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CHICAGO (Islam Online) - The New York Times printed an apology to Wen Ho Lee for its coverage of the scientist's alleged espionage activities, which included charges of stealing highly classified information and leaking it to China.
"In those months, we could have pushed harder to uncover weaknesses in the FBI case against Dr. Lee. Our coverage would have been strengthened had we moved faster to assess the scientific, technical and investigative assumptions that led the FBI and the Department of Energy to connect Dr. Lee to what is still widely acknowledged to have been a major security breach," the Times said in a lengthy article. The newspaper admitted that there were some flaws in the coverage, but made it clear that it did not initiate the case against Lee, stating that by the time their March 6th article appeared, FBI agents had already been looking closely into Lee's activities for more than three years. "The March 6 article noted, deep in the text, that the Justice Department prosecutors did not think they had enough evidence against the Los Alamos scientist to justify a wiretap on his telephone. At the time, the Justice Department refused to discuss its decision, but the fact that the evidence available to the FBI could not overcome the relatively permissive standards for a wiretap in a case of such potential gravity should have been more prominent in the article and in our thinking," the article noted. Utilizing a journalistic tone, the Times criticized its coverage, reflecting a sense of alarm by officials that the newspaper did not launch a thorough investigation concerning the debate on Chinese weapons, in which the Republican Party were trying to score points against the White House. It also said that the newspaper overlooked the human coverage of the scientist, that it did not pay enough attention to the possibility that there had been a major intelligence loss in which the Los Alamos scientist was either a minor player or completely uninvolved. Mounting criticism centered on the newspaper after the White House blamed the media's coverage in the case. Lee was indicted last December on 59 felony counts of having illegally downloaded secret data with the intent of helping a foreign country. James A. Parker, the federal district judge in the case, after the scientist pleaded guilty to only one account of mishandling classified material, lectured the government on what he characterized as its disturbing handling of Lee and its misleading testimony. |
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