Energy Secretary Acts Against Racial Profiling
October 19, 2000
By H. Josef Hebert/AP
Amid lingering resentment among Asian Americans over the Wen Ho Lee case, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced safeguards against racial profiling within the department and among its private contractors.
Richardson said he would “not tolerate even hints” of racial profiling and ordered his inspector general to investigate any such activity.
“We have made progress addressing concerns of racial profiling, but more needs to be done… I want to eliminate once and for all any future suspicions,” he said.
Richardson said that he remains convinced that Lee, a Taiwan-born former Los Alamos scientist, was not singled out in an espionage investigation because of his Asian background. Still, he said there are “enough instances” to raise suspicion that such discrimination may have occurred in other circumstances.
In addition to the inspector general’s probe, Richardson ordered revision of outside contracts to include guarantees against racial profiling; and he ruled that a contractor can be forced to pay for failing to deal with profiling.
Richardson acted against a backdrop of resentment among Asian Americans about the handling of the Lee case, an issue that could have political overtones just weeks before the presidential election.
“This case, perhaps more than any other cause we’ve seen, has really galvanized the (Asian American) community, more than campaign finance reform, more than welfare reform,” said Victor Hwang, an attorney for the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus.
Hwang, whose group has joined a lawsuit Lee filed against the government charging privacy infringement, said he views the additional actions by Richardson “as a way to deflect an external investigation.”
Asian Americans have joined into a growing political force especially in such key states as California. Many Asian American activists have been outspoken critics of the Clinton administration’s treatment of Lee, from singling him out early on as virtually the only target in a lengthy espionage investigation to confining him for nine months without opportunity for bail.
Last month Lee, 60, who was fired from his job at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in March 1999, was freed from jail after the government dropped all but one of 59 security violation charges. He was never charged with espionage, and no evidence surfaced that he provided secrets to anyone.
The Lee case “has been resolved. We think the matter is closed,” Hwang said. The broader issue remains of others who may have been or still are being singled out because of race, Hwang said.
In related news, Attorney General Janet Reno, addressing a group of Asian American lawyers in Washington, D.C., again defended the Justice Department’s prosecution of former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee and said she would move to declassify documents related to the case.
Reno told the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association on Oct. 14 that an internal review of the matter has been ordered, and that she would move to “declassify what information may be declassified so that as much information as possible can be made public.” Reno did not specify what material may be made public.
“I know that there may be decisions in this case that may have caused honest disagreement and fierce criticism,” Reno told the bar association. “I take your concerns very, very seriously.”
The case also provoked a public disagreement between Reno and President Clinton, who said Lee’s long detention “just can’t be justified” before a plea bargain.
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