All Charges Dropped Against MIT Professor Accused of Hiding Ties to China (masslive.com) 47
Remember that MIT professor accused of hiding the work he did for the Chinese government? (He was arrested for not disclosing it on federal grant applications, with a U.S. attorney announcing "It is not illegal to collaborate with foreign researchers. It is illegal to lie about it.")
All charges have been dropped. Mass Live reports: Chen, 56, was arrested a year ago for failing to disclose millions of dollars in contracts, appointments and awards from the Chinese government when he applied for a grant from the Department of Energy. Among other charges, he was accused of wire fraud and making a false statement on a tax return, according to prosecutors. He pleaded not guilty to the full slate of charges. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said the federal government would drop its case against Chen. After assessing new evidence, Rollins said in a statement her office found it could not meet the burden of proof in a trial. "As prosecutors, we have an obligation in every matter we pursue to continually examine the facts while being open to receiving and uncovering new information," Rollins said. "Today's dismissal is a result of that process and is in the interests of justice...." Prosecutors had claimed Chen used the U.S. government's money to benefit the Chinese government, while failing to disclose any relationship with Chinese leaders. Colleagues protested Chen's arrest, saying grant disclosure violations had been treated as a serious crime, such as espionage or intellectual property theft, the New York Times reported. Recently, Department of Energy officials said they would awarded a grant to him even if he had disclosed his ties to China.
MIT Technology Review adds: From the start, Chen had maintained his innocence, while MIT had indicated that he was working to establish a research collaboration on behalf of the institution and that the funding in question was actually for the university rather than Chen personally. MIT also paid for his defense....
"The government finally acknowledged what we said all along: Professor Gang Chen is an innocent man," Robert Fisher, Chen's defense attorney, said in a statement. "Our defense was never based on any legal technicalities. Gang did not commit any of the offenses he was charged with. Full stop. He was never in a talent program. He was never an overseas scientist for Beijing. He disclosed everything that he was supposed to disclose and never lied to the government or anyone else."
For his part, Chen said, "While I am relieved that my ordeal is over, I am mindful that this terribly misguided China Initiative continues to bring unwarranted fear to the academic community, and other scientists still face charges."
"I will have more to share soon," the scientist added.
All charges have been dropped. Mass Live reports: Chen, 56, was arrested a year ago for failing to disclose millions of dollars in contracts, appointments and awards from the Chinese government when he applied for a grant from the Department of Energy. Among other charges, he was accused of wire fraud and making a false statement on a tax return, according to prosecutors. He pleaded not guilty to the full slate of charges. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said the federal government would drop its case against Chen. After assessing new evidence, Rollins said in a statement her office found it could not meet the burden of proof in a trial. "As prosecutors, we have an obligation in every matter we pursue to continually examine the facts while being open to receiving and uncovering new information," Rollins said. "Today's dismissal is a result of that process and is in the interests of justice...." Prosecutors had claimed Chen used the U.S. government's money to benefit the Chinese government, while failing to disclose any relationship with Chinese leaders. Colleagues protested Chen's arrest, saying grant disclosure violations had been treated as a serious crime, such as espionage or intellectual property theft, the New York Times reported. Recently, Department of Energy officials said they would awarded a grant to him even if he had disclosed his ties to China.
MIT Technology Review adds: From the start, Chen had maintained his innocence, while MIT had indicated that he was working to establish a research collaboration on behalf of the institution and that the funding in question was actually for the university rather than Chen personally. MIT also paid for his defense....
"The government finally acknowledged what we said all along: Professor Gang Chen is an innocent man," Robert Fisher, Chen's defense attorney, said in a statement. "Our defense was never based on any legal technicalities. Gang did not commit any of the offenses he was charged with. Full stop. He was never in a talent program. He was never an overseas scientist for Beijing. He disclosed everything that he was supposed to disclose and never lied to the government or anyone else."
For his part, Chen said, "While I am relieved that my ordeal is over, I am mindful that this terribly misguided China Initiative continues to bring unwarranted fear to the academic community, and other scientists still face charges."
"I will have more to share soon," the scientist added.
But how long will it be (Score:2)
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I hear he's even been shaking hands with various communists in DMZs... oh wait....
This is the reason for tenure (Score:5, Insightful)
Don’t get me wrong. Things with China are a bit tense right now and the government SHOULD keep tabs on people who do lots of stuff over the border. But, they’re supposed to watch and listen, WITHOUT INTERFERING, until they are SURE someone has stepped over the line into espionage, BEFORE opening up with charges.
I’ve also seen academics abuse their tenure, hiding behind it while they spout off about political issues way outside their discipline. But in this case, it appears to have served its purpose.
The US government has pulled this hair-trigger crap before. You’d think they would learn. I wish MIT could countersue somehow.
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while they spout off about political issues way outside their discipline
"Spouting off" is called "freedom of speech" in the Bill of Rights. It comes fairly high up that list, if I remember correctly. And if you object to academics speaking "outside their discipline", wouldn't that imply that less educated people should shut up completely?
Re: This is the reason for tenure (Score:3)
However the dogma and bigotry caused the US to overstate its case. MIT being a polytechnic and not a real research university of course believes their can be undue influence in research. The rest of kn
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To me it looks more a result 'propaganda state' than 'police state'. Once the anti-China (or Russia )mood is set the crowd is eager to persecute anyone in proximity of China relations upon the flimsiest of excuses. As you can see in this thread there is a solemn conviction all around not to let the dismissal of this case against an MIT professor diminish the anti-China mood in any way. In a climate like that it becomes impossible so say anything which could be deemed sympathetic to the adversary.
My controve
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Maybe it is only a matter of emphasis but with mob rule there is voluntary and enthusiastic support from a large part of the crowd. With police state the emphasis is on being too scared not to support the movement.
You don't need a police state to whip up a collective frenzy against an external enemy but it combines well.
So how much of each do we have? I say that the 'propagandized mob' component is large.
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Re:Sickening (Score:5, Informative)
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The summary does not state why. (Score:2)
How can you post a story and miss out the crucial part ?
Was it okay because "the funding in question was actually for the university rather than Chen personally." ?
Or becaue there was not enough proof ?
Or WHAT ?
Do your job.
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Obviously, I have no proof.
Re:The summary does not state why. (Score:4, Insightful)
Other articles on the topic point out that much the specific "evidence" against him was factually wrong, and the government ignored it when it was pointed out to them. The Former Guy's administration was out to make China and Chinese-Americans look bad. Lelling, then the US Attorney, was playing along with the racist fraud. Rollins, the new one, correctly dropped the charges.
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On the one hand the guy is almost certainly guilty of colluding with mainland China, on the other that wasn't being considered a major concern until relations with them turned hostile. Politics.
MIT defends him because A he is a professor at their school and B they currently make huge money catering primarily to foreign students fr
American lawyers are (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: American lawyers are (Score:2)
Rules and laws don't apply to the elites (Score:2, Insightful)
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Ya, its the right of every gun-totin' American parent to threaten school board members.
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Given the right wing-nut jobs out there, why would you expect to be able to threaten your local school board members and not get some extra scrutiny? The FBI now says right-wing extremists are a bigger threat than the Islamo-Fascists. And given the right wing-nuts affinity for Christianity, how are two groups different?
McCarthyism (Score:5, Insightful)
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Apples and oranges. If you think the Chinese Community Party doesn't have infiltrators pillaging intellectual property from each and every American university and major technology company you are simply naive. That very real issue has no similarity whatsoever to political witch hunts from 50 years ago.
Re: McCarthyism (Score:5, Insightful)
From the definition of the term in Merriam-Webster, emphasis mine.
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But one could split hairs and say that the real crime of McCarthyism had nothing to do with routing out foreign agents but rather was about preventing exposure to communist/socialist ideas even in principle to the American people because they were afraid that might lead to people questioning the status quo in the USA. That was why it was so important to McCarthy to attack people in entertainment and the arts because you know that's how they corrupt our youth. /sarcasm
At same time you're right because "but
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... and the Soviet Communist Party was in fact trying to infiltrate, spy on, and generally destabilize the US in the 1950s. They did in fact have a lot of spies. They did in fact try to put their real or perceived sympathizers in positions of influence. They did in fact create, fund, and/or try to influence a lot of organizations. Which still didn't excuse stupid panicky indiscriminate life-ruining.
Neither does what the Chinese Communist Party is doing now.
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And yet there is surprisingly little evidence of this. I'm sure people would be posting it if there was strong evidence, but instead all we get is "Huawei copied a few header files from an SDK 20 years ago!"
It's also simply naive to think that every other country doesn't do the same. The UK is known to steal IP, and France is notorious for it. The advice used to be not to do any work related stuff on an Air France flight, and it was actually a bit of a problem for their business class revenue at one point.
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Joe McCarthy basically started on the whole anti-communist thing when he was speaking at the Ohio County Women's Republican club in West Virginia where he waved around a piece of paper which he claimed had the names of 205 Communists working in the state department. He had no such list. Waving around a paper and making wild claims about what's on it is a well known con artist trick. If you ever see anyone do it, alarm bells should immediately go off. McCarthy was frequent liar and a corrupt politician (in t
"It is not illegal to collaborate with foreign re" (Score:2)
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Oh? Ever noticed that at the height of the cold war, the US still had trade with the USSR? Seriously, your deranged mind-set damages your own country.
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Collaboration is not "selling trade secrets". Selling trade secrets is something else. Quite obviously. But I see you need to lie to keep the fantasy you have about how things work alive.
Because... (Score:1)
Because Biden does not want to cross China?
Double Agent (Score:2)
Is he a Double Agent?