811 COMMENTS ON "U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology With China"

http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-professor-shared-technology-with-china.html

811 COMMENTS ON

U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology With China

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TheraPMidwest

Act first. Think later. This seems to be the strategy of too many law enforcement situations in our country. And once more, we have a minority person wrongly blamed, wrongly treated.

Like the biracial tennis player mistreated and falsely arrested just this week, here we have a professor, whose life has been upended and possibly a professorial career ruined or cut short.

We need Justice Reform at every level in this country.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 3:26 p.m.

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BubNY

I read articles like this and see the glass as half full - this guy was exonerated and the government dropped the case. He wasn't locked away in an eternity prison for political dissidents or enemies of the state, as would certainly be the case in China and a variety of other countries. I wish Xi didn't have to go through this in the first place of course, and he has every right to be angry, but at least we live in a country where there are mechanisms (or perhaps morals) in place that can have the government actually admit it was totally wrong and set someone free.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 4:05 p.m.

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LauraCalifornia

I hope the scientific community really defends Dr. Xi and demands compensation for him, for his students, for the research he was forced to abandon, and for Temple U. The victims of this "embarrassment" include students and colleagues; reputation is a hard thing to get back.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 4:02 p.m.

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Aron YoffeLos Angeles, CA

I'd really like to hear more details on what went on inside the FBI. What puzzles me is this: The FBI has a large Science and Technology Branch (4500 employees). And any well-trained scientist, when asked to provide a definite assessment of something outside his or her expertise, knows enough to say: "This is out of my expertise, let me track down an outside expert and have that person review this."

Given this, several possibilities present themselves: (A) the FBI agents didn't run this by their scientific staff; (B) the agents ran it by the scientists, the scientists said they needed to consult outside experts, and the agents ignored them; (C) the agents ran it by the scientists who, in spite of a lack of expertise, gave a determination (which would mean that the individual scientific staff with whom they consulted are not properly trained). Another possibility is that the FBI scientists consulted people they they thought were experts but in fact were not.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 4:29 p.m.

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PeteIllinois

I think Zane D. Memeger and his office should apologize profusely and publicly for this horrible error. Instead they only released a cowardly statement saying "additional information came to the attention of the government.”

The article stated that last month the inventing engineer told the D.A. they had made a mistake. The article doesn't say when last month but at a minimum it took the incompetent (and too arrogant to admit an error) D.A. office 2+ weeks to drop charges. I hope the poor guy wasn't sitting in jail during this time.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 9:52 p.m.

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James CameronSeattle

“We wish they had come to us with any concerns they had about Professor Xi prior to indicting him, but at least they did listen,” Mr. Zeidenberg.

------

That's an understatement. The government was inept in their handling of this case. Mr. Xiaoxing's life was turned upside-down because of this, and the most they have to say is they would drop the charges. As though they were doing him a favor.

What they should do is provide some form of restitution that includes a public apology AND undertake a thorough investigation of what went wrong. And that should include some consequences for the people involved.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 4:24 p.m.

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EverymanNew York, New York

I'm waiting for the pre-dawn raid with guns drawn to arrest a bankster CEO.

Sept. 11, 2015 at 9:34 p.m.

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johnnyny

The "white collar" equivalent of tackling him on the street, smashing his head into the pavement, hand cuffing him and then finding out it was a case of mistaken.... everything!

Sept. 11, 2015 at 9:21 p.m.

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flyfysherLongmont, CO

Seems there is a uniformly negative opinion of Mr. Memeger and his office and the investigators. Calls for an apology, discipline including termination for incompetency and almost ruining this man's life and a huge judgment with attorneys fees against the government. But you know when I'll be impressed? It'll be when some member of Congress takes up the cause to make sure this type of abuse never, ever happens again. It'd be unwise to try and hold your breath until that happens. Sad that our government officials have so little regard for upholding our Constitution and the protections it supposedly affords us.

Sept. 12, 2015 at 1:55 a.m.

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joe Getzville, NY

Having worked in the defense industry as an engineer, I am well aware of the stress on prevention of the export of sensitive technology. We received yearly briefings on ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) and the EAR (Export Administration Regulations). It's taken quite seriously. Make no mistake, the fact is that industrial espionage by foreign countries, particularly China, is quite prevalent. We have lost significant amounts of technology to foreign countries, either through hacking or old fashioned spying.

That being said we have a constitution that protects the rights of American citizens. What I see here is a lack of due diligence by either the FBI prosecutors and/or by their technical staff. I also see the overstepping use of force in the arrest, which is also becoming a problem. The actions of the FBI could have been the result of over-zealous investigators or maybe one who is interested in building his or her career. I also see the equivalent of racial profiling in action.

If we had a functional Congress this could be remedied with adequate safeguards. Government response needs to based on a realistic threat level. The use of SWAT-type teams in a case like this needs to be limited. There needs to be assurance that the prosecutors have the science right. There needs to be checks on overzealous investigators. But, as I said with a disfunctional Congress, I don't see any remedies in the near future.

Sept. 12, 2015 at 3:45 a.m.

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GloriaNYC

Hopefully these egregious mistakes lead to changes within DOJ and FBI to prevent this from happening again. But the threat of Chinese espionage is quite real. Analogies to the McCarthy era are totally off base. China is engaged in a systematic and widespread theft of information from the U.S. Our law enforcement agencies must be proactive about this.

Sept. 12, 2015 at 4:15 a.m.

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HLBoston

As a first generation Chinese American and an aspiring academic, this case really hit home for me. It's horrifying that you can work hard your entire life, and have everything unfairly taken away from you - and your only recourse is to prove your innocence while already guilty in the eyes of the public and even your own department. Academic reputation is a tenuous thing, and unfortunately it's affected not only him but all his current and previous students and colleagues. I read on another article that the Temple spokesman stated it was too soon to say whether he would be reinstated as chairman. I can't even fathom why they would have to deliberate it. I hope finds a way to move forward and find the justice that he is entitled.

Sept. 12, 2015 at 4:33 a.m.

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RickNew York

This is embarrassing. Not doing the scientific research to prove that a scientific equipment is stolen weakens the intelligence of the US government's ability to do proper investigation. Haven't they learned anything for CSI? In addition, this is hurting Chinese Americans who consider the United States to be their country. Sure, they are proud of their culture and ancestry, but it doesn't mean they would spy for the Chinese Communist government. The Chinese Communist government is not a part of Chinese culture, it is in fact a western political ideology, and for many Chinese people around the world, democracy is the better one.

Sept. 12, 2015 at 11:41 a.m.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-professor-shared-technology-with-china.html?referrer=

U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology With China

Xi Xiaoxing, the chairman of Temple University’s physics department, at his home in Penn Valley, Pa. The Justice Department dropped all charges against
Mr.Xi on Friday.          - Mark Makela for The New York Times

By MATT APUZZO

September 11, 2015

WASHINGTON — When the Justice Department arrested the chairman of Temple University’s physics department this spring and accused him of sharing sensitive American-made technology with China, prosecutors had what seemed like a damning piece of evidence: schematics of sophisticated laboratory equipment sent by the professor, Xi Xiaoxing, to scientists in China.

The schematics, prosecutors said, revealed the design of a device known as a pocket heater. The equipment is used in superconductor research, and Dr. Xi had signed an agreement promising to keep its design a secret.

But months later, long after federal agents had led Dr. Xi away in handcuffs, independent experts discovered something wrong with the evidence at the heart of the Justice Department’s case: The blueprints were not for a pocket heater.

Faced with sworn statements from leading scientists, including an inventor of the pocket heater, the Justice Department on Friday afternoon dropped all charges against Dr. Xi, an American citizen.

It was an embarrassing acknowledgment that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents did not understand — and did not do enough to learn — the science at the heart of the case before bringing charges that jeopardized Dr. Xi’s career and left the impression that he was spying for China.

“I don’t expect them to understand everything I do,” Dr. Xi, 57, said in a telephone interview. “But the fact that they don’t consult with experts and then charge me? Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn’t do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game.”

The United States faces an onslaught from outside hackers and inside employees trying to steal government and corporate secrets. President Obama’s strategy to combat it involves aggressive espionage investigations and prosecutions, as well as increased cyberdefenses.

But Dr. Xi’s case, coming on the heels of a similar case that was dismissed a few months ago in Ohio, raises questions about whether the Justice Department, in its rush to find Chinese spies, is ensnaring innocent American citizens of Chinese ancestry.

A spokeswoman for Zane D. Memeger, the United States attorney in Philadelphia who brought the charges, did not elaborate on the decision to drop the case. In court documents, the Justice Department said that “additional information came to the attention of the government.”

The filing gives the government the right to file the charges again if it chooses. A spokesman for John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general who is overseeing the crackdown on economic espionage, had no comment on whether Justice Department officials in Washington reviewed the case.

The science involved in Dr. Xi’s case is, by any measure, complicated. It involves the process of coating one substance with a very thin film of another. Dr. Xi’s lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, said that despite the complexity, it appeared that the government never consulted with experts before taking the case to a grand jury. As a result, prosecutors misconstrued the evidence, he said.

Mr. Zeidenberg, a lawyer for the firm Arent Fox, represented both Dr. Xi and Sherry Chen, a government hydrologist who was charged and later cleared in the Ohio case. A longtime federal prosecutor, Mr. Zeidenberg said he understood that agents felt intense pressure to crack down on Chinese espionage, but the authorities in these cases appeared to have been too quick to assume that their suspicions were justified.

In Dr. Xi’s case, Mr. Zeidenberg said, the authorities saw emails to scientists in China and assumed the worst. But he said the emails represented the kind of international academic collaboration that governments and universities encourage. The technology discussed was not sensitive or restricted, he said.

“If he was Canadian-American or French-American, or he was from the U.K., would this have ever even got on the government’s radar? I don’t think so,” Mr. Zeidenberg said.

The Justice Department sees a pernicious threat of economic espionage from China, and experts say the government in Beijing has an official policy encouraging the theft of trade secrets. Prosecutors have charged Chinese workers in the United States with stealing Boeing aircraft information, specialty seeds and even the pigment used to whiten Oreo cookie cream.

Other researchers and academics are being closely watched. The F.B.I. is investigating a Chinese-American mapping expert who abruptly resigned from Ohio State University last year and disappeared while working with NASA, The Columbus Dispatch reported this week. In May, the Justice Department charged a Chinese professor and others with stealing acoustics equipment from American companies.

About a dozen F.B.I. agents, some with guns drawn, stormed Dr. Xi’s home in the Philadelphia suburbs in May, searching his house just after dawn, he said. His two daughters and his wife watched the agents take him away in handcuffs on fraud charges.

“Unfortunately I think this is influenced by the politics of the time,” he said. “But I think it’s wrong. We Chinese-Americans, we contribute to the country, to the national security, to everything.”

Temple University put him on administrative leave and took away his title as chairman of the physics department. He was given strict rules about who at the school he could talk to. He said that made it impossible for him to continue working on a long-running research project that was nearing completion.

Dr. Xi, who came to the United States in 1989 and is a naturalized citizen, was adamant that he was innocent. But it was only when he and his lawyers reviewed the government’s evidence that they understood what had happened. “When I read it, I knew that they were mixing things up,” Dr. Xi said.

His lawyers contacted independent scientists and showed them the diagram that the Justice Department said was the pocket heater. The scientists agreed it was not.

In a sworn affidavit, one engineer, Ward S. Ruby, said he was uniquely qualified to identify a pocket heater. “I am very familiar with this device, as I was one of the co-inventors,” he said.

Last month, Mr. Zeidenberg delivered a presentation for prosecutors and explained the science. He gave them sworn statements from the experts and implored the Justice Department to consult with a physicist before taking the case any further. Late Friday afternoon, the Justice Department dropped the case “in the interests of justice.”

“We wish they had come to us with any concerns they had about Professor Xi prior to indicting him, but at least they did listen,” Mr. Zeidenberg said.

Dr. Xi choked back tears as he described an ordeal that was agonizing for his family. “I barely came out of this nightmare,” he said.

Sent from my iPad