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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (34258)	3/13/2004 3:33:44 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793828

Defining Spying Down Saturday, March 13, 2004; Page A18 WHEN CAPT. James Yee, an Army chaplain, was arrested in September, the government let it be known that it suspected him of the most ominous-sounding offenses: mutiny and sedition, aiding the enemy and espionage were among those listed on his confinement order. What's more, Defense Department officials lost no time insinuating to the press that Mr. Yee -- a Chinese American convert to Islam who was assigned to minister to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- was part of a spy ring there. Mr. Yee, anonymous officials said, had been caught with classified documents about the detainees and their interrogators and with sketches of facilities at the base; there was no innocent reason a chaplain would have such material; he had studied in Syria. Compare all that with the actual charges against Mr. Yee. The government alleges that he mishandled classified information by "taking [it] to a housing unit." He transported it "without the proper locking containers or covers" and made a false statement about whether certain material was cleared for release to a detainee. But about espionage -- let alone mutiny -- not a word was said. Instead, the military alleges that Mr. Yee used "a government computer to view and store pornographic images" and he "wrongfully [had] sexual intercourse with Lieutenant Karyn Wallace, USN, a woman not his wife." The public will, we are sure, be gratified that the Pentagon is so diligently protecting the Guantanamo detainees from allegedly adulterous religious counselors. And perhaps Mr. Yee's handling of classified material was so egregious as to warrant criminal prosecution -- though his lawyer denies the charges. But one has to wonder how a spy case dwindled to this. The military had been scheduled this week to renew its preliminary investigation -- akin to a grand jury inquiry in the civilian justice system -- into whether these charges warranted a trial. But the government obtained another in a series of delays and is now reportedly considering dropping charges and allowing Mr. Yee to be honorably discharged. Unless there is some still-secret information that somehow justifies the government's conduct in this case, the answer is easy. Any sanctions should be administrative, not criminal. If the government cannot even allege that Mr. Yee acted with malign intent or compromised sensitive material, it owes him an apology for the time he spent in solitary confinement having his name smeared as a possible enemy spy. It should not hide behind a series of picayune charges to avoid admitting error. The government responds to questions about detainees such as Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi, American citizens held indefinitely without charge as enemy combatants, by asking for trust from the courts and the public. Trusting unchecked executive authority is never wise. A case in which mutiny, sedition and espionage gets watered down to improper Web-surfing helps show why. When the Supreme Court considers the fate of Messrs. Padilla and Hamdi this spring, the justices would do well to remember Chaplain Yee.