

Accused of Spying for China, Until She Wasn’t - dredmorbius
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/business/accused-of-spying-for-china-until-she-wasnt.html

======
dredmorbius
The first thing that strikes me about this story are the parallels to the Wen
Ho Lee case in 1999.

From Wikipedia:

 _[A] Taiwanese American scientist who worked for the University of California
at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He created simulations of nuclear
explosions for the purposes of scientific inquiry, as well as for improving
the safety and reliability of the U. S. nuclear arsenal. A federal grand jury
indicted him of stealing secrets about the U. S. nuclear arsenal for the
People 's Republic of China (PRC) in December 1999._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Ho_Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Ho_Lee)

The charges agains Wen were ultimately dropped, and $1.6 million paid from the
US Government and media organizations, though his reputation continued to
suffer. He's now retired.

The second thing that strikes me is to never talk to law enforcement. The
lying to Federal agents charge came from Chen's describing a trip as occurring
in 2011 rather than 2012.

~~~
mturmon
Yes, very true.

A couple of things about the Wen Ho Lee case. The first is that the _NYT_
presented leaked documents and innuendo from unnamed sources about Lee's
culpability. All this turned out to be either not true or completely blown out
of proportion.

The second is that Robert Scheer, a reporter for the LA Times (back then) and
The Nation magazine, and now editor of Truthdig.com, really risked his
reputation in defending Lee when he was under attack by the major media.

Scheer ended up winning an award for his work, and as you mention, Lee got a
$1.6M settlement from the media and from the government. For more:
[http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060606_robert_scheer_l...](http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060606_robert_scheer_lee_case)

~~~
alfiedotwtf
> The first is that the NYT presented leaked documents and innuendo from
> unnamed sources about Lee's culpability. All this turned out to be either
> not true or completely blown out of proportion.

Now that we know that parallel construction is a tool used by intelligence
agencies, along with discrediting targets as another routinely used device,
when are we going to mandate "citation or GTFO" from the already-discredited
media?

~~~
carrotleads
I too wonder as to why the credibility of media orgs like NYT isn't questioned
inspite of acting as lapdogs in several cases..

~~~
dragonwriter
The credibility of media organizations like the NYT is questioned all the
time.

The questioners are rarely treated seriously by media organizations like the
NYT, but they still certainly exist.

~~~
thaumasiotes
That's not likely to change, but it would be nice to see them taken a little
more seriously by news consumers.

------
UVB-76
A cautionary tale for those espousing the 'If you have nothing to hide...'
line on privacy issues.

Mere suspicion of having something to hide is all it takes for prosecutors to
file charges, and ruin your life.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
And doesn't the US log _arrests_ not convictions?

~~~
late2part
Yes, or course it does. You'll learn this if you ever go into a Global Entry
interview.

Reminds me of what my Pakistani-American friend said. He has no problems when
he goes to the airport. They know when he leaves, what route he takes, when he
arrives.

Not right, but maybe true?

------
mahranch
I feel for Mrs. Chen, I really do. The U.S Government should not have moved
forward without solid evidence. However, after reading the article, several of
her actions _did_ and should have throw up some red flags. Flags which should
have been (and were) investigated.

The way this article is presented (and the way a few commenters are responding
to it), it's almost as if they had zero cause to investigate her. They most
certainly had cause to check her out. Plenty of the things she did was
suspicious. She has linked to mid-level government officials in China (they
didn't know the nature of the relationship at the time, how could they), she
traveled to China once a year, and she was asking for sensitive information
which required passwords that she didn't have.

It's easy to look back now where you have all the information. But put
yourself in a position where you have been compromised by Chinese spies
numerous times before, _know_ there are Chinese spies operating as you speak,
and you have some pretty alarming evidence/connections which are throwing up
red flags.

It's not like they just scooped her off the street and accused her of being a
spy... Again, it's a shame what happened to her. I hope she's compensated well
for the hell she's been through. But I feel there was enough evidence to
justify further looking into her actions.

Chinese spies have taken a page from the Russian playbook where they will be
model citizens for decades (Source: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04/02/AR2008040203952.html)) before taking action.
They also busted a large Chinese spy ring just recently. (Source:
[http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-f-b-i-
cracke...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-f-b-i-cracked-a-
chinese-spy-ring))

~~~
EliRivers
I guarantee you, I can find in your behaviour reason to investigate you. I can
find isolated facts that, when linked together, suggest that you are spying
for someone or that you're an insurgent against your government or that you're
planning a crime or something, doesn't matter what, I'll pick something to
accuse you of when I get round to filling in the charge sheet.

If we look for spies, we find spies. If we look for child abusers, we find
child abusers. If we look for terrorists, we find terrorists (sometimes we
have to create them ourselves first and then arrest them).

In theory, there are checks and balances and procedures and, to be honest,
sensible adults in the system to ensure that we aren't just joining up
disparate facts about people into bullshit conspiracies. However, the system
is not working properly and these are the victims.

Also, going to China, where you have family, is _suspicous_ now? On a
tangential note, I'm (amongst other things) a naval officer; I've been to
China and North Korea on holiday, more than once, and my unit security
officer's reaction was to say "Wow, brilliant!", because he's an adult.

~~~
tomjen3
I always assumed that anybody going to NK would be banned from having anything
to do with sensitive things (in the US) ever again. Not that it makes any
sense, but the US government is insanely paranoid (they may have to be, but
from the outside it looks to be too much).

~~~
EliRivers
On an even more tangential note, I had to read a list of security notes and
had to say I understood them. I did not understand them. Ultimately, he had to
explain the notion of "honey trap" to me with hand puppets; the breakthrough
came when he explained that there were people who, upon trapping some gorgeous
local and bringing her back to the hotel room for the night, _wouldn 't_ tell
everyone they knew as quickly as possible.

------
thawkins
This whole witch hunt by the US is hypocritical, given that the NSA is
trawling the whole worlds commucations looking for commercial and economic
inteligence, to be fed to US companies.

~~~
skrebbel
Any source on that?

~~~
xnull2guest
The Snowden docs.

[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/05/us-
governments...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/05/us-governments-
plans-use-economic-espionage-benefit-american-corporations/)

~~~
opo
That Snowden document advocates doing that, but there is no indication it was
being done or had been done or that policy had changed after the report was
issued. That is far different than what the parent said: "...the NSA is
trawling the whole worlds commucations looking for commercial and economic
inteligence, to be fed to US companies."

If there is evidence in the Snowden files that the US DOES do anything like
that, please post a link. Finding that there is someone in government who
advocates doing that doesn't mean much.

~~~
xnull2guest
I posted a link to a Glenn Greenwald piece, which in turn references documents
and links to further journalism.

So let's take just one of the cases. NSA hacked Brazilian Oil Company
Petrobras to win bids on offshore oil drilling locations.

