June 4, 2019
Donald Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
Dear President Trump:
The Committee of Concerned Scientists (“CCS”) is an independent organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars devoted to the protection and advancement of human rights and scientific freedom for colleagues all over the world. For almost 50 years CCS has been helping persecuted scholars overcome injustice and return to their academic work.
Today CCS is writing to express its concern about the profiling of ethnic Chinese scientists by the U.S. government which includes American citizens and U.S. permanent residents.
This phenomenon is not new. In 1999, Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American scientist, working on simulations of nuclear explosions at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was indicted for revealing secrets to China and spent 9 months in a U.S. federal prison. He was subsequently acquitted by Judge James Parker who publicly apologized in the New York Times for allowing the case to go to trial. Wen Ho Lee sued the federal government and received $1.6M in compensation for defamation.
In 2014, Xiamen (Sherry) Chen, a hydrologist working for the National Weather Service (“NWS”), was charged with illegally downloading data about national infrastructure and falsely telling federal agents that she had last seen a Chinese official in 2011, not 2012 when the meeting had actually occurred. Six months later she was acquitted of all charges. In 2018, the Chief Administrative Judge Michele Schroeder ordered the U.S. Department of Commerce, that oversees the NWS, to reinstate Chen’s employment. In January 2019, Sherry Chen filed a civil lawsuit against the U.S. government.
In 2015, Xiaoxing Xi, professor and former Chair of the Physics Department of Temple University, was arrested and charged with selling sensitive technology to China. After a few leading physicists in the field provided affidavits that schematics of the device found in Xi’s possession were of a pocket heater, not of the restricted technology, the Department of Justice dropped all charges. In 2017, Xi filed a lawsuit against federal government for manufacturing the case against him and violating his constitutional rights.
The above-mentioned examples have been dwarfed by the government campaign that began in the spring of 2019 with the warning issued to U.S. medical centers on behalf of the National Institutes of Health. The assertion of “systematic efforts by foreign nations to steal intellectual property” has triggered massive investigation of ethnic Chinese faculty throughout the country. It involves searches of their email accounts, correspondence and phone calls, as well as video surveillance. As a result of this campaign, positions (including tenured ones) of some prominent Chinese-American scientists have been terminated without due process, their students and laboratories have been left in limbo, with some being closed and the remaining staff being laid off.
The Committee of Concerned Scientists believes that ethnic profiling and indiscriminate investigations of Chinese scientists has no place in our country. Besides damaging the image of the United States, it is also damaging to our national security by inflicting irreparable harm on some of our best scientists and making them think about leaving the country, and one was actually forced to leave, despite the fact that the Judge criticized the prosecutor and government’s handling of the situation.
The CCS calls upon the U.S. government to immediately stop the campaign of intimidation of ethnic Chinese scientists and make a public statement assuring them that they will be treated as equal valuable members of the American society.
Sincerely,
Joel L. Lebowitz, Paul H. Plotz, Walter Reich, Eugene M. Chudnovsky, Alexander Greer
Co-Chairs, Committee of Concerned Scientists
Cc:
William P. Barr, Esq.
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Steny H. Hoyer
Majority Leader of the House of Representatives
U.S. House of Representatives
1705 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Kevin McCarthy
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives
U.S. House of Representatives
2468 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate
U.S. Senate
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Chuck Schumer
Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate
U.S. Senate
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
