the FBI because of the Lee case and other agency blunders.  
    Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the report ''paints the picture of a wayward investigation that was flawed from inception.'' 
    Both the FBI and the Energy Department are blasted for their handling of the Lee matter in Bellows' 184-page report, a top-secret review that was prepared in early 2000 but was released publicly in redacted form yesterday only by order of a judge in the defamation lawsuit against Lee. Portions of the review are heavily blacked out on national security and privacy grounds, leaving many unanswered questions. 
    It is part of a much longer report from Bellows that Justice Department officials promised to release publicly last year. The longer version is still weeks or months away from release. Officials at the Energy Department and the FBI declined to discuss specific findings of the report. 
    This story ran on page A3 of the Boston Globe on 8/14/2001.

8/8/01 Dallas Morning News (Washington Post): "Report: Lee not targeted by FBI because of race": 
    Federal investigators did not target former Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee based on his ethnicity, according to a classified report that is otherwise highly critical of the conduct of the FBI and Energy Department during the investigation.
   
A version of the internal report by federal prosecutor Randy Bellows is scheduled to be released publicly next week. It says that while the government's espionage investigation of Dr. Lee, a native of Taiwan, had many shortcomings, "racism was not one of them," said several people who have reviewed its findings.
   
The report's findings on racism, which had not previously been revealed, appear to contradict the accounts of at least two former Energy Department officials. They include the former chief of counterintelligence, Robert Vrooman, who has said in sworn statements that Dr. Lee was targeted for investigation of whether he leaked nuclear secrets to China based largely on his race.
   
Dr. Lee, who was jailed on 59 felony counts of mishandling classified information and violating the Atomic Energy Act, pleaded guilty last September to a single felony charge of mishandling classified information after the government's case largely fell apart in court. He had spent nine months in solitary confinement.
   
Dr. Lee, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, has indicated in press reports and court filings that he believes he was singled out because he is a native of Taiwan.
   
The case prompted condemnations from Asian-American leaders, who accused the government of engaging in racial profiling and stereotyping in the Lee inquiry.
   
But Mr. Bellows' review is certain to figure prominently in a defamation lawsuit by another energy official who contends that he was wrongly accused of racism in the case.
   
Notra Trulock III, a former energy official who has filed a defamation lawsuit against Dr. Lee, said Mr. Bellows' findings on race bolster his suit, which alleges that Dr. Lee authorized supporters to accuse Mr. Trulock of racism on the scientist's Web site.
   
A federal magistrate hearing the case has demanded portions of Mr. Bellows' report from the Justice Department, which has tentatively scheduled its release for Monday.
   
"I feel that I am exonerated," said Mr. Trulock, 53, who left the Energy Department in August 1999. "I knew that racial profiling had not been employed and that certainly I'm not a racist."
   
Dr. Lee's lead attorney, Mark Holscher, said he had not seen Mr. Bellows' report and could not comment.
   
The 800-page report stems from an internal probe into the Chinese espionage investigation ordered by former Attorney General Janet Reno in May 1999, shortly after Dr. Lee was fired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
   
Dr. Lee and his wife, Sylvia, have filed a suit against the FBI, Justice Department and Energy Department alleging that Dr. Lee's privacy was violated by government leaks of his name to the press during the investigation. Dr. Lee is also locked in a dispute with federal government censors over whether his forthcoming autobiography violates security rules.

7/18/01 Dallas Morning News: "FBI reports laptops, hundreds of guns missing,"
   
Already on the defensive for a spy scandal and other embarrassments, the FBI disclosed Tuesday that hundreds of guns and computers were stolen or are missing from its inventory. At least one lost laptop contained classified material, and a stolen weapon was used in a homicide.
   
A review of the nearly 50,000 weapons in the FBI's inventory found that 449 were stolen or lost over the last 12 years, a "low number" of which later were used in robberies or other crimes, a senior FBI official told reporters. Of the nearly 13,000 laptops assigned to FBI personnel, 184 are unaccounted for, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
   
One missing computer, and possibly three others, contained classified information, the FBI said.
   
"To date, we have no indication that any investigations have been compromised," the official said. However, he added, "We can't conclusively state that until the damage assessment is complete."
   
In April, the inspector general reported that the INS could not account for thousands of items, including 539 guns from its arsenal of more than 50,000 weapons.
   
The beleaguered bureau is under investigation on and off Capitol Hill for mishandling evidence in the investigation of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and the failure to detect that one of its own agents was spying for Moscow.
    "To have laptops missing that could have national security information on them would be atrocious. For the FBI to have lost firearms and failed to account for them is inexcusable," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

July 6-12, 2001 Asianweek.com: "FBI Official Mislead Congress on Wen Ho Lee Case," (AP)
    A top FBI official misled Congress about his confidence in his part of the investigation into former Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, government watchdogs say.
   
FBI Assistant Director Neil Gallagher told Senate committees in June 1999 that he had full confidence in an early Energy Department inquiry into Los Alamos. He told senators that the inquiry made a compelling case for focusing the espionage investigation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to include Wen Ho Lee.
   
That testimony was inaccurate and misleading, said Robert Hast, managing director of the General Accounting Offices special investigations office, in a letter to several senators Thursday.
   
The FBIs Albuquerque bureau had written to the national office in January 1999, saying they had serious concerns about the inquiry, giving Gallagher ample opportunity to know about its concerns, Hast said.
   
Gallagher admitted to not reading all of the briefing book which included the Albuquerque e-mail prepared for him before talking to Congress, the letter said.
   
He said that had he read the Jan. 22, 1999 electronic communication before he testified, his testimony would have been different, Hast said.
   
Gallagher told GAO investigators that the mistake was inadvertent. Although we determined that Mr. Gallaghers testimony was inaccurate, we were unable to determine whether he intentionally misled the committee, Hast said.
   
Gallagher insisted that he would never intentionally mislead Congress. He said the attorney general, the FBI director and others also did not read the part of the briefing book that he skipped because it simply was not a significant issue at the time.
   
To the degree that your report suggests that I personally misled Congress, that is simply not accurate, Gallagher said. While I would have preferred to have had known all available information at the time of my testimony, the fact remains that I did not.

"In Final Act, Clinton Issues Pardons," January 20, 2001 Associated Press.  Clinton pardons John Deutch but not Wen Ho Lee.

"Notra Trulock," Dec. 17, 2000 60 Minutes.  www.cbs.com.  He admits leaking to the New York Times that Dr. Lee was a suspect.

" Scientist moved hundreds of classified files, undetected for
years by Los Alamos officials," by Dan Stober, Dec. 16, 2000 San Jose Mercury News http://www0.mercurycenter.com/local/center/lee1217.htm 

" Spy hunters hit peaks and valleys searching for thief of U.S. secrets," by Dan Stober, Dec. 17, 2000 San Jose Mercury News 
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/local/center/lee121800a.htm

Dr. Lee's legal expenses total $1.5 million, says attorney Brian Sun at National Asian Pacific American Bar Association convention in Washington, DC, October 14, 2000.

"Wen Ho Lee Defense Funds Drying Up: Lee's lawyer, pictured above, says defense costs could end up totaling as much as $7 million."  9/7/00 Aonline.com
http://www.aonline.com/article/0,1153,2600-24142-1,00.html 

"Scientist Wen Ho Lee Singled Out for Race," September 1, 2000, Washington (Reuters)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000901/ts/crime_scientist_dc.html

www.caasf.org - Coalition Against Racial and Ethnic Scapegoating (CARES) A National Coalition of Individuals and Civil Rights Groups Working Towards a Society Free of Racial Profiling and Scapegoating and Justice for Dr. Wen Ho Lee

"Noted Scientist Testifies for Lee" Aug 18, 2000 Aonline.com
http://www.aonline.com/article/1,1153,1000-22827-1,00.html 

NAPALC JOINS AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF DR. WEN HO LEE'S MOTION FOR DISCOVERY 
Aug. 17, 2000 Washington, D.C. 
The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium and seven leading civil rights organizations joined as interested parties to the Asian Law Caucus's recently filed "friend of the court" brief in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. This amicus brief requests that the court grant Dr. Wen Ho Lee's Motion for Discovery of Materials 
Related to Selective Prosecution, a motion which would provide Dr. Lee's defense attorneys with specific reports and files that squarely relate to the issue of whether Dr. Lee was selectively prosecuted as a result of improper racial profiling. 

"[FBI] Agent Concedes Faulty Testimony in [Wen Ho Lee] Secrets Case," Aug. 18, 2000 New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/081800lee-nuclear.html 
Aug. 18, 2000 Virtual New York
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=110241 

Judge again asked to release Wen Ho Lee
Aug. 18, 2000 Virtual New York
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=110268 

Wen Ho Lee Accused of Using Information In Job Search ("Nuclear Scientist Document Released," July 6, 2000 Associated Press)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000706/us/scientist_secrets_1.html

The Asian-American Government Executives Network (www.aagen.org)  has an excellent page on the Wen Ho Lee case.

"Universities Say Research Hampered by Security Curbs:
Foreign students denied access to certain data
," June 12, 2000, San Francisco Chronicle

"Wen Ho Lee supporters stage rally in San Jose," June 1, 2000 San Jose
Mercury News

http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/lee01.htm  

Lead Prosecutor in Lee Case Removed, May 12, 2000 Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52814-2000May11.html 

Case Against Lee Is Flying Out Window, April 18, 2000 LA Times.  See The Spy Who Never Was

Lee Disputes Classification of Weapons Data.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48009-2000Apr19.html

Click here for press release on filing of Privacy Act lawsuit by the family of Dr. Wen Ho Lee against the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Energy

Click here for front page August 16, 1999 Washington Post story "Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence" reporting Wen Ho Lee was accused of being a spy solely because of his race  

Click here for August 17, 1999 Los Angeles Times story "U.S. Accused of Using Race To Target China Spy Suspect" on Wen Ho Lee.

Journalist Bill Mesler took an in-depth look at the Los Alamos case and published a comprehensive article "The Spy Who Wasn't" in August 9-16 edition of The Nation. The story is posted and linked under the "Los Alamos" section of the AAGEN web site at www.aagen.org.

December 22, 1999

Press/Media Excerpts Regarding the Wen Ho Lee Matter

PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING LEE'S DISMISSAL

"Last month, Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired amid suspicions that he passed classified weapons information to China from 1983 into the mid-1990s. The lab has acknowledged that Lee apparently downloaded millions of lines of 'legacy' codes, which simulate nuclear weapons' performance, from a classified computer system to an unclassified system." USA Today, Peter Eisler, New Breach of Security at U.S. lab, May 7, 1999.

"The reason for the scientist's dismissal were 'failing to properly inform the laboratory and DOE about contacts with people from a sensitive country; specific instances of failing to properly safeguard classified material; and, apparently, attempting to deceive (the) laboratory about security related issues,' the Energy Department said. CNN, March 8, 1999.

PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING LEE'S MISHANDLING

"In an interview with The Nation, Edward Curran, a director at the DOE's office of counterintelligence, admitted that Los Alamos scientists have a record of mishandling classified information. 'A lot of this is incidental,' said Curran. 'These things often happen when an employee is under pressure because of timeliness or things of that nature. These are issues that can be dealt with through training.' Lee might have an even better excuse than other violators. In 1994 Los Alamos split what had been a single computer system into a secure and an unsecure system. Lee had just received a second, unsecure computer at this workstation, which could easily have lead to confusion. As for his downloading of nuclear codes, Lee had been assigned to the lab's archiving project, and it was his job to download vast amounts of such information. 'Of course he moved a lot of files,' says Chris Mechela, a former computer systems manager at Los Alamos who worked with Lee for many years. 'Anyone who had a lot of files at that time had to move them around because of the computer changes. This wasn't anything sinister. What they have done to Wen Ho Lee is an outrage.' None of the articles the New York Times ran on Lee's downloading of computer files mentioned that it was part of Lee's job as an archivist." The Nation, Bill Mesler, The Spy Who Wasn't, August 9, 1999.

PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING THE LEE INDICTMENT

"Dr. Lee has not been charged with espionage, despite a year of government claims that he, a native of Taiwan, was a spy for China. Instead, under statutes 2275 and 2276 of the Atomic Energy Act, he has been charged with receiving and tampering with information relating to national security -- the first and only person ever charged under these statutes. Significantly, he was not charged with violating the next statute, 2277, which prohibits disclosure of information relating to national security." Pacific New Service, George Koo, Why the Wen Ho Lee Case Sticks in the Craw, December 14, 1999.

"Last week, the government conceded with its filing that it has no such case. Indeed, the FBI has now admitted that Lee and the Los Alamos lab where he worked never had access to the flawed design drawing of the weapon. That allegedly purloined drawing dates back to 1988 when Ronald Reagan was president, and it was created, with its signature design flaws, at a stage in the weapons development after the Los Alamos involvement." The Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, What's Left of Case Against Lee? Not Much., December 14, 1999.

"Although the Justice Department has charged former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee with improperly downloading classified files between 1993 and 1997, they do not claim that this has anything to do with China's explosion of a weapon like the W-88, which occurred before that time on Sept. 25, 1992.

Also, as Panofsky [Wolfgang K.H., Stanford Physicist] states, the Chinese weapon 'is believed to be larger than the W-88 and is not even remotely a copy or a 'knock-off,' to use Congressman Cox's term, of the W-88.'" Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, The China Spy Scandal that Never Was, December 21, 1999.

PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING "EVIDENCE" AGAINST LEE

"A senior administration official told CNN, however, it is 'unlikely' that the scientist, who is in his 50s, will be charged with any criminal offense, since there is not enough hard evidence against him. 'The notion that this guy is another Rosenberg is sort of silly,' said the official." CNN, March 9, 1999.

"In 1986 and 1988, Dr. Lee went to Mainland China to present papers at two technical conferences. Dr. Lee's participation in these conferences was pre-approved and encouraged by the Los Alamos Laboratory and the Department of Energy. These same entities also cleared the texts of the papers given at these conferences. which covered mathematics and physics topics." Press Release, Los Angeles, May 6, 1999, Mark Holscher, Tina Hua and Karen Newlove.

"The press has incorrectly reported that Dr. Lee made 'several' trips to Mainland China and also has failed to report that his two trips were approved in advance by the Los Alamos Laboratory and the Department of Energy. These two approved trips were the only times Dr. Lee has ever traveled to Mainland China. These false press reports do a disservice both to Dr. Lee and the Los Alamos Laboratory." Press Release, Los Angeles, May 6, 1999, Mark Holscher, Tina Hua and Karen Newlove.

"The press reports also fail to include the fact that Dr. Lee presented similar papers at conferences in several countries throughout Western Europe and other parts of the world. The false insinuations that Dr. Lee went to Mainland China in the late 1980s with an improper purpose are unfair. Not only did Dr. Lee go to Mainland China to present a technical paper, his and his wife's attendance were with the full knowledge and approval of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Press Release, Los Angeles, May 6, 1999, Mark Holscher, Tina Hua and Karen Newlove.

"I have worked on this case since June 23, 1995. I know that there is not one shred of evidence that the information that the Intelligence Community identified as having been stolen by the Chinese came from Wen Ho Lee, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Department of Energy complex or from a DOE office. The information known to have been obtained by the Chinese was available in documentary form on many classified documents distributed to hundreds of locations throughout the US government and contractor complex.

No complete inventory of documents containing this data has been made or is possible, but as an example, one containing a rather detailed description of the W-88 had a distribution of 548 copies, of which only 180 copies are within the DOE complex. The rest of the addresses are in the Department of Defense, military services (including the National Guard), other government agencies, and contractors such as Lockheed Missile and Space Corporation.

Please note that I am referring to 548 mailing addresses not people." Los Alamos Monitor, Robert Vrooman's Written Statement (no date).

"I have been an outspoken critic of the flawed investigation that identified Mr. Lee as the prime suspect in this case. I have expressed my views to representatives of three Congressional committees and the President's Foreign Intelligence advisory Board. I do not agree with Mr. Trulock or with the Secretary of Energy that the information obtained by the Chinese came from the Department of Energy. I consider disciplinary action against me to be retaliation for opposing them on this issue." Los Alamos Monitor, Robert Vrooman's Written Statement (no date).

"'I've had a distinguished career,' said Vrooman, 62, a former CIA operations officer who retired from Los Alamos in March 1998 and is now working there as a consultant. 'And I'm not going to go down in history as the guy who screwed up this case, because I wasn't. This case was screwed up because there was nothing there - it was built on thin air.'" The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence; Suspect's Ethnicity 'A Major Factor' in China Spy Probe, August 17, 1999.

"Both Craig and Vrooman said there is no evidence pinpointing Los Alamos as the source of secrets stolen by China. Similar conclusions were reached earlier this year by the CIA, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence; Suspect's Ethnicity 'A Major Factor' in China Spy Probe, August 17, 1999.

"Mr. Vrooman, a former case officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, said yesterday in interviews and in a two-page statement that Federal investigators had 'not one shred of evidence' that linked Dr. Lee to Chinese espionage. He said he scrutinized the case for nearly three years, from June 1995 until he retired from Los Alamos in March 1998." The New York Times, William J. Broad, Official Asserts Spy Case Suspect was a Bias Victim, August 18, 1999.

"Even the New York Times, which did as much as any media outlet to stoke this story, concluded after an exhaustive investigation by William J. Broad, that paper's most experienced reporter on such matters, that Cox's congressional report 'went beyond the evidence' to support its claims that the Chinese made a weapons breakthrough based on stolen U.S. secrets. The Times' Page 1 story said that there was a consensus among experts' that the federal investigation focused too soon' on Los Alamos and Lee. It added, 'The lost secrets, it now appears, were available to hundreds and perhaps thousands of individuals scattered throughout the nation's arms complex.'"   Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, Time to Say Farewell to Spy Scandal, September 14, 1999.

"That changed, however, in early September, when the Times published an article by science reporter William Broad. The article cast doubt, not only on the case against Lee, but also on the entire spy scandal as laid out by the Times. Broad's 5,400-word, front-page story concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove that espionage was the main reason China had been able to advance its nuclear-weapons program. And Broad reported that the federal investigation had focused too quickly on Lee. 'The lost secrets,' Broad wrote, 'were available to hundreds and perhaps thousands' of people." Brill's Content, Robert Schmidt, Crash Landing, November 1999.

"The Broad article came on the heels of a Times editorial in late August that called for an independent investigation of charges made both by Lee, in a 60 Minutes interview, and by a former head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, that Lee had been unfairly singled out because of his ethnicity."   Brill's Content, Robert Schmidt, Crash Landing, November 1999.

"Broad's story was meticulously reported. But it left out one salient fact: The New York Times itself had been largely responsible for fueling the scandal and portraying Wen Ho Lee as a traitor." Brill's Content, Robert Schmidt, Crash Landing, November 1999.

"The existence of this exculpatory evidence regarding Lee was revealed in a letter to the U.S. Senate last month by Asst. FBI Director Neil J. Gallagher, who oversees national security cases for the FBI. Gallagher wrote that the Albuquerque FBI office in charge of the investigation had filed reports in November and December 1998 and again in January of this year that 'question the accuracy of certain representations and conclusions' about the original evidence against Lee." The Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, What's Left of Case Against Lee? Not Much., December 14, 1999.

"The AP last week also reported access to a document from the FBI dated Jan. 22, 1999, stating that 'the FBI office in Albuquerque continues to insist' that Lee had nothing to do with the China spying case. FBI Director Louis Freeh was briefed by agents in Albuquerque last March and again told that 'it did not appear' that Lee had anything to do with the theft of the warhead design." The Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, What's Left of Case Against Lee? Not Much., December 14, 1999.


PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING RACIAL PROFILING/SINGLING OUT DR. LEE

"Norta Trulock, the Energy Department official who first identified Lee as a 'prime suspect,' is doing much better. He just received the department's Special Act Award, netting him $10,000 for his role in exposing Chinese espionage. Announcing the award, Bill Richardson told The New York Times that Trulock 'performed a service to the country that needs to be recognized.'" The Nation, Bill Mesler, The Spy Who Wasn't, August 9, 1999.

"While some Chinese American rights organizations previously have charged that Lee was unfairly targeted, Vrooman is the first high-ranking participant in the investigation to state that Lee's ethnicity was 'a major factor' in his identification as the government's prime suspect. The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence; Suspect's Ethnicity 'A Major Factor' in China Spy Probe, August 17, 1999.

"Vrooman made his remarks in an interview with The Washington Post less than a week after Energy Secretary Bill Richardson recommended disciplinary action against him and two other former Los Alamos officials for alleged missteps during the espionage probe. The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence; Suspect's Ethnicity 'A Major Factor' in China Spy Probe, August 17, 1999.

"Mr. Vrooman is apparently the first investigator in the case to raise the issue of racial bias publicly, though some Chinese-American rights groups had previously done so. His remarks were first reported yesterday in The Washington Post." The New York Times, William J. Broad, Official Asserts Spy Case Suspect was a Bias Victim, August 18, 1999.

"Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and other managers at Los Alamos have denied that Dr. Lee's Asian ancestry sparked suspicions that he was involved in possible espionage." The New York Times, William J. Broad, Official Asserts Spy Case Suspect was a Bias Victim, August 18, 1999.

"Dr. Lee was identified by the Department of Energy's Office of Counterintelligence as the prime suspect based on an, at best, cursory investigation at only two facilities, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The details of this investigation are still classified, but it can be said at this time that Mr. Lee's ethnicity was a major factor. In spite of the lack of evidence that the loss occurred in the Department of Energy, the Secretary of Energy decided not to defend his Department." Los Alamos Monitor, Robert Vrooman's Written Statement (no date).

"A former head of the FBI's Chinese counterintelligence efforts, Paul D. Moore, bluntly told the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus this month that 'racial profiling' does occur in counterintelligence investigations. But he blamed China, charging that its intelligence service routinely targets Chinese citizens studying or working in the United States as well as Chinese Americans who travel to technical conferences abroad. As long as Chinese agents remain 'interested obsessively in people of Chinese American ancestry to the exclusion of people from other groups,' he said, it is inevitable that the FBI also will focus disproportionately on Chinese American scientists. 'So you are profiling Chinese Americans?' asked Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif.). 'What's the option?' Moore replied." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"China rarely recruits master spies, according to Paul D. Moore, who spent 20 years following operatives from China's premier intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security. Moore and other experts believe that China methodically sifts information from open sources and combines it with many small leaks of secret information, typically culled one at a time from American scientists visiting China, a strategy very different from the Cold War model of moles and master spies, smuggled microfilm and secret meetings in the park." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb and Walter Pincus, China Prefers the Sand to the Moles, Experts Say Beijing Mines Open Sources, Digging Out Secrets Grain by Grain, December 12, 1999

"Moore believes the FBI erred, not so much by targeting Lee, but by assuming that there had to be a spy inside the nation's nuclear weapons complex, based on fragments of classified information contained in a document handed over to the CIA by a Chinese 'walk-in' agent. 'So far as I can see, most folks are simply asking the wrong question: Who stole what secrets?' Moore said. 'That's always an important question, but the really critical one is: How and where were these thefts accomplished?'" The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb and Walter Pincus, China Prefers the Sand to the Moles, Experts Say Beijing Mines Open Sources, Digging Out Secrets Grain by Grain, December 12, 1999

"Government officials deny Lee was singled out because of his race, and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson sent a memo recently saying that 'at this juncture it is appropriate that I reiterate emphatically my policy of zero tolerance of any form of racial profiling within the DOE workplace.' The memo did not mention Lee." Associated Press, Michelle Locke, Asian-Americans Defend Wen Ho Lee, December 17, 1999

"At least three individuals intimately familiar with the assertions about Lee have described the racial profiling involved in the inquiry. Robert S. Vrooman, the former counterintelligence chief of the Los Alamos lab, and Charles E. Washington, who held a similar post at the Energy Department, have said that there is no proof against Lee and that he became a suspect because of ethnicity. Michael S. Soukup, a specialist who helped with the investigation itself, shared that view. Concerns about Lee being targeted because of his ethnicity have brought more than a dozen Asian-American organizations into a coalition to speak out in his behalf." Knight Ridder Tribune Wire, Frank H. Wu, Wen Ho Lee Case Raises Questions About Racial Stereotyping, December 18, 1999.

"The whole affair has prompted charges of racial profiling and criticism that the government is using Lee as a scapegoat for its own lax security. Richardson acknowledged that Asian scientists have complained about unfair scrutiny, but said 'Asian Americans should not fee racially profiled. We are not doing that.'" The New York Times, AP, Energy Secretary Seeks Refocus of Labs, December 22, 1999.

"As early as 1997, federal prosecutors feared the FBI had focused too narrowly on U.S. nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee and ignored other leads in their investigation of alleged Chinese Spying, Attorney General Reno disclosed to Congress." The New York Times, AP, Reno Testifies About Lee Concerns, December 22, 1999.

"The FBI probe focused on Lee and his wife, Sylvia, when there were others at the Los Alamos, N.M., weapons lab where Lee worked who may have had a better motive to help China, Reno told a closed-door meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June. A Transcript of her testimony was released Tuesday." The New York Times, AP, Reno Testifies About Lee Concerns, December 22, 1999.

"In a secret hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Reno said that an administrative inquiry conducted in 1995 by the Department of Energy, with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had failed to adequately investigate others who had access to classified information about the United States''most advanced nuclear warhead, the W-88, according to a transcript of the hearing released by the committee tonight. 'The elimination of other logical suspects, having the same access and opportunity did not occur,' Ms. Reno told the committee. The New York Times, AP, Reno Called Inquiry Too Focused on Scientist, December 22, 1999.

PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING LAX SECURITY/OTHER INSTANCES

"The Justice Department has declined to prosecute former CIA Director John Deutch for keeping secret files on his unsecured personal computer at home after he stepped down as the nation's top spy, a department official said today." The Associated Press, Ex-CIA Chief Won't Be Prosecuted, April 12, 1999.

"But the department recently sent the case back to the CIA for possible disciplinary action after it concluded Deutch's actions were reckless rather than criminal, this official said, requesting anonymity." The Associated Press, Ex-CIA Chief Won't Be Prosecuted, April 12, 1999.

"Justice sources tell NEWSWEEK that when Deutch was CIA director, he repeatedly mishandled classified information, in violation of the agency's well-known security protocols. The spymaster routinely took his work home with him, these sources say, removing highly sensitive intelligence materials from CIA headquarters and accessing them on his unsecured personal computer - even though he had a secure CIA computer in the house. Deutch, now a Washington consultant, declined to comment, as did his lawyers. The Justice Department, which investigated the case for more than a year, decided not to press criminal charges, and has referred the matter back to the CIA. Officials close to the case say that the CIA's inspector general is preparing a 'scathing' report about Deutch's alleged security breaches, and the agency is considering whether to revoke his high-level security clearances." Newsweek, Daniel Klaidman, April 19, 1999.

"Deutch's troubles began days after he stepped down as CIA chief in December 1996. Agency technicians went to his house on a routine mission: to ensure that Deutch, who stayed on briefly as a consultant, was using the CIA's computer and his personal computer appropriately. To their astonishment, the technicians reportedly discovered 31 secret files on his personal computer." Newsweek, Daniel Klaidman, April 19, 1999.

"In this new case, material from the 'Green Book,' which evaluates the status, maintenance needs and vulnerabilities of some of the nation's most sophisticated weapons, was transferred from a secured computer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to an unclassified computer system linked to the Internet and e-mail, federal officials say." USA Today, Peter Eisler, New breach of security at U.S. lab, May 7, 1999.

"The FBI found not criminal intent and closed its case. The DOE fined and suspended the scientist, who downloaded the Green Book material to work on it at his office computer, agency officials say. They would not identify him." USA Today, Peter Eisler, New breach of security at U.S. lab, May 7,1999.

"While the 'legacy' codes represents technical data that could help in developing weapons, the Green Book's value is described by federal officials as being more strategic." USA Today, Peter Eisler, New breach of security at U.S. lab, May 7, 1999.

"An April 20 report by the General Accounting Office on security at US nuclear labs found numerous 'problems with information security.' In the case of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the report noted, officials have been 'unable to locate or determine the disposition of over 12,000 secret documents,' including ones involving 'nuclear weapons design.' The report also noted that 'both DOE and laboratory officials showed little concern for the seriousness of the situation and told us that they believed the missing documents were the result of administrative error...and not theft.'" The Nation, Bill Mesler, The Spy Who Wasn't, August 9, 1999.

"Breaking a long public silence, Robert S. Vrooman also said he does not believe that China obtained top-secret information about U.S. nuclear warheads from Los Alamos or any other laboratory belonging to the Department of Energy. The stolen data, he said, could have come from documents distributed to 'hundreds of locations throughout the U.S. government' as well as to private defense contractors. The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence; Suspect's Ethnicity 'A Major Factor' in China Spy Probe, August 17, 1999.

"The former director of the CIA, John M. Deutch, for example, has acknowledged that he, too, downloaded data to his home computer. That is the same type of breach of rules, presenting the same risk, which has ruined Lee's life. But all Deutch got was his security clearance denied, which means that he can no longer serve as an adviser to the CIA." Knight Ridder Tribune Wire, Frank H. Wu, Wen Ho Lee Case Raises Questions About Racial Stereotyping, December 18,1999.


PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING THE COX REPORT

"'The Cox report and all this hoopla have not really disclosed anything we didn't know before,' says Union of Concerned Scientists senior staff scientist Lisbeth Gronlund." The Nation, Bill Mesler, The Spy Who Wasn't, August 9, 1999.

"Were the weapons designs a major advance for China? A Stanford think tank this week downplayed the highly-critical Cox report that claimed widespread weapons technology theft by China. The Cox conclusions were based on skewed information and wrongfully dampened U.S.-China relations, the study claimed.  A Cox spokesman shot back that the bipartisan panel's findings were based on classified information unavailable to the Stanford analysts." San Francisco Chronicle, A Nuclear Spy - or Not?, December 17, 1999.

"For the past year, the news has been punctuated with lurid stories heralding a China spy scandal. Most of that fear-mongering was based on the report of a congressional committee headed by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) and compiled by a staff that included not a single nuclear weapons expert." Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, The China Spy Scandal That Never Was, December 21, 1999.

"Yet when five of the leading national security experts released a study last week showing that the Cox committee report was riddled with factual errors, its language 'inflammatory' and its key conclusion 'unwarranted,' the media barely noticed." Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, The China Spy Scandal That Never Was, December 21, 1999.

"The report, compiled by a research team at Stanford University's Center for International Security, was coordinated by Michael M. May, director emeritus of the Livermore National Laboratory, where he was a leader in the U.S. nuclear weapons program for 36 years. The Stanford study concludes that 'there is no credible evidence presented or instances described of actual theft of U.S. missile technology.'" Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer, The China Spy Scandal That Never Was, December 21, 1999.

 
PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING LEE'S LAWSUIT

"The family of Dr. Wen Ho Lee announced that a lawsuit was filed today in federal court in Washington, D.C. by Dr. Lee and his wife Sylvia against the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI and the Department of Energy (DOE) alleging violations of the Privacy Act of 1974. The Privacy Act makes it illegal for government agencies to willfully or intentionally disclose confidential and personal information in their possession. According to the Privacy Act, each unauthorized disclosure made by a government agency, or one of its officers or employees, constitutes a separate violation subject to criminal conviction and monetary sanctions." Press Release, Family of Dr. Wen Ho Lee Announces Filing of Privacy Act Lawsuit Against the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Energy, December 20, 1999.

"The Complaint states that the suit seeks to make the DOJ, FBI and DOE and their employees accountable for a pattern of repeated Privacy Act violations. According to the Complaint, beginning in at least early 1999 and continuing to the present, the defendant agencies made numerous intentional and unauthorized disclosures about Dr. Lee and his wife to the media and other third parties without their consent. Moreover, the Complaint states the defendant agencies ignored repeated requests by Dr. Lee's counsel that they stop these unauthorized disclosures, and instead, continued to willfully and intentionally violate the Privacy Act over the objections of Dr. Lee and his wife." Press Release, Family of Dr. Wen Ho Lee Announces Filing of Privacy Act Lawsuit Against the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Energy, December 20, 1999.

"'Government officials ought not to be allowed to make unlawful leaks and disclosures to the press, and try cases through the media,' attorney Brian Sun said, on behalf of Scientist Wen Ho Lee who is being held without bail on charges of mishandling top secret nuclear weapons data, in a lawsuit against the U.S. government, alleging violations of the 1974 Privacy Act.

'Our system of justice is based upon the notion that the government should be playing according to the rules on a level playing field. We don't think that in this case they did. And with the use of unlawful and unauthorized leaks, distorted the case involving Dr. Lee.'" Inside China Today, Quote of the Day, December 21, 1999.


PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING THE EFFECT ON OTHER SCIENTISTS

"So far, he said, one senior Chinese American scientist at the Los Alamos lab has quit, citing the discomfort of working in a suspicious atmosphere.

Richardson said that he fears recruiting will suffer as a result of the tighter security, including regular polygraph tests for scientists in sensitive positions. 'I'm worried young scientists might find the labs excessively restrictive,' he said." Los Angeles Times, Bob Drogin, Asian American Lab Employees Fear Repercussions of Spy Inquiries, June 12, 1999.

"But after the U.S. Department of Energy fired Chinese American physicist Wen Ho Lee in March for security violations, Feng [Gai] was ordered to stay home from work for several days while Los Alamos put in place new screening procedures." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"Feeling 'angry and hopeless,' Feng [Gai] says, he decided to say goodbye to the hysteria. This summer he packed up his family and moved to the University of Pennsylvania." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"...Feng [Gai] is just one of several who have left Los Alamos 'because of the uncertainty associated with the environmental for foreign nationals,' according to a report by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows. The report noted that all five top candidates for the lab's most prestigious postdoctoral positions were foreigners, and added: 'of these five, three (including the top two) rejected the offers.'" The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"Several said Asian-American scientists and academics had been expressing worries that their career prospects had been damaged by the case because of unwarranted questions about their loyalty. 'I've spoken with three or four people personally who feel their career chances have been damaged, and I've heard of a number of other such reports,' said Stewart Kwoh, the executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California."

The New York Times, Sterngold, Los Angeles, December 12, 1999. "'Morale has been hurt by the espionage issue at all our labs and we're trying to restore morale by ensuring that we emphasize science above security,' he [Richardson] said. Richardson said he wants to accommodate lab visits by foreign scientists to allow the collaboration. He said he has changed plans for lie detector tests so that only those with access to the most highly classified nuclear secrets must take them." The New York Times, AP, Energy Secretary Seeks Refocus of Labs, December 22, 1999.


PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING APA CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

"Five Nobel prizes in physics and one in chemistry have gone to Chinese Americans." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"...at least a third of all engineers in Silicon Valley are Asian Americans." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"Top officials at Los Alamos also realized their dependence on foreign scientists when they advertised this year for a postdoctoral fellow to do unclassified research in nuclear materials and had 24 applicants - none of whom were American." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"Charles Sie, a retired vice president at Xerox Corp., said in a recent letter to President Clinton that approximately 150,000 Chinese American scientists and engineers now work in the United States, including more than 15,000 in the defense industry." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

"Other Chinese Americans who have made major contributions to U.S. defense programs include:

* Andrew Chi, a physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who developed the atomic clock at the heart of the Pentagon's Global Positioning System, a satellite network vital to guiding bombs and navigating ships.

* H.K. Cheng, a professor at the University of Southern California whose work in hypersonic flow physics helped to enable the reentry of intercontinental ballistic missiles and spacecraft into the atmosphere.

* Chih-Ming Ho, a scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles who showed how tiny micro- electromechanical systems, or MEMS, could replace traditional wing flaps and make U.S. fighter jets faster, more agile and harder to detect." The Washington Post, Vernon Loeb, November 25, 1999.

PRESS COMMENTS REGARDING THE LINK TO CAMPAIGN FINANCING

"The information came to light while Congress was investigating the role of international money in the 1996 presidential campaign and as charges emerged that Beijing had secretly given money to the Democratic Party. It also coincided with Clinton administration efforts to strengthen its strategic and commercial links with China." CNN, March 6, 1999.

"Asian Americans, many of whom have served with honor in the U.S. military and have devoted their professional careers to the federal government, are rightly concerned about this case and other recent scapegoatings. The year-long campaign-finance fiasco treated the 10 million Americans of Asian background as if they were collectively responsible for the transgressions of a handful of political fundraisers." Knight Ridder Tribune Wire, Frank H. Wu, Wen Ho Lee Case Raises Questions About Racial Stereotyping, December 18, 1999.