Talk:Wen Ho Lee
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It might help if we add a statement that the mishandling charges, one of which Lee pleaded guilty to, were serious charges. Of course others have stated that this kind of thing happened all the time at the Lab, and nobody else was ever prosecuted, maybe because nobody else had their computer forensically analyzed to the level that Wen Ho Lee's computer was. But as far as the spying charges, yes, these were ridiculous, and were never formally brought, by the way, because what was initially thought to be evidence was disproven.
In reality, the government was thrilled to get a guilty plea to a single charge, because it saved face for their prosecution efforts, to a small degree. At least it gave them a tiny handle by which to spin the story.
About User:Deane's question below about the uniformity of belief, I answer that further down, but I do suspect there will be more questions, as many people are indeed misinformed about this case.
-- User:Natch
How uniform is the belief that Lee did nothing wrong? I've read accounts that, while nothing could be proven, his activites were incredibly suspicious and there were many, many unresolved questions about why he had thousands of sensitive documents in his personal possession.
I think the article needs to reflect that there is some question about exactly what he was doing. The article seems very tilted in favor of Lee, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
-- User:Deane
- You may have a point. I'll try to check out Trulock's version of events. Goodralph 03:44, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
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- Here's the FBI's press release regarding the resolution of the case:
- http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel00/lee.htm.
- The short answer to the question is that there remains controversy over Lee's actions. Here's an article from the Washington Post regarding the difficulty of proving espionage charges involving Chinese operatives:
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501420.html
- The "falsely accused" line is not neutral. 20:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Please, there's no need for conspiracy speculation on this one. Did you ever see an interview with this guy? He is a simple man, a scientist who loved his job, and the simple fact that his main regret is still not being able to do his science anymore should speak volumes.
Besides... a Taiwanese native giving nuclear secrets to the mainland Chinese? It's ludicrous.
- Not so ludicrous - there are lots of people in Taiwan who are Chinese nationalists. 21:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
- The Chinese Nationalists in Taiwan are Anti-Communists. --Will314159 18:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
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- Chinese sympathizers do exist. Soda80 01:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Typical Wiki bias
This article is typical of how Wikipedia is taken over by special interest groups. You know, I don't know what Wen Ho Lee was up to actually, and neither does anyone else but him. I also understand the passion among activists, mostly Asian Americans, that this is all about "fighting racism". I think they are overzealous in this regard -- look at that Hatfield or whatever his name is who was implicated in the Anthrax scare. His life was similarly ruined, and he had no ethnic group to back him up with charges of "racism". Face it, the government screws up and the media are like vultures. And for all we know, both may be guilty. Nevertheless, what Wikipedia is for is laying out the facts and variety of viewpoints about an issue. Unfortunately, disiniterested people who want to promote NPOV just don't have the tenacity to fight mobs of special interests who are fanatically dedicated to highjacking specific pages. That's why highly controversial areas are always bad, and always tend towards fringy views and are highly censored of critical viewpoints. Witness the fanatics who protect Mumia from accusations that he might have just murdered a cop, or Chomsky from his own foot in his own mouth, or George Bush from the truth. This is another classic page owned literally by Wen Ho Lee's "activist" special interest group supporters. Soda80 01:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Clarifying some facts of the case
Lee did do something wrong, which was to mishandle sensitive documents. The mistake is to think that automatically means he did more than this.
As far as the belief being uniform, facts are probably more important than beliefs, and most of the beliefs out there among the public, including the beliefs held by some Wikipedia contributors, are based on erroneous and inflammatory media articles which need to be viewed with great suspicion. Frankly many of the beliefs out there about Wen Ho Lee are simply wrong.
There has never been any full correction of many of the errors out there. Let's take a few of them:
First, the one you mention, the belief that Lee had thousands of sensitive documents in his personal possession. If you read reports carefully, you will find only opinion columns and anonymous bulletin board postings state this. Carefully reported factual articles do not state that he took documents home. As far has having sensitive documents in his workplace, that was his job. He backed up files stored on a system rated for classified data onto a system not rated for classified data, and then he downloaded those files onto tapes. As far as we know, these tapes never left the secure area of the Lab before being discarded (in an irresponsible and foolish act, to be sure) by Wen Ho Lee in a dumpster.
Second, you may have read (and believed what you read) that he "repeatedly" used his badge to try to access the secure area after having had his access revoked. This is true. However, what you do not read in the articles is that his boss had at that point told him that his access had been reinstated, and his badge would now work.
Third you may have read that he "suspiciously" worked during lunch and even at night. What you don't read in the articles is that scientists at Los Alamos commonly do this, to the extent even that the library at Los Alamos is open 24 hours a day. Seriously, a 24-hour-a-day library. That says a lot about work habits at the Lab. Yet authors of articles about the case want you to think there is something suspicious about one of those scientists working at 10:00 P.M. The only explanation for this is that the writers of many articles on this case either did not do adequate research, or had an interest in making the articles sensationalist, or both.
Fourth there are less nefarious explanations for what he did. At the time of his backing up his files, the file system at Los Alamos, CFS, was due for an upgrade. So there is reason to think that he may have wanted to prepare a backup before that. But articles about the case don't mention this. And I have in my possession a pamphlet from the Los Alamos security department that covers computer security, and it states very clearly that users are responsible for keeping their own files backed up.
There are many more details about the case and many instances where articles have listed suspicious points that people might still have questions about. Bring them on, we'll cover them. But I don't think they all belong in the main article.
As far as FBI views on the matter, I don't think FBI, especially Freeh who had to defend the fact that the case was moving forward, had a neutral viewpoint on this case back in the timeframe of the quotes below.
As far as Trulock views on the matter, I would guess he doesn't want to embarass himself, so he will no doubt pointedly avoid reminding people that the Kindred Spirit suspicions of Wen Ho Lee did not pan out when the document pointed to the downstream contractor, and will instead emphasize nefarious-looking interpretations of incompletely reported facts. The second phase of the case, which was probably the most flawed part of the case, was totally separate and I don't think Notra Trulock was involved or would know much beyond what he heard from the media and from the FBI/DOJ, which were, as I pointed out, not exactly reliable sources of information.
Lee was exonerated on all but the mishandling charges. And even those were trumped up by the redesignation of the files after the fact. But they were serious charges, and the article should reflect that. But on the central point many people still may mistakenly think is controversial, whether Lee was a spy or not, there is no longer any controversy among those who have studied the case. Again, though, I would caution that a few interested parties like Freeh-era FBI folks and maybe Trulock himself should be ruled out as authorities on this.
-- User:Natch
[edit] Redesignation
"With this information in hand, the government then retroactively redesignated the data Lee had copied, changing it from its former designation of PARD (Protect As Restricted Data), to a new designation of Secret, ..." - Isn't there a law against this or something? Was there any outcry about this fact, or any criticism of this tactic? Could this get an elaboration in the article? 129.115.26.41 17:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- For clarification, see this article from the Albuquerque Journal:
- http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2000/04/1news04-10-00.htm
- Basically, the government laboratories create a huge amount of data. Data has to be reviewed in order to determine whether or not it's classified. In order to deal with this, PARD means that data should be treated as restricted until it is determined that it's not. Upon review, authorities can classify it as unclassified, confidential or secret (the highest level). According to this article, one of the things that got Lee into trouble was that he removed PARD labels from data & removed it from the lab, which is a violation of regulations by itself. To make matters worse, upon review, authoritities determined that the data, which is assumed to be restricted in the first place, wasn't harmless unclassified data, but secret. 02:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Neutral Point of View?
I don't feel like this article is written from a neutral point of view. Just because Wen Ho Lee pleaded to reduced charges doesn't mean that he's innocent of wrongdoing, nor does it mean that there isn't disagreement over his actions. Louis Freeh made it very clear that he felt there was wrongdoing (see sources in the article itself) and indicated that he allowed Lee to plea in order to determine the disposition of the information in question. I recommend indicating that the neutrality of this article is in question.
For instance, from this article:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/law.and.politics/09/26/freeh.lee/
- Among the activities Freeh is expected to cite, according to a source familiar with his testimony, is information that in 1982 Lee made contact with a suspected spy. Freeh is expected to say that authorities suspected Lee was less than truthful when questioned about that contact.
- Freeh also will describe how the FBI began a preliminary investigation of Lee in 1994, after it became known that he had an alleged relationship with the head of China's nuclear weapons design program and did not report the relationship.
- Freeh will tell congressional investigators that in 1998, Lee acknowledged in an interview that he had been approached by Chinese nuclear scientists.
None of this content is reflected in the article. The entire article is written as if Lee was wrongly accused, and that his eventual plea bargain was a total exoneration.
71.139.3.195 07:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you. Reduced charges doesn't mean he is innocent of wrongdoing. It is like those financial companies that are threatened with federal law suits ... they just pay a big fine and at the same time do not admit to any wrongdoing. -- 66.171.76.140 12:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Definitely not neutral point of view
This is a pretty lousy article. The standard story from those in the loop is that Wen Ho Lee knowingly illegally copied classified secrets onto tapes that he took off-site. A common theory is that he kept the tapes so that he'd be able to sell them to his Chinese contacts if he ever got laid off (he was threatened with being fired in 1996). BTW, all of this is public knowledge.
Here's an interesting blog about related affairs (it's not my source, but it's interesting) --
http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com/2005/09/richardson-wen-ho-lee-was-mistreated.html
As for why he didn't get charged, the answer is simple: the government was never interested in jailing him -- they just wanted to know to whom he planned to sell the secrets. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.2.134.31 (talk • contribs) .
- If it's "public knowledge" then it should be possible to embed copious amounts of citations into this article for these various points. I tossed a citation request into a recent addition along these lines but this article could use citations throughout. Bryan 17:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
=name of warhead= added W88. --Will314159 18:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] People's Republic vs Republic of China
It's not clear from the article whether he was accused of spying for the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China.
[edit] Spying for Taiwan?
The possibility that Lee was spying for Taiwan should at least be mentioned. It was raised many times when the case was in the news. Dynzmoar 11:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
