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Editorials
Tuesday, September 12, 2000Blunders led to release
of nuclear scientistThe issue: Nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee is expected to be released from prison after agreeing to a plea bargain stemming from charges that he violated security.
A plea agreement that is expected to allow nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee to be released from prison without probation after being accused of violating security was a major capitulation by the government. Any explanations that federal prosecutors may offer are not likely to disprove the conclusion of many critics that the case against Lee involved abusive investigative techniques and racial profiling.
Lee initially was suspected of leaking secrets to China about a sophisticated nuclear warhead but the government abandoned efforts to prove espionage. He was fired from his job at Los Alamos, N.M., in March 1999 and indicted in December on lesser charges of violating the Atomic Energy Act and the Espionage Act by mishandling classified data.
Several former senior intelligence officers have said they regarded the evidence against Lee as weak and claimed that he had been singled out because of his Chinese ancestry. Other officials defended the focus on Lee on the ground that China's policy is to recruit Chinese Americans for espionage. Lee was born in Taiwan and is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
After abandoning the attempt to prove that Lee had handed secrets to China, the government claimed that he had downloaded secrets from a Los Alamos computer to improve his job prospects at scientific institutes in countries such as Australia, Switzerland and France. However, investigators subsequently admitted they had no evidence to support such an accusation.
Lee acknowledged improperly downloading a massive amount of computer data. Seven computer tapes onto which he downloaded some of the data are now missing.
Lee reportedly will agree to plead guilty to a single charge that he improperly downloaded classified material onto an unsecure computer. He has agreed to cooperate with authorities in determining what became of the missing tapes. He will not be fined, serve more time in prison or face probation. The nine months he spent in prison awaiting trial serve as his sentence.
Despite the government's failure to prove that Lee gave the material to a foreign power, the unauthorized downloading of classified material on an unsecure computer is a serious matter and could hardly have been ignored. A plausible explanation has yet to be produced in his defense.
The case against Lee appeared to have been an overreaction to prolonged neglect of security concerns at Los Alamos. The result -- a face-saving plea to much-reduced charges -- does not negate the need to improve security at the nation's nuclear laboratories, but without the blunders committed in this case.
Medical marijuana win
SUPPORTERS of the use of marijuana for medical purposes won a victory in a federal court in San Francisco when a district judge issued a permanent injunction forbidding the U.S. government from punishing California doctors for recommending marijuana to their patients, as permitted under state law.
The action could have significance for Hawaii in view of the enactment this year of a medical marijuana law. Seven other states have passed similar laws.
The Clinton administration had argued that doctors who recommend the drug should lose their authority to prescribe legal medicines because marijuana has been found unsafe by Congress and the Food and Drug Administration.
A 1996 California initiative allowed patients to use marijuana, based on a doctor's recommendation, without risking prosecution under state drug laws.
The Clinton administration's drug policy chief, Barry McCaffrey, announced after the initiative's passage that any doctors who prescribed or recommended marijuana would lose their federal licenses to prescribe drugs, would be excluded from Medicare and could face criminal prosecution.
That prompted a lawsuit by a group of doctors and their patients, who said the government was violating their freedom of speech. Another federal judge issued a temporary injunction protecting doctors, which has now been made permanent by Judge William Alsup.
The plaintiffs' freedom of speech argument prevailed. However, the judge noted that Congress had not addressed the question of revoking a doctor's license for recommending marijuana and the drug agencies had not issued rules regarding doctors' recommendations. This suggests that Alsup might have ruled otherwise if the law was more specific.
The Justice Department has not announced whether it will appeal. If the ruling is reviewed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has Hawaii in its jurisdiction, its decision will apply here.
Freedom of speech is an essential principle of democracy and must be respected. There may be justifiable limits regarding a doctor's advice to patients, but under this ruling no such limits restrict advice about the use of marijuana.
However, the federal ban on such use and the conflict it creates with state laws sanctioning use produce an uncomfortably ambiguous situation for doctors and their patients -- and problems for law enforcement.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
