The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
525 Market Street, Suite 3670
San Francisco, CA 94105
Dear Senator Feinstein,
I am deeply troubled by the recent news regarding the indictment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee and more so by his being held without bail as a, and here I quote Judge Don Svet, “clear and present danger to the United States”.
Ever since the news broke of Dr. Lee’s alleged involvement in espionage
in March of this year, the public was
never informed of what the charges against Dr. Lee were and whether
he was informed of them in full when he was fired “summarily” from his
job. To me, this implied he had been denied the right to a full grievance
hearing and airing of the charges, while he was being tried in the media
and in public.
I have written to you before to protest of the above treatment meted out to him. Now however I have a graver concern posed by following question: Is it the usual treatment the government accords a suspect, first to put him under constant surveillance 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, for close to nine months for alleged espionage, then to bring a different and new set of charges against him and worst still to hold him without bail pending trial, in effect accusing him of being a flight risk?
I have developed some answers, pieced together from media coverage.
They are:
1. There has never been
the slightest hint of Dr. Lee’s non-cooperation with the government during
the
whole investigation. Dr. Lee, I learned, had voluntarily relinquished
his passport prior to this time and
has notified the Government every time he traveled outside of Los Alamos.
Therefore, he is being
held without bail pending the trail, not for the legitimate reason that
he may be a flight risk, nor for the
illegitimate but more pedestrian reason that he was non-cooperative during
the investigation.
2. The current set of charges
against Dr. Lee is, by all accounts, not as grave as that of being charged
as
a spy. The treatment accorded however is worst. Whereas he
was not indicted before, he is now
indicted; whereas he was under constant surveillance, he is now held without
bail until trial.
The above can only lead me to conclude that Dr. Lee’s pre-trial treatment
is an arrogant act on the
government’s part in blatant defiance of due process.
Therefore, I urge you to use every means in your power to ensure
that Dr. Lee is freed on bail pending trial,
the least the government could do to demonstrate it is committed
to due process for all regardless of ethnicity
and color.
Yours respectfully,
Ivy Lee
Professor Emeritus of Sociology
California State University, Sacramento