Mary,
The fact is that Wen Ho Lee copied top-secret documents onto an unclassified/unsecure information system. This is a major no-no for ANYONE working in such an institution. It is cause for job termination and revocation of security clearances.
It is also a glaring condemnation of security managers charged with reviewing and enforcing these security protocols. They didn't do their jobs. Wen Ho Lee may, or may not have, intentionally delivered classified materials to Chinese agents or handlers, but HE SURELY knew about the wrongness of his act.
Each holder of a security clearance is "read on" to his/her paticular project and advised as to the handling of such classified information. And these briefings are required to be renewed each and every year along with pertinent updated threat briefings.
Proving someone is or isn't a foreign agent, witting or not, is a VERY DIFFICULT thing to prove unless caught in the act, especially when the act has alledgedly occurred several years in the past.
Can we claim that ex-DCI (director/Central Intelligence) John Deutsch was a foreign agent or merely someone who negligently and recklessly took highly classified material home with him and copied it to his personal UNCLASSIFIED computer, as was mentioned in a previous post??
Who knows. But he knows what he did was wrong and greatly endangered national security, or the human lives who represent the intelligence assets of the United States. He tried to justify himself by claiming that he would delete each document after he had finished working on it. Amazing that someone of his experience was unaware that even deleted files are not truly deleted on a hard-drive, as well as the fact that radio frequency signals from his monitor can be collected and reassembled from distances of up to 1/4 mile away (depending on the line of sight).
This is why all TOP SECRET systems are either locked behind a TEMPEST qualified vault (SCIF) that don't eminate radio transmissions or the systems themselves are hardened and shielded to prevent such emanations.
I haven't read the Cox report, but I'm reasonably sure the truly damning evidence against Wen Ho Lee is such that our intelligence agencies may feel that it is not worth revealing their sources as to why they believe he was an actual agent for Chinese intelligence.
Investigating an espionage case is not as clear-cut as investigating a homicide. There are quite a few complex issues that are involved.
In fact, sometimes a suspected agent is terminated on some other cause or placed in a position outside of their current field in order to not tip off the opposition that they have actually discovered their mole. They will just remove them from having an opportunity to have access to damaging classifed information.
But it was not in the govts interest to claim Wen Ho Lee was a Chinese agent unless they have specific evidence. It GLARINGLY casts an embarrassing spotlight on their lack of security and counter-intelligence protocols. And no organization is willing to reveal their dirty laundry unless forced to.
So either way, whether he was a spy or not, he broke the rules he should have known by heart. Thus, a job termination and clearance revocation is merited. I've known of a few people I had contact with who real nice people but were terminated from the breaking of just such rules. I also, unfortunately, had the occasion to work with someone with a Top Security clearance in the past, who recently was arrested for selling criminal investigative information to the investigated criminals. I liked the guy, but I hope he gets some hard time for doing what was obviously a no-no that put the lives of Federal Agents at risk.
Regards,
Ron |
