Saturday, December 11, 1999

Criminal Charges 1st in Lab History

By Brendan Smith Journal Northern Bureau
    SANTA FE -- Wen Ho Lee, former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, has been charged with downloading classified nuclear weapons information, but that's a far cry from espionage, a former co-worker and national observers of the case said Friday.
    "Security violations like this are a lot more pervasive than anyone cares to admit," said John Pike, a defense analyst with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. "For every person who does this for espionage purposes, there are surely many thousands who do it just for personal convenience because it makes their job easier."
    Lee, who was fired by the lab in March for alleged security violations, was arrested Friday at his White Rock home by FBI agents acting on a 59-count federal indictment charging Lee with illegally downloading classified information from his lab computer. He has not been charged with espionage.
    Lee is the first employee in lab history to be charged in a criminal case for improper handling of classified information, although other employees have been disciplined or fired for the same offense, lab spokesman Kevin Roark said Friday.
    LANL declined to comment on Lee's case, calling it a personnel matter.
    Bryan "Buck" Kashiwa, a 20-year LANL veteran who worked on and off with Lee for the past 15 years, said the federal investigation into possible leaking of nuclear secrets to China initially targeted the scientist due to his race. Lee is an American citizen but was born in Taiwan.
    "His reputation and career are sort of ruined as a result of being singled out in a way that may not have been entirely fair," Kashiwa said Friday. "I think a lot of (lab) staff are genuinely concerned they could be targeted in a way that Wen Ho was unfairly targeted."
    Still, lab policies concerning classified information have always been clear, said Kashiwa, who said perceived lapses in lab security have been blown out of proportion.
    "Normally, one doesn't place classified material in places where it's not permitted, including open networks," he said. "In my experience, it's never done."
    The Committee of 100, an Asian-American public policy organization in Washington, D.C., is reviewing the indictment against Lee because of concerns about selective prosecution due to Lee's race, said committee chairman Henry Tang.
    "It is our understanding there have been other high federal officials who have perpetrated the same so-called misdeed," Tang said Friday. "If these are equivalent transgressions, then there should be some consideration for equivalent treatment."
    Kashiwa said paranoia at the lab still hasn't diminished with heightened security restrictions and an Energy Department requirement that some employees pass polygraph tests.
    "Things are still far from normal, but I guess it's slowly approaching something that is livable," Kashiwa said.
    Kashiwa, who does computer modeling and simulation work in fluid dynamics, said he personally wouldn't mind taking a polygraph test, although many other lab employees have objected.
    Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced in October that he would scale back the number of employees at the nation's three nuclear-weapons laboratories that would be subject to polygraph testing. The number is expected to drop from 5,000 scientists and other employees to several hundred per lab, although the final ruling won't be issued until later this month.
    Richardson, who ordered that Lee be fired, said in a news release Friday that he approved of Lee's prosecution because "Lee's acts as alleged in the indictment are clear and serious violations of the Atomic Energy Act and the Federal Espionage Act."
    "The national defense information that Wen Ho Lee is alleged to have unlawfully acquired, altered and removed is information belonging to the Department of Energy," Richardson stated. "In that sense, the Department of Energy is the victim agency of the crimes charged."
    Richardson has argued for criminal prosecution.
    Thomas Cochran, director of the nuclear program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said there isn't much difference between Lee's case and former CIA director John Deutch, who had his security clearance pulled but was never charged for transferring more than 30 classified files to a personal laptop computer in 1995 and 1996.
    Some members of New Mexico's congressional delegation were pleased to see a resolution beginning to emerge in a case that has stained the reputation of the Los Alamos lab, but their comments were guarded.
    Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the need for recently approved legislation to reorganize the nation's nuclear-weapons complex under a new semi-autonomous agency has been made clear. Problems at the labs are "systemic and deep-rooted within the entire DOE management structure," he said.
    Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., cautioned that Lee is innocent until proven guilty. "The (security) problems at labs are not unique," she said. "We need to address problems in the DOE, the Department of Defense and the State Department."
    Some residents in White Rock feel their neighbor Lee has been branded as a scapegoat in the case.
    Kathy Matzke, a 44-year-old Chamisa Elementary School teacher, said she feels Lee "is guilty of mismanagement, but he's not guilty of espionage."
    "I would be surprised if they come up with any solid evidence," she said.
    Faced with a "political circus" over the Chinese spy allegations, federal officials were under pressure to charge Lee with something, even if it wasn't espionage, said Pike from the Federation of American Scientists.
    "The publicity around the whole case certainly created a strong presumption he should be indicted for something," Pike said. "I'm saying that without reference to his guilt or innocence."

 

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Journal staff writers S.U. Mahesh and Patrick Armijo contributed to this report.