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MARGARET WARNER: For three days, government prosecutors and lawyers
for indicted nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee have been sparring in an Albuquerque
courtroom over whether Lee should be held in jail while he awaits trial.
He was arrested December 10 on charges of mishandling nuclear secrets
at the Los Alamos labs where he worked.
Though the case arose from a probe into whether China had acquired U.S.
nuclear secrets, Lee was not charged with espionage; that is, with disclosing
classified information to any foreign government. But he is accused
of downloading highly classified nuclear weapons data onto unsecure
computers and copying that data onto portable computer tapes, several
of which have disappeared. After Lee pleaded not guilty, his request
for bail was denied. This week, a federal judge had been hearing his
appeal on that issue. Earlier this evening, the judge again defied bail
for lee. For more on the hearing and the result, we turn to Walter Pincus
of the Washington Post. Welcome, Walter.
WALTER PINCUS, Washington Post: Good evening.
MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. The news has just moved across the wires
saying that the judge cites possible "enormous harm to the country
if the fired scientist, Wen Ho Lee, were set free on bail awaiting trial."
What is the harm that the government sees in letting him be free awaiting
trial and that the judge apparently agrees with?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, he's downloaded, as you said, tapes with -- that
in effect each one provides sort of a road map in how to build a thermonuclear
weapon -- some of our older designs, but also some of our most modern.
And he meticulously did that. And he has claimed that he destroyed seven
tapes that are missing. But what the prosecution has convinced this
judge, as they did in earlier magistrate, is that Wen Ho Lee has no
proof. He's not offered any proof that these tapes are destroyed. Therefore
it's possible that they're still out there somewhere, and by some means
he could, if he were free, either send a signal or open up the opportunity
for somebody else to find those tapes and get them and take them out
of the country.
MARGARET WARNER: Tell us a little more about the hearing this week.
As we said, it's a second bail hearing. What kind of evidence was the
government presenting, what kind of witnesses to demonstrate the need
for keeping him in prison?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, they essentially brought forward two different
types of witnesses. One were a group of ranking scientists at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory, people who design the nuclear weapons that
we have today in our stockpile. And they described what are known as
codes that were part of the data that Lee downloaded from the secure
computer system at Los Alamos to his unsecured system. In order to do
that, you had to in effect lie to the machine that the data you're downloading,
which Lee had access to, was unclassified.
MARGARET WARNER: In other words, he reclassified it himself?
WALTER PINCUS: He in effect reclassified to the machine or certified
to the machine that the data he was downloading was unclassified when,
in fact, it was classified. He then went a step further, and in the
case of a group of tapes, he put together originally ten, but three
have been recovered. He put together a group of tapes, each of which
provided certain data that would be necessary for somebody who wanted
to build a nuclear weapon. And he downloaded those to what are in effect
video cassette-type tapes. And seven of those are missing. And of those
seven, all are considered extremely important if somebody wanted to
use them to build a nuclear weapon. It's sort of a road map to how to
build a weapon.
MARGARET WARNER: OK. Now what did Lee's lawyer say to counter this impression,
this portrait that was presented by the government? How did they explain
all this in a benign way?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, they were explaining that the government has had
an investigation going for more than four years. More recently 60 agents
were working full-time on this particular downloading, which they only
discovered last May. But the government's been unable to prove that
anybody has seen the tapes other than Mr. Lee, and they've been unable
to prove he showed them or gave them to anybody else. They also assert
without any proof, as far as I know, that lee has destroyed these seven
tapes.
MARGARET WARNER: But Lee, I gather, of course, did not testify. Yet
they have testimony he's given to FBI agents?
WALTER PINCUS: It's an FBI agent who was present at a number of interviews
of Mr. Lee where there were proffers made, and again, the scientists.
Then they had a computer expert who talked in great detail of exactly
what Mr. Lee had done and how he had done it. And it wasn't really haphazard.
It wasn't done so he could get material to work on his home -- on his
computer that's easier than a secure computer. Nor was it just collecting
work that he had done over the years, because part of the downloading
was done in '93 and '94, 1993 and 1994, when he was under threat of
perhaps losing his job and was looking for a job elsewhere.
MARGARET WARNER: Now yesterday, according to the stories both in the
Post and the Times and elsewhere, the judge seemed to
be trying the look for another alternative, like couldn't we just restrict
his communication or home monitoring? Was there another alternative?
Why was the government opposed to that alternative?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, they've explored an electronic sort of monitoring
of him and an agreement that he would be accompanied by the FBI. Wherever
he went. I think what the government did was the make a very strong
case that because this information was so important, that Lee, if he
wanted to, could by sending a signal, maybe through one of his children,
through his wife, that where they're located or what to do, assuming
he's got these tapes somewhere else. It's something that they couldn't
prove, but because the data is considered so important, I think the
judge was convinced that there was no sort of 24-hour monitoring that
the FBI. Could have on Mr. Lee that would totally prevent him from communicating
with a third party if he wanted to do it.
MARGARET WARNER: Finally, just looking at this 59-count indictment,
even to a lay person like myself, it looks very detailed about the Los
Alamos computer system. These two hearings have talked more about it.
They talk about the software. They talk about what's in what program.
How concerned are security officials, nuclear officials that this very
trial, just this bail hearing is itself offering a road map to knowledgeable
people about how the Los Alamos computer system works?
WALTER PINCUS: Well, I think they have outlined in rough form how the
computer system works. It's quite another thing to try to get into it.
One of the things that's happened in the last year since this story
first broke is that Los Alamos and the other nuclear labs have tightened
up their security enormously. So it's very difficult to get into even
the unclassified section, no less the classified section. Nobody could
today do what Wen Ho Lee did in '93 and '97.
MARGARET WARNER: I see. Well, all right. Well, Walter, thanks very much.
WALTER PINCUS: You're welcome.
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