I saw a story over the weekend about Wen Ho Lee and read it with some interest. Then on Tuesday, I saw the man himself in an interview on television. If you recall, Lee was a nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos national laboratory until he was arrested and later ‘convicted' by the media for spying against this country via sending nuclear secrets to China. Obviously, he was never found guilty, or even charged, for spying.

He was actually charged with 59 felony counts of "downloading sensitive information." He subsequently plead guilty to one felony charge and was released after being held for nine months without a trial. Even the judge in the case apologized to Lee for allowing him to be held in jail for such a length of time, saying that he was misled by the government.

It would seem that Lee has now decided to sue the government for its role in his alleged imprisonment and the defamation of his character. He said he was singled out for investigation because he is of Chinese descent.

While this is an excellent argument for a court of law, I hardly see the reasoning there for real world applications. If they were going to single him out, why would they have hired him to start with? On the other hand, Lee claims that many other employees at the weapons lab routinely backed up information just like he did. It would seem that the computer system there sometimes ‘ate' data. Boy, can I relate with that. But none of them were charged. Hmm.

Maybe our federal government just needs a good espionage story every few years, just to keep us on our toes. With the Rosenbergs so far in the past now and the Soviet Union collapsed, China and terrorism is really all we have left to fear and hate.

As for Lee, I do question holding anyone for nine months in solitary confinement when there really wasn't enough evidence to convict him of spying.

As for the ‘top secret' nuclear stuff he copied, Lee now says it was really outdated junk, rather than valuable secrets. Some of the info was regarding simulating a nuclear blast via computer.

Does this story seem one-sided so far? It is. Janet Reno, then attorney general, and Bill Richardson, then energy secretary, refused to comment on the whole thing. Of course, both now have political aspirations and obviously don't want to talk about the monster that was never really under the bed.

Reno, at the time, said when Lee was released that he is "no hero." She went on to call him a felon who mishandled nuclear secrets at the least, etc.

It's enough to make you wonder.

I guess Lee does have one thing going for him — the whole thing made the Federal Bureau of Investigation and several government departments look like a fraternity of idiots. Reno didn't need Lee to look like an idiot, in my opinion. While the Clinton administration did many things to advance our country and its economy, it took an unfortunate black eye from Reno's performance on the Waco fiasco. Then Richardson and former FBI Director Louis Freeh added another with the mishandling of the investigation of Mr. Lee.

Don't think I only have a beef with the Democratic leadership. The current administration's lockout of the media and information is a bit draconian as well. While I don't agree with having cameras in the battle field, I do believe in freedom of information. But that's a story for another time. Lee was arrested without any other information than the fact that he downloaded some computer files onto a portable medium (a disk or tape that can be transported). He then claims that the stuff was tossed out after he lost his security clearance and that someone else helped him delete secret stuff from his computer.

I wonder how something like this can happen in this country? What happened to the land of the free? Perhaps that has become land of the paranoid, home of the knave.

Think about it for a minute. First of all, why are such files even available for download and, secondly, why would anyone be allowed to leave the building without first being scanned? Either we trust them or we don't. If we don't, we should put a lock on the cookie jar.

Thirdly, why would someone be investigated and locked up for ‘spying' when no evidence was available? I thought we all had the right to due process. Besides, I thought that China already had access to all of our really good nuclear secrets.

I guess I can at least look forward to reading his book, "My Country Versus Me," due out soon from Hyperion Publishing. It will most likely shed even more light on what should be a very frightening story for any American citizen.

Along those lines, the 200th birthday of the Constitution was last month. Perhaps we should look at a brief summary of some of our rights, in honor of an American citizen who was apparently mistreated by his own country:

I. Congress shall make no law against free speech or free press or the right of the people to peaceably assemble;

II. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (that's not just for states or militias, that's for all of us);

IV. The right of the people to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, including of their persons, houses, papers and effects.

V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process nor shall private property be taken....without just compensation.

VI. The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury....and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. The accused also has the right to be confronted with the witness against and present witnesses of their own, along with having the assistance of counsel for defense.

VII. Excessive bail shall not be required nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

IX. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not...deny or disparage others retained by the people.

X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people.

How many of you really know all these rights from the constitution anyway? I bet there aren't many people in this country that could spout out all ten from memory. Can you?

Perhaps that is why they are so often tread upon by our government. We only hear about ‘our right to remain silent' and how ‘anything we say or do can be used against us.' I'm here to tell you that anything you don't say or do will be held against you also. Exercise your right to not remain silent.

Stay aware and stay involved in your government — from watching our county commission and school board to keeping aware of what our federal and state governments are doing. We have to stand up for the rights we were given by our forefathers and know them or we stand the possibility of effectively losing them through our lack of knowledge or actually losing them to an ever-more-oppressive government.

As for Mr. Lee, in the end, he did plead guilty to a felony for downloading the information, whether it actually was ‘crown jewels' of information, as some said, or total junk, like he said, we may never know. You know what they say, one man's trash is another man's prison sentence.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

Email: allnews@ls.net