Secrecy News -- 09/18/00

[Steven Aftergood]

Bribery is "a practice that punishes honest businesses, undermines economic
development, and destroys confidence in law," said President Clinton
Saturday in a statement endorsing adoption of the Inter-American Convention
Against Corruption.  "This Convention was the first multilateral agreement
against bribery to be adopted anywhere in the world."  See the President's
September 16 statement here:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2000/09/wh091600.html

But at the behest of U.S. intelligence agencies, the Senate is preparing to
adopt a new provision that would exempt intelligence from international
agreements and treaties of this kind.  Promoting the rule of law is all
very well in the abstract, it seems, but it cannot be allowed to interfere
with the conduct of intelligence.  For critical commentary on the pending
Senate provision, see:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/bulletin/sec84.html

Senator Arlen Specter expanded his critique of the Wen Ho Lee case
Friday.  He once again seized the opportunity to berate Attorney General
Janet Reno who, he suggested, should be fired by President
Clinton.  Characteristically, he found no reason to question his own role
in the unfolding of the case:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2000/s091500.html

But Senator Specter has not been simply a passive observer of the
process.  "Last year, Specter demanded Attorney General Janet Reno resign
for her failure to pursue the Lee case aggressively," observed Ian Hoffman
in a comprehensive overview of the Lee case in the Albuquerque Journal
yesterday:

	http://www.abqjournal.com/news/126438news09-17-00.htm

In another Journal article yesterday, Sandia National Labs Director Paul
Robinson, who suggested that millions could die as the result of Wen Ho
Lee's actions, was also singled out for criticism.  Robinson "indulged in
hyperbole, and like much of the rest of the prosecution, overstated his
case," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists:

	http://www.abqjournal.com/news/126444news09-17-00.htm

In response to criticism concerning its reporting of the Wen Ho Lee matter,
New York Times managing editor Bill Keller said, "We are looking back at
the full run of our coverage to see how it stands up in light of the latest
developments and whether there are lessons to be learned."  See:

	http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/16/national/16LAB.html

A new scientific paper by Wen Ho Lee, completed last year before he was
jailed by the government, has recently been published in The International
Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, Volume 33, Issue 8, (August 30,
2000).  An abstract of the paper, "The basic character of five two-phase
flow model equation sets," co-authored with R.W. Lyczkowski, may be found here:

	http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/72515987/START

___________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html



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