-Caveat Lector-
November 29, 2000
F.B.I. to Dig for Tapes Discarded by Scientist in Spy Case
By JAMES STERNGOLD
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 28 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has
moved heavy equipment into a landfill outside Los Alamos, N.M.,
in search of the computer tapes on which Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the
former nuclear scientist, has admitted to downloading weapons
secrets.
This needle-in-a-haystack search is the result of information
that Dr. Lee provided to investigators as part of a plea
agreement he struck with the government in September, government
officials said. It could help solve one of the central mysteries
in Dr. Lee's case: what happened to the 3M brand DC 6150
computer tape cartridges on which the highly sensitive weapons
information was illegally placed.
Officials close to the case said that the government has known
since Sept. 13, when Dr. Lee entered a plea to one felony
count, that he put the tapes in the garbage, and that they
probably ended up in the landfill. But it was unclear why it has
taken agents more than two months to begin digging.
Doug Beldon, an F.B.I. special supervisory agent in Albuquerque,
would say only, "The F.B.I. is conducting a search at a Los
Alamos, N.M., landfill in furtherance of an ongoing
investigation."
But government officials confirmed that the goal was to locate
Dr. Lee's computer tapes.
John Cline, a lawyer for Dr. Lee, said he would have no comment.
Dr. Lee, a former weapons scientist at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory, had originally been charged in a 59-count indictment
with illegally downloading a trove of weapons data with the
intention of aiding a foreign nation and harming the United
States.
Dr. Lee spent more than nine months in solitary confinement and
was described as a grave risk to national security. But the
government dropped almost its entire case and Dr. Lee pleaded
guilty to one count of mishandling secrets.
Dr. Lee won his freedom and agreed to explain why he had
downloaded the data and what happened to the tapes, at least
seven of which were missing. His lawyers had said earlier that
he destroyed the missing tapes and that no one else had access to
them.
Dr. Lee has had eight meetings with government officials over
the past two months, and two more are expected in mid-December.
Officials said that during the sessions Dr. Lee told officials
that he had put the tapes in the garbage at the laboratory.
Government agents were then able to determine roughly what part
of the landfill they were emptied into, and that is where the
F.B.I. now intends to begin its search.
The tapes are regarded by the government as being of vital
importance — in court hearings they were said to have information
that could allow another nation to create nuclear bombs — and
have been the focus of an enormous government investigation, both
to preserve them and to keep them from falling into enemy hands.
The tapes contain, or at least had once contained, a virtual
library of nuclear weapons testing and design data, and Dr. Lee
had created them over a period of years.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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