By Paul Sperry
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- Former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has broken his plea agreement by failing to help FBI agents recover classified computer tapes he stole from Los Alamos National Laboratory....
But despite intensive debriefing by the FBI, Lee has not adequately explained why he copied the files to the tapes and what he did with the tapes. The tapes remain missing. Authorities don’t buy his innocent claim, first made on CBS' "60 Minutes," that he copied the information to back up his work, because numerous measures had been built into Los Alamos’ computing system to protect against file loss. Lab physicists, moreover, testified that there was no legitimate reason for one scientist to have made backups of the entire library of source codes, since they normally work on just one small piece at a time. Authorities also say Lee’s claim he tossed the missing tapes in a trash bin behind his office at Los Alamos didn’t check out. And why toss those, yet keep the others? Under the terms of his plea deal, Lee agreed to disclose such information
Anyone who would accept such a coent obviously has never written a computer program or worked as a programmer in a large multi-server bureauacry.
That sentence is exactly my point about all sizzle and smoke -- it makes not sense and is meant only to fool.
Lee did go out of his way to get copies of these codes. He circumvented normal procedures many times. (He was also caught tailgating people into secure areas; one person goes in through the badge reader and another just trys to waltz through behind without being checked.) Theses two violations are sufficient for his firing.
Lee's lawyer (the same one Libby has and the same used by James Smith and Oliver North, one John Cline) wanted to ask about classified assets in open court. The government didn't wish to do that and cut a deal.