The Sacramento Bee Editorials
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Letters to the Editor (Published Sept. 26, 2000)
The case of Wen Ho Lee
Even though Wen Ho Lee is finally free, he has paid a dear price for being a political scapegoat.
We now know the government greatly exaggerated the importance of the data Lee had downloaded, upgrading its classification after the fact, while several FBI agents lied. It is also safe to conclude that some sort of racial profiling was used.
An apology and full presidential pardon should be given to Lee; Janet Reno, Bill Richardson and those who made up the trumped-up charges should be fired; and racial profiling should never again be used to identify suspects.
The cost of Lee's defense has exceeded $1 million. Those who wish to help can send non-tax-deductible donations to Wen Ho Lee Defense Fund, P.O. Box 1663, Santa Monica,CA, 90406-1663.
--Guy M. Wong, Sacramento
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Lee is free, but has justice been served? In his plea agreement, Lee was confronted with a cruel choice: freedom with a felony conviction that arose from selective prosecution, or jail with no foreseeable prospect of going free and the cost of defense mounting each day. And we are faced, after our initial moments of joy, with the bitter irony that this case happened in our land of equal justice under the law, where an individual is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.
There will be no comforting finale to this modern-day David-vs.-Goliath fight. Rather, the denouement may read "might is right" unless President Clinton grants him a full pardon and Congress convenes a bipartisan commission to investigate the case. Only then could the injustice be rectified, though the wrong could never be righted.
--Ivy Lee, Sacramento
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The Lee case is just the latest in a long string of prosecutorial abuses backed by lying police at both the federal and local levels, all of which adds up to a broken criminal justice system. While some individual cases might be explained, the totality of the situation is devastating. How can a juror trust the prosecution and its witnesses when there is this history of fabricating charges and evidence to get a conviction at all costs?
--Peter Lorenzo, Roseville
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Tuesday, September 26, 2000
Monday, July 24, 2000
President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders - Western Region Townhall Meeting, July 24, 2000
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Issue Area on Civil Rights: Comments delivered through video teleconferencing
My name is Ivy Lee. I’m a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the California State University, Sacramento, and the President of the Sacramento Asian Americans in Support of Due Process for Wen-ho Lee.
My subject today is civil rights: the government’s violation of the civil rights of a particular man that leads to questions regarding its protection of the civil rights of a whole minority.
First, the particular case of Dr. Wen-ho Lee, a first generation Chinese American scientist who was accused of, without formally being charged with being a spy for China. As you all know he was tried in the media and fired summarily without a hearing at work in the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Subsequently he was jailed, not freed on bail pending trial, all on the federal prosecutor’s assertion of his being a national security risk. Here we see the federal government bringing down its might on a man whose guilt has not been established and whose alleged violations may in fact be lessening by the day. For an elaboration of my last sentence, see the LA Times R. Scheer article of 07-11: "Spy Case Is Evaporating, but Not the Bad Smell".
In this Wen-ho Lee case then, the government. instead of being a guarantor of our civil rights, has turned into a violator of an individual’s civil rights, engaging in his selective prosecution. This leads all Asian Americans to fear how racial profiling is not just the act of a few rogue law enforcement agents, but is woven into the fabric of the government itself.
Only the government can allay my anxiety that I would not look into the mirror one day to see the face of a model minority, and the next day to find a potential spy. Only it can reclaim its moral grounds as the guarantor of the civil rights of a minority by doing the following. On the individual level, apologize to and facilitate the immediate release of Dr. Lee on bail pending trial and establish some oversight mechanism to ensure a fair trial in November. On the collective level, issue an Executive Order establishing a National Advisory Committee on Racial Profiling similar to the Commission on Civil Disorders that produced the seminal Kerner Report in 1968.
____________________________________________________________________
Issue Area on Civil Rights: Comments delivered through video teleconferencing
My name is Ivy Lee. I’m a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the California State University, Sacramento, and the President of the Sacramento Asian Americans in Support of Due Process for Wen-ho Lee.
My subject today is civil rights: the government’s violation of the civil rights of a particular man that leads to questions regarding its protection of the civil rights of a whole minority.
First, the particular case of Dr. Wen-ho Lee, a first generation Chinese American scientist who was accused of, without formally being charged with being a spy for China. As you all know he was tried in the media and fired summarily without a hearing at work in the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Subsequently he was jailed, not freed on bail pending trial, all on the federal prosecutor’s assertion of his being a national security risk. Here we see the federal government bringing down its might on a man whose guilt has not been established and whose alleged violations may in fact be lessening by the day. For an elaboration of my last sentence, see the LA Times R. Scheer article of 07-11: "Spy Case Is Evaporating, but Not the Bad Smell".
In this Wen-ho Lee case then, the government. instead of being a guarantor of our civil rights, has turned into a violator of an individual’s civil rights, engaging in his selective prosecution. This leads all Asian Americans to fear how racial profiling is not just the act of a few rogue law enforcement agents, but is woven into the fabric of the government itself.
Only the government can allay my anxiety that I would not look into the mirror one day to see the face of a model minority, and the next day to find a potential spy. Only it can reclaim its moral grounds as the guarantor of the civil rights of a minority by doing the following. On the individual level, apologize to and facilitate the immediate release of Dr. Lee on bail pending trial and establish some oversight mechanism to ensure a fair trial in November. On the collective level, issue an Executive Order establishing a National Advisory Committee on Racial Profiling similar to the Commission on Civil Disorders that produced the seminal Kerner Report in 1968.
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