[109732] in Cypherpunks
Fw: MRC Alert: Time for Ground Troops?; Only Lee Wiretap Rejected
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (amp@pobox.com)
Fri Apr 2 21:12:23 1999
From: amp@pobox.com
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 19:55:08 -0500
To: allen.cooper@mci.com, btmoore@iname.com, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net,
Gary.Miller@mci.com, Len Cargill <ccargill1@pdq.net>
Reply-To: amp@pobox.com
in light of the administration's efforts to secure broad, sweeping wiretap powers, it
is interesting to note one place where they did not find it necessary to do so...
amp
------------------------
From: Media Research Center <MediaResearchCenter@compuserve.com>
Subject: MRC Alert: Time for Ground Troops?; Only Lee Wiretap Rejected
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:38:38 -0500
To: Blind.Copy.Receiver@compuserve.com
> ***Media Research Center CyberAlert***
> Wednesday March 31, 1999 (Vol. Four; No. 57)
=snip=
> > 4) Wen Ho Lee, the only one. He represents the totality of
> the 0.04 percent of the time the Justice Department worried about
> having enough justification to authorize a wiretap.
>
> An editorial in the March 30 Investor's Business Daily
> disclosed this fascinating tidbit of information: "From 1993 to
> 1997, federal officials requested 2,686 wiretaps. For all its
> concern for probable cause and legal standards, the Justice
> Department turned down one request in those four years -- Lee's in
> 1996."
>
> That's right, the FBI's request to wiretap We Ho Lee was the
> only request Janet Reno's Justice Department rejected in the
> administration's first years. They approved 99.96 percent of such
> requests.
>
> Here are some excerpts from the editorial, titled "Abetting
> Espionage."
>
> It's almost too fantastic to believe. But evidence has surfaced
> that the administration may have turned a blind eye toward Red
> Chinese espionage -- if not actually abetted it....
>
> "Some journalists -- in particular Jeff Gerth and James Risen of
> The New York Times -- have made some very disturbing discoveries.
> Not only did the Clinton administration take its sweet time in
> investigating the alleged theft after learning of it, there's
> reason to believe that the Justice Department failed to follow its
> usual procedures in overseeing the FBI probe of the matter....
>
> After trying to shift blame for the theft to previous
> administrations (the first instances did take place in the
> mid-1980s), the Clinton administration went into damage control.
> It claimed loudly and longly that it aggressively tried to get to
> the bottom of the matter. And, of course, the White House has
> pledged to investigate.
>
> But media spin notwithstanding, the administration has failed to
> guard the nation's secrets. Indeed, it took steps to put these
> secrets more at risk. And it blocked the FBI from fully probing
> the security breach.
>
> Central to the story is Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan- born American. He
> worked for the Los Alamos National Lab, which develops nuclear
> weapons.
>
> Soon after the theft was discovered, Lee became the prime suspect.
> Yet he was not only allowed to keep his job, reports the Times, he
> got promoted to a more sensitive post. He was also permitted to
> hire a Red Chinese national as an assistant. Authorities can't
> find him.
>
> These infractions would be bad enough. But the Justice
> Department's actions regarding the FBI's probe of Lee border on
> the criminal.
>
> As part of the probe, the bureau requested a wiretap on Lee.
> Justice denied it, arguing it did not have sufficient grounds to
> take to a federal court to get the tap approved.
>
> But a look at the Justice Department's record on wiretaps calls
> that argument into serious question.
>
> From 1993 to 1997, federal officials requested 2,686 wiretaps. For
> all its concern for probable cause and legal standards, the
> Justice Department turned down one request in those four years --
> Lee's in 1996.
>
> The Clinton administration's defense that it had few grounds to
> wiretap Lee might carry weight if most of the wiretaps Justice
> OK'd resulted in incriminating evidence. That would suggest
> Justice was setting and meeting high standards for wiretaps.
>
> But again the record suggests Justice is talking through its hat.
> In 1997, 21.4% of federal wiretaps produced incriminating
> information. Indeed, through the first four years of Clinton's
> term, only one in five wiretaps revealed shady actions.
>
> Yet in the case of Lee and alleged Chinese espionage, the
> department seems to think that it needed cold proof of illegal
> activity before approving a wiretap....
>
> Several conclusions can be drawn from this case, each one more and
> more incredible.
>
> One is that key officials in the Clinton administration are
> incredibly naive. Another is that they are criminally incompetent.
> Both answers are plausible, given this administration.
>
> But it's not too big a leap to ask if some officials were more
> than naive or incompetent. Were they intentionally ignorant? Did
> the push for campaign cash in 1996 -- some of it coming from
> Chinese sources -- take precedence over national security?
>
> An even more disturbing speculation is that someone in the
> administration was actively working for the Red Chinese.
>
> Sure, it sounds like a Tom Clancy novel. But why did Justice deny
> the wiretap request? Why did the Energy Department promote Lee to
> a spot where he could learn more secrets? How did a Chinese
> national get hired for such a sensitive job?
>
> The administration has its hands full now with Kosovo. But it must
> not be allowed to duck these questions on Red China's espionage.
>
> END Excerpt
>
> You can access much of IBD online at http://www.investors.com
> Their password access system has been down, so click on the
> register button and for free you'll get a username and password
> that will allow you to access many more articles from that day's
> paper.
>
> See the March 26 CyberAlert to read about how the networks
> ignored the New York Times story referenced by Investor's Business
> Daily about how Wen Ho Lee got a more sensitive job after he was
> under suspicion and how the FBI cannot now locate an assistant he
> had hired.
======================================
Name: amp
Date: 04/02/99 Time: 19:55:08
E-mail: amp@pobox.com
The easiest way to maximize the amount of information
over a communication line (in the theory's terms) is
to hook up a random noise generator to it.
