Chinese Americans Start Petition Against Bill Richardson
China Press, News report, Posted: Dec 01, 2008
NEW YORK – At the news that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson could be the new Commerce Secretary, a petition against this appointment was started and quickly collected at least 80 signatures. The China Press reports that the petition was initiated by UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Ling-chi Wang and several Chinese Americans, who support Wen Ho Lee, a scientist previously with the University of California at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who was wrongly charged with espionage. A YouTube video named “Wen Ho Lee Revisited” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv7v02jFHS8) shows that former President Bill Clinton and Judge James Parker apologized to Lee, but Richardson refused to do so. Wang said they will send the petition to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. In their letter to President-elect Obama, it says Richardson, who was US secretary of Energy of the Clinton Administration intentionally revealed Lee’s name to media and accused Lee stealing nuclear secret for China, which put the 60-year-old scientist in prison for nine months. After finding Lee innocent, Judge Parker criticized the Department of Energy’s accusation, which “embarrassed the entire nation.” The letter to Obama says that the New York Times also apologized to Lee, but Richardson has held his position and criticized Judge Parker’s apology.
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User Comments
David Lai on Dec 05, 2008 at 12:01:50 said:
It was clear that Bill Richardson racially profiled Dr. Lee and sent a man a prison without evidence. I regret that I voted for Obama. I thought he is better than that. But he fell into the same trap of political pay back. Keep up and fight and pressure on Bill Richardson. He is nothing but a disloyal opportunist.
Shei/Kiang on Dec 03, 2008 at 21:02:28 said:
If Richardson was right, he should order a sweeping investigation, anyone in the lab who brought job from work to home, should be fired. Did he do that?
The answer is: NO.
If he did, and disclosed the result, and maybe fired a few people. Asian American would not be as angry.
He held his position simply because he's dealing with an Asian American, not white or black.
Charles Yu on Dec 03, 2008 at 15:19:33 said:
This whole issue is about whether Lee's guilty, which has been proved "no" by the United States legal system. Don't worry, he didn't get a "public model" award. Some people just had too much imagination.
andy c on Dec 02, 2008 at 21:22:24 said:
Wen Ho Lee, an American (who had to study the Constitution to become a citizen, unlike those of us who got that privilege by birthright), was sacrificed and had his so-called \"inalienable\" rights violated by the federal government for purely political purposes. Bill Richardson fired Lee right after a frenzy of media speculation. The \"crime\" that Lee did plead guilty to was one that would have been overlooked in other cases, as many other scientists at Los Alamos had also \"improperly transferred data\" in the past. Whenever an investigation was done in retrospect, it was found that the transfer of secrets to China could not have even come from the lab at Los Alamos - they weren\'t even looking in the right place! The fact that in the end Lee plead guilty to 1 of 59 charges against him (that of improper data transfer) raises suspicion that the government probably coerced him to do so in order to save face (again, politically, not judiciously motivated).
Lee\'s compensation from the government for his shocking treatment did not even come close to what it should have monetarily:
phoenixwoman.blogspot.com/2006/06/when-16-million-is-not-lot-of-money_03.html
r smith on Dec 02, 2008 at 01:13:25 said:
Judge Parker criticized the Department of Energy’s accusation, which “embarrassed the entire nation.” Why?
David Buchanan on Dec 01, 2008 at 10:21:09 said:
Exactly my point, Phil, and the point Bill Richardson has made all along. He would have taken the same action if the person was named Gomez, or Johnson, or Smith.
The article is also factually inaccurate. The judge dismissed the other charges as part of a PLEA AGREEMENT. He made his comments regarding Wen Ho Lee's treatment while in confiment(which was terrible) during his SENTENCING HEARING. HE WAS CONVICTED OF A FEDERAL OFFENSE.
I don't understand why so many overlook this simple fact.
Brandi Heinroth on Dec 01, 2008 at 06:22:14 said:
Phil G:
There's no evidence showing that Lee's a spy other than improper handling classified files.
If Lee was no model for public trust then what about John Deutch? Why wasn't he slapped? Who visited the porn sites?
phil g on Nov 28, 2008 at 18:22:29 said:
Lee:
-->DID take classified work files unrelated to and far beyond the scope of his own work..
DID delete the security classification headers from these files..
DID transfer these files from a classified network onto an unclassified network..
Those files WERE later accessed from a location outside of the lab, UCLA.
And he did a number of other quite peculiar things that fit the context.
The guy was and is no model for the public trust.
But the Feds botched the case OJ style, and Lee gets out of the major trouble as a result. Of course the face-saving jury of asian opinion makes him out to be a saint.
Given the known facts, whether he was wrongly charged is not at all certain.
It is certain that the very uncircumspect attitude held by the majority of asian-Americans isn't helping their perception by those non-asian American's who are aware of the case.