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FBI and DOJ Drop Case Against Chinese-American Physicist
Required Snark writes: The FBI and Department of Justice have withdrawn their prosecution (or more accurately persecution) Dr. Xi Xiaoxing, former head of the Physics Department at Temple University, according to the New York Times. He was accused of attempting to transfer technology about a "pocket heater" to China. It is used in superconducting research.
The case fell apart because the evidence that the FBI had was not about a pocket heater. "In a sworn affidavit, one engineer, Ward S. Ruby, said he was uniquely qualified to identify a pocket heater. 'I am very familiar with this device, as I was one of the co-inventors,' he said." Apparently nobody in the FBI or DOJ bothered to verify that the information referred to the device in question: "Dr. Xi's lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, said that despite the complexity, it appeared that the government never consulted with experts before taking the case to a grand jury. As a result, prosecutors misconstrued the evidence, he said."
Dr Xi was forced to step down from his position as the head of the department during the investigation. He was unable to work on his ongoing experiments and was branded a spy. What are the odds that anyone at the FBI or DOJ will face any personal or professional repercussions? If recent history is any guide they will not even issue a statement. When the case was withdrawn the option to refile was retained, a blatant attempt to save face and deny responsibility.
The case fell apart because the evidence that the FBI had was not about a pocket heater. "In a sworn affidavit, one engineer, Ward S. Ruby, said he was uniquely qualified to identify a pocket heater. 'I am very familiar with this device, as I was one of the co-inventors,' he said." Apparently nobody in the FBI or DOJ bothered to verify that the information referred to the device in question: "Dr. Xi's lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, said that despite the complexity, it appeared that the government never consulted with experts before taking the case to a grand jury. As a result, prosecutors misconstrued the evidence, he said."
Dr Xi was forced to step down from his position as the head of the department during the investigation. He was unable to work on his ongoing experiments and was branded a spy. What are the odds that anyone at the FBI or DOJ will face any personal or professional repercussions? If recent history is any guide they will not even issue a statement. When the case was withdrawn the option to refile was retained, a blatant attempt to save face and deny responsibility.
Just remember everyone, the problem isn't our intelligence services, it's America's "deep cynicism" over our intelligence services!
So.. what was he sending schematics of? The article just has a statement from his lawyer that "The technology discussed was not sensitive or restricted"
The government should have to pay for the lawyers when they erroneously arrest someone and get caught, regardless of whether the person is living in poverty or not. Or at least a part of the cost--like coinsurance, make them pay *something* to encourage them to be a little more careful before they go destroying people's lives and using lots of government resources.
After reading the article on the NYTimes, I went to whitehouse.gov and made a petition to:
"Apologize to Dr. Xi of Temple Univ. for the FBI's wrongful accusation and prosecution of him on charges of spying."
The complete text reads:
After reading this article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...
I was appalled and upset that another Chinese-American citizen had been wrongly accused and prosecuted for spying when even a basic check could have exonerated him. That this even got to this point not only speaks to the incompetence of the FBI but a pervasive bias and distrust of Chinese American CITIZENS.
President Obama should, at the very least, on behalf of the U.S. Govt. apologize to this distinguished professor who has seen his reputation shattered and loss of various posts and titles. This will be an important symbolic act.
If you believe that he (at least) deserves an apology, follow this link and "sign" the petition:
"https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/apologize-dr-xi-temple-univ-fbis-wrongful-accusation-and-prosecution-him-charges-spying-0".
For those of you unfamiliar with how this works, once it reaches 150 "signatures" then it is publicly viewable. If it then reaches 150,000 within a month then the white house promises to respond.
Please note: when I mentioned "another Chinese American" I did not mean that I am a Chinese American. I am not. Rather I was talking about the other Chinese American CITIZENS (like Wen Ho Lee) who have been charged and prosecuted apparently for no other reason than they are of Chinese origin. They were found innocent.
No, the story is that the intelligence agencies in America are big lumbering giants swatting at everything that moves rather than actually knowing and targeting what they're looking for, at the expense of our freedoms as citizens.
Exactly. Now, how hard would it have been to find some knowledgeable physicists with decent security clearances to run this by? Might have taken a couple of days. Even a week. The horror.
And why the fuck did they SWAT team the guy? Do they think he has a tachyon deflector in his pocket and that turns FBI agents into primordial soup?
Yep, this is exactly why we don't 'trust' the Powers That Be. Once they act like full grown adults for a while, maybe be can restart the discussion.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I am not an AC - just can't drive /. I am Charlie Merritt.
I was in a big to-do re PGP. Persecuted was Phil Zimmerman, and anyone who helped with PGP.
Everybody knew "Special" Agent Robin Sterzer of customs (ICE today).
She was amazing - knew absolutely nothing about crypto.
Even less about the difference between source and compiled machine language.
She was the "prosecutor's" assistant in nailing this crime down.
[Would a FOIA re Sterzer work? 'Prolly not - personnel privacy and all.
My lawyer said (at that time) said DOJ *NEVER* announces a drop in investigation.
[They used to let you figure out the statutes of limitations]
I read the law, witnesses are under NO obligation to keep quiet.
I Posted case number and names on Internet.
And the questions they asked, and the fact that I asked
how many of the Grand Jury read what news groups on USNET.
EVERYBODY could "testify" - I am surprised it took so long with this pocket heater thing.
Where were his fellow physicists?
His fellow physicists were in the dark until his lawyer managed to drum them up. Something any half bright 'prosecutor' would think of. It is fortunate that the FBI is as stupid as they appear to be. Imagine if they had done their due diligence, found out they screwed up but decided to hide it by threatening the other scientists with National Security Letters or some such threat? We'd never know. We don't know.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Be that as it may, I don't think it's ignorance of science that's the issue. You could be very, very scientifically literate in general and have no ability to figure out what any of the gobbledygook in question means.
The thing is, the investigators and prosecutors ought to have *known* that. Because they deal with so many different kinds of things one of their core competencies should be realizing they have no freaking idea what they're looking at; and another should be finding expert consultants who can tell them what it *is* they're looking at. So at the very least we are looking at stunning incompetence in our federal investigators.
But there's more to this. There's a long history in the US of really fucked-up investigations of Chinese-American physicists, going all the way back to Qian Xuesen, the founder of JPL. That a paranoid witchhunt which addressed the imaginary problem of Chinese rocket spying by exiling one of America's best rocket science minds -- to China.
So scientific ignorance notwithstanding I think we're looking at the confluence of racism and incompetence. And the fact that China actually does technological espionage, although that doesn't mean that Chinese physicists are somehow genetically programmed to serve their ancestral motherland.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And why the fuck did they SWAT team the guy? Do they think he has a tachyon deflector in his pocket and that turns FBI agents into primordial soup?
They were hoping he had further evidence in his house, and didn't want him to destroy it.
I'm not saying it was right, I'm just saying that's why they did it.
Yep, this is exactly why we don't 'trust' the Powers That Be. Once they act like full grown adults for a while, maybe be can restart the discussion.
We should never trust the powers that be. There should always be oversight, because abuses are too easy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Seems similar to the Wen Ho Lee case.
They really do *not* like physicists at the FBI, do they?
That's ridiculous, because the FBI already has the power to enter your home without your knowledge through "sneak & peek" warrants. Or, failing even that tenuous legality, they could arrest him at work and search his house at their leisure later.
SWAT teams converging on a house that's been under surveillance without any imminent or ongoing life threatening situation only serve one purpose, intimidation of the suspect.
It is a device that creates thin films by vacuum deposition in specific ways that work especially well for research into the superconductive material MgB2. Arxiv has a paper co-authored by Ward Ruby that describes this. There must be at least dozens of materials scientists at national labs who could have demolished this travesty in 20 minutes.
Many police forces conduct a form of intelligence testing as part of the hiring process. If you are too intelligent then you will be booted because they think that police work will be too boring for you and you'll quit. The police departments across the land provide much of the "talent" pool for the FBI, DOJ, DEA and other three letter agencies which naturally leads to the three letter agencies brimming with fools.
Count me as one of those who had never heard of the Niihau Incident before now. What puzzles me is why this incident is not more widely known. I would think that the US government would have a vested interest in telling it's own citizens about this. At the least, it would make their actions against Japanese immigrants and Japanese-American citizens a little more understandable and perhaps even acceptable. However; The US government and the various civilian assembly organizations still need to bear the responsibility for how they handled the internees and their property once the decision to intern them was made. Many families lost everything because of theft and/or corruption and for the longest time the official response boiled down to "no comment" or "tough shit"
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
No, it's true.
I see that the FBI has a team out modding-down Slashdot posts that take a fact-based view.
How was the above flame-bait?
I myself have had false ITAR-level allegations leveled at me before.
Such shenanigans destroy lives. . . the lives of the very people that are working to educate future American scientists and engineers, and who work to aid the USA in maintaining technological dominance.
Way to go FBI & DOJ. Fuck your own citizens out of their enjoyment of life. Provide them ample motivation to keep any "valuable" discovery a secret from their own government. Provide us ample motivation to 'hold back' when teaching our students.
Ah, but with that said, I have 12 grad students and post-docs. Not a single one of them was born in the USA. Therefore, I do my best to teach them to be great scientists and excellent writers.