A Time to Say No: An Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama
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November 26, 2008

Dear President-Elect Obama,

For the past few days, the media have been abuzz with the “news” that you are about to appoint Governor Bill Richardson to be your Secretary of Commerce. If that is indeed the case, I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision.

I’m a naturalized citizen of Chinese descent who came to this country for higher education, then stayed on, lured by the promise of a free society with justice and equal treatment for all. In 1999, my faith in these American ideals was sorely tested in the case of the United States of America vs Wen Ho Lee. The particulars of this case, substantiated in the Congressional Record of October 12, 2000 (House), Page H9880-H9894, fully illustrate why Governor Richardson should have no part in your Administration, an Administration in which I and other Americans have placed so much hope for a better and different tomorrow.

I list below the most egregious of Governor Richardson’s acts in contributing to Dr. Wen Ho Lee’s ordeal:

1. In March of 1999, two days after the New York Times story broke in which a Chinese American at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was identified as the spy who compromised the “crown jewels” of American nuclear secrets, Richardson fired Lee before specific charges were brought against the latter, making a mockery of employee rights and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

2. In December 1999, Lee was detained, denied bail and put in solitary confinement for nine months, in conditions so dire that numerous professional and scientific academies publicly protested while Amnesty International called the shackling of Lee in his cell for 23 hours a day a contravention of “international human rights standards.” Apparently the Department of Energy requested such treatment which were then approved by the Justice Department. Richardson then was an initiator of cum participant in the government’s abuse and denial of Lee’s due process rights.

3. Finally 59 charges were brought against Lee, none of which pertained to espionage or was heinous enough to warrant the demeaning treatment he received in his pretrial detention. After pleading guilty to one charge of downloading classified information, Lee was sentenced to 278 days in prison, one day less than he spent in solitary confinement, and was allowed to go free. However, downloading classified information was apparently a widespread LANL practice for which only Lee was prosecuted due to, many thought, his Chinese ethnicity. Again, Richardson was implicated in every stage of the government’s misstep from selective prosecution and overreach, to probable racial profiling.

4. In a September 17, 2000, 60 Minutes broadcast, Richardson was seen insisting he knew Lee gave the Chinese information, and said, “we know because he (Lee) would not tell us what he told them.” He went on to assert that he had tried to protect Lee’s legal status and reputation. The ludicrous circular reasoning of the first statement, and the boldface lie of the second called into question Richardson’s judgment, honesty and integrity.

In conclusion, Richardson should not be appointed to a position of power on any level in a society as diverse as ours. He has shown himself to be insensitive to discriminatory practices, blind to violations of civil and human rights, and willing to use or misuse the power of his position to crush a citizen all in the guise of national security. Further his actions in the Wen Ho Lee case contributed to the marginalization of a whole generation of hard-working and loyal Chinese Americans, keeping alive their image as perpetual foreigners. Being the antithesis of a responsible, inclusive, and accountable public servant, he should not be entrusted with another position of power.

Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, opined in a 2005 article that Richardson could overcome his share in the debacle as there would probably be few who could remember the Wen Ho Lee case. Sabato is wrong. A group in California has started a petition to urge you not to nominate Richardson and in the three days since the petition was posted on the Internet, as I am writing this letter, over 1500 all over the country had signed. In the coming days, a press conference/press conferences will be organized to remind the country of Richardson’s complicity in the travesty of justice that is the Wen Ho Lee case.

Again, as an American and a loyal Democrat since my naturalization, I urge you to reconsider your decision.

Yours respectfully,
Ivy Lee, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, California State University, Sacramento
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Accompanying Transmittal letter

As President-Elect Obama has made clear during his entire campaign, change is what he is about to bring to this country and its governance. In hopes that one of the changes is openness and accessibility of public officials, including a President, to his constituents, I would greatly appreciate your handing him the attached open letter in a pdf file regarding the prospective appointment of Gov. Bill Richardson.

The letter, reprinted below this email and to be posted later in the week on my blog, states my opposition to this prospective nomination. I believe the sentiments expressed therein are not merely mine but are representative of Chinese Americans as a whole.

Let me hasten to add that I am not anti-Hispanic. Nor should the letter be construed as such. I am opposed to Governor Bill Richardson as one of the principals who has marginalized a whole generation of hard-working, loyal Chinese Americans, keeping alive their image as perpetual foreigners.

Your helping me reach President-Elect Obama with this letter would restore not only my sense of political empowerment but that of all who signed an online petition to oppose this nomination.

I thank you in advance.

Yours respectfully,
Ivy Lee

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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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.

The Sacramento Bee Editorials
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Letters to the Editor (Published Dec. 22, 1999)

'Political witch hunt'

Re "Nuke-lab engineer indicted," Dec. 11: The indictment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee is a political witch hunt and denying bail to Lee makes him a political prisoner. Robert Vrooman, former head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, said in August that Lee had been unfairly singled out because of his race. Lee has been under investigation for years, yet he never fled. He even surrendered his passport voluntarily. So how could the government say he is a flight risk? The indictment is just another coverup of the mistakes made by Secretary Bill Richardson when he fired Lee without due process and the FBI bungling of the Chinese espionage investigation.

--Guy M. Wong, Sacramento
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Now that the FBI and U.S. attorney have jailed Lee in Albuquerque with no bail -- just as we'd treat a drug lord, or a serial killer -- we might reflect on whether Lee was given justice equal to that provided to former CIA Director John Deutch. While serving as director, Deutch took classified CIA computer disks home in clear violation of security laws. His only punishment was the suspension of his security clearance for an indefinite period. So why is it that Deutch has not been indicted on at least 31 counts and jailed without bail?

--Kent G. Dedrick, Sacramento
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The Organization of Chinese Americans, Greater Sacramento Chapter, firmly believes that Dr. Wen Ho Lee should be free on bail pending trial. Lee cooperated with the government during the investigation. He voluntarily relinquished his passport and notified the government when he traveled outside Los Alamos. He is not a flight risk. As an alleged spy, Lee was merely placed under constant surveillance. Now that he is indicted, by all accounts on lesser charges, he is held without bail pending trial. Does the government consider him, to quote Judge Don Svet, such a "clear and present danger to the United States" that constant surveillance is judged inadequate now that he is indicted for something less serious than spying? We can only conclude that Lee's pretrial treatment is an arrogant act on the part of the government in blatant defiance of due process.

--Ivy Lee, Sacramento
Co-Chair of Advocacy of Organization of Chinese Americans, Greater Sacramento Chapter
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The Sacramento Bee Editorials
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Other Commentary: Guilt is assumed in alleged China spying
(Published April 29, 1999)

Dr. Wen Ho Lee is the Taiwan-born, former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist under investigation for allegedly giving classified nuclear weapons information to China, which Lee denies. He has not been charged with any crime, but he was fired from the lab in March.

We protest the insinuations of disloyalty against Chinese Americans and the irresponsible treatment of the Dr. Wen Ho Lee spying case by a majority of the U.S. media and some public figures and officials.

His innocence or guilt is not the issue here. We do not know him, and we are not defending him. However, he has been branded with hardly any facts, and in so doing the media have started a feeding frenzy about China espionage in this country.

Almost every mention of this spying case by some U.S. officials is coupled with a recounting of the numerous Chinese American professionals who have access to sensitive information invaluable to a China intent on developing its nuclear arsenal. These professionals' supposed susceptibility to being recruited by the Chinese government to pass on this information intentionally or unintentionally is noted in the same breath.

In their haste to decry the alleged espionage by an individual, not only are the public officials and news media guilty of a rush to judgment, they also are tarring with a broad brush other American citizens who are guilty of nothing other than of having the same ethnicity as the suspect.

Their actions are egregious and despicable, precisely because they are not subject to redress. A minority group cannot protect itself effectively from insinuations of disloyalty to its adoptive country and of susceptibility to spying for its country of origin, nor can its good name and reputation be restored once this incident blows over. Witness the short trip from the questioning of Japanese Americans' loyalty during World War II to their internment on the West Coast. Note also how Arab Americans were wrongly blamed shortly after the bombing in Oklahoma City, though no apology has ever been publicly offered.

As Asian Americans, we ask what is due every citizen of this country: to be treated with respect and dignity. We resent those who would question our loyalty any time an Asian American is suspected of an egregious act. We do not relish our current role as potential spies any more than our role as model minority, both being straitjackets forced on us.

We request that fundamental principles of fair play be applied to Lee. The reasons for his dismissal should be publicized and his response, if any, be heard as loudly and clearly as declarations of his supposed misdeed.

Lee's firing should be rescinded and he should be allowed to avail himself of all employee grievance rights, including a fair hearing. If no misdeed is proven in the hearing, Lee should be restored to his former position with full pay and a formal, written apology from his employers and those who have cast aspersions on him in public.

If Lee is charged with a crime, he should be accorded the usual presumption of innocence and the due process of a fair trial.

--Chinese American Association of Solano County

--Solano County Language School

--Elk Grove Chinese Association

--Chinese American Council of Sacramento

--Japanese American Citizens League, Sacramento

--Korean American Coalition, Sacramento

--Sacramento Chinese Culture Foundation

--Sacramento Mandarin School

--Organization of Chinese Americans, Greater Sacramento Area
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