Suitably Flip

Ho Lee Crap

The federal government and several organizations agreed to a $1.6 million settlement with Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American and former nuclear weapons scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.  Lee asserted that the US Government violated his privacy rights by leaking information that he was being investigated for spying for China.

Lee said of the settlement:

We are hopeful that the agreements reached today will send the strong message that government officials and journalists must and should act responsibly in discharging their duties and be sensitive to the privacy interests afforded to every citizen of this country.

This is the same guy who pleaded guilty to downloading top secret nuclear weapons information (800 megabytes worth) while employed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Please allow me to add a little perspective here.  The US Government goes to great lengths to keep classified information separate from unclassified information or even information of a different classification level.  These computers have their own networks, are physically separated from other systems, and have very clear markings denoting the classification of the machine.  What they typically do not have is standard hardware (e.g., writable CD or floppy drives) that allows information to be easily extracted from a machine.  This is done so a rouge nuclear scientist would have to go to great lengths to steal the nation’s crown jewels.

A few other facts from the Lee case (from two NYT articles): 

• In 1982, Wen Ho Lee offered to help a Taiwanese-American spy determine who “squealed on him” and lied about his involvement with the spy to US Government investigators
• Wen Ho Lee traveled to Beijing twice in the 1980s and hid key encounters with Chinese scientists, including Hu Side, China's top nuclear scientist
  
• On 23 Feb 94, Hu Side thanked Wen Ho Lee for the “computer software and calculations of hydrodynamics”
• China routinely seeks information from ethnic Chinese, including Taiwanese, by appealing to a "perceived obligation to China"
• Department of Energy's Director of Intelligence concluded Wen Ho Lee had the “opportunity, means, and motivation” to compromise America’s most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the W-88
• The “Cox Committee” (commissioned by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) unanimously accused China of stealing nuclear secrets, possibly even the blueprints
• The FBI Polygrapher concluded that Wen Ho Lee was "deceptive" when answering if he had passed nuclear secret to unauthorized persons.  Lee admitted during this session that he had helped a Chinese scientist with a mathematical problem that “could easily be used in developing nuclear weapons” 
• After failing this polygraph and having his access revoked, Wen Ho Lee snuck into his former work area where he deleted 310 files and his download file history
• Wen Ho Lee downloaded 800 megabytes of classified information over 70 days, transferred it to computer tapes, and could not identify their whereabouts.  Computer forensic investigators recreated Dr. Lee's deleted files and concluded that the 800+ megabytes consisted of tools for computer-simulated nuclear weapons testing and would equate to paper stacked 134 feet high

So instead of spending the rest of his life rightfully in jail, Wen Ho Lee will retire comfortably and continue to lecture Americans on the importance of responsibly discharging their duties.

Comments

Ho Lee Crap

The federal government and several organizations agreed to a $1.6 million settlement with Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American and former nuclear weapons scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.  Lee asserted that the US Government violated his privacy rights by leaking information that he was being investigated for spying for China.

Lee said of the settlement:

We are hopeful that the agreements reached today will send the strong message that government officials and journalists must and should act responsibly in discharging their duties and be sensitive to the privacy interests afforded to every citizen of this country.

This is the same guy who pleaded guilty to downloading top secret nuclear weapons information (800 megabytes worth) while employed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Please allow me to add a little perspective here.  The US Government goes to great lengths to keep classified information separate from unclassified information or even information of a different classification level.  These computers have their own networks, are physically separated from other systems, and have very clear markings denoting the classification of the machine.  What they typically do not have is standard hardware (e.g., writable CD or floppy drives) that allows information to be easily extracted from a machine.  This is done so a rouge nuclear scientist would have to go to great lengths to steal the nation’s crown jewels.

A few other facts from the Lee case (from two NYT articles): 

• In 1982, Wen Ho Lee offered to help a Taiwanese-American spy determine who “squealed on him” and lied about his involvement with the spy to US Government investigators
• Wen Ho Lee traveled to Beijing twice in the 1980s and hid key encounters with Chinese scientists, including Hu Side, China's top nuclear scientist
  
• On 23 Feb 94, Hu Side thanked Wen Ho Lee for the “computer software and calculations of hydrodynamics”
• China routinely seeks information from ethnic Chinese, including Taiwanese, by appealing to a "perceived obligation to China"
• Department of Energy's Director of Intelligence concluded Wen Ho Lee had the “opportunity, means, and motivation” to compromise America’s most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the W-88
• The “Cox Committee” (commissioned by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) unanimously accused China of stealing nuclear secrets, possibly even the blueprints
• The FBI Polygrapher concluded that Wen Ho Lee was "deceptive" when answering if he had passed nuclear secret to unauthorized persons.  Lee admitted during this session that he had helped a Chinese scientist with a mathematical problem that “could easily be used in developing nuclear weapons” 
• After failing this polygraph and having his access revoked, Wen Ho Lee snuck into his former work area where he deleted 310 files and his download file history
• Wen Ho Lee downloaded 800 megabytes of classified information over 70 days, transferred it to computer tapes, and could not identify their whereabouts.  Computer forensic investigators recreated Dr. Lee's deleted files and concluded that the 800+ megabytes consisted of tools for computer-simulated nuclear weapons testing and would equate to paper stacked 134 feet high

So instead of spending the rest of his life rightfully in jail, Wen Ho Lee will retire comfortably and continue to lecture Americans on the importance of responsibly discharging their duties.