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As it turns out the information said to be stolen has proved to be available in several unsecured locations on other government sites.
There is not a shred of evidence that Mr. Lee did anything more then work on a network computer using only password protections to prevent unwarranted access and to take work home with him. A common practice in acadamia. The University of California runs Los Alamos.
Yet, today he is jailed - held in chains - literally - and in 23 hour solitary
confinement reserved for the most violent of criminals.
http://www.wenholee.org/
Clarence Page in his syndicated column appearing in the Chicago Tribune (6/14/00) asks "Why, for example is Wen Ho Lee jailed while former CIA head John Deutch is walking around free?
Both allegedly violated security laws by taking classified computer files home and keeping them in unsecured locations
... the computer files at the heart of the case (against Mr. Lee) were not given the crucial "secret" or "confidential" security classifications, as the indictment against him alleges, until after he was fired."
While this Asian-American intellectual is walled up in jail after serving this country well for 38 years, someone else, perhaps a real thief, in the same Los Alamos Lab stole or "misplaced" two hard-drives with truly sensitive information. They were finally found behind a copier.
After all the fuss over security, as reflected in the extreme treatment of Mr. Lee, at least 26 Nuclear Emergency Search Team members were still allowed to enter and leave the top secret area where the hard-drives were stored without so much as a signature. They had unescorted access to the vault. Once security clearance was determined, they were able to open the locks to access the hard-drives alone, as if not one of the 26 were human enough to ever be compromised. Could it be that Mr. Lee is a diversion - a way of avoiding the obvious truth - that Los Alamos is full of security holes and many share the blame.
Once the news of the missing drives came out, Rep. Bart Stupack (D-Mich) noted his local library protects Winnie the Pooh books more than Los Alamos does our national secrets. This is not a new practice related to Clinton's administration. The hard drive incident suggests it is rooted in the institution's "culture."
We need to release Wen Ho Lee or, at minimum, demand his reasonable treatment while awaiting trial. We need to require that sensible clear security procedures be developed and adhered to across the board so that common practice does not land one person in jail and another at the head of an agency.
The "good ol' boys" on the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, and who knows
how many more with access at Los Alamos, could qualify as no-more-trustworthy
than Mr. Lee, yet none of them is in jail. Racist scapegoating is not a solution.
Common sense procedures are! This should be an example of how racism is dangerous
to all our interests. Set Mr. Lee free.
C. Drew
Executive Director
Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center
http://www.art-teez.org
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