Letters are sent to each CCR Commissioners this morning, around 2am. US CCR is holding a meeting tomorow, Friday, 10/14/94. It is once a month meeting. Last time CCR failed to issue a letter regarding the CBS incident to CBS, and they are putting this topic on the table tomorow. Please flood their phone numbers and faxes to voice our strongest concerns, and urge them to take strong actions against CBS. Your support is very essential to us all. Mi Mi Sr. ========================================================================== Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 23:21:30 -0400 (EDT) From: XIAO@scri.fsu.edu To: hua7291@xld2s0.engr.ccny.cuny.edu Subject: revised letter to CCR (two parts) Mi Mi, Finished and felt better on this one. Dong ************************************************************************ Mr. Lin Huang National Coordinator CBS Incident Committee (CBSIC) 3044 Albany Crescent 1G Bronx, NY 10463 (718)-548-9114 Oct. 12, 1994 Honorable Mary Frances Berry US Commission on Civil Rights 624 Ninth Street NW Room 737 Washington, DC 20425 Dear Commissioner Berry: I am writing to you as National Coordinator of the CBS Incident Committee and as Chair of the Civil Rights Committee of the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (IFCSS), regarding the CBS News segment aired on May 19 alleging every ordinary ethnic Chinese in the US as potential spies. IFCSS is the national organization of Chinese students and scholars in the United States, and CBSIC is a nationwide assembly of 80 working volunteers and more than 6,000 members who have joined together to protest against this apparent racial attack on ethnic Chinese. On May 19, CBS Evening News announced that China runs the "biggest spy network in America", and that "ordinary" Chinese in the US were routinely being recruited by Ministry of State Security as spies or "future spies, who a few year down the road, will be activated to steal America's military and technological secrets." In a letter to the Vice President of the IFCSS, the Vice President of CBS News declared that their accusations are valid "according to the Defense Information [sic] Agency." Over the last five months several thousands protest letters have been sent to CBS from this community. Our committee also has written to Commissioner Charles Rivera on this issue. However, there is no positive response from the CBS so far. To many ethnic Chinese, the CBS report is not just another tabloid news piece which can be simply ignored. This report jeopardizes our livelihood, our careers and our future. In the ensuing paragraph I would like to cite a few instances to show how innocent people have been hurt in this spy witch hunt and why people have fears and nightmares after this CBS report has been aired. Case number I, a Chinese American working for an US government agency was reported by an informant as a possible Chinese spy. His office was searched, computer files were scanned and private communications compromised, but he was found innocent. However his employer, scared to death of the so-called biggest Chinese spy network in America, fired him on the ground that he has used his computing equipment for private e-mail files that were not related to his work. Case number II, a Chinese national was employed by a private U.S. firm. He was working there for just a few month when CBS aired that report. Within days his employment was terminated, and the only obvious reason is that his company just received a military contract. Although stories like these involve only a few people, they cause immense fears of repression and racial discrimination within the Chinese community. The incident happened at the time many schools of higher education proceeding commencement. The report hits many college graduates hard. Since the CBS incident, Ms. Li Yingying, a student councilor at MIT, has received many students of Chinese origin expressing their fears of being suspected as foreign spies simply because they are born into Chinese! People expressed their worries to her are not just students who are currently looking for jobs, but also some recent graduates who has been working. The report is not only totally an unaccountable and irresponsible, but really hurting people psychologically and socially. Many organizations and individuals, on assumption that there must be Chinese spies in the world, become careful and cautions in their social activities. As the National Coordinator on the CBS Incident, I have been advised not to uncover the lies and to fight the injustice, but to keep quiet. In a Chinese saying, keep the tails between our legs. This is not something that is supposed to happen in a free country!!! The logic CBS report used for its witch hunt goes like this: since most Chinese have relatives in Mainland China who can be held as hostage by the government, they have to spy for China. And even if they are not spies now, they will be spies in the future, thus subjecting virtually every Chinese and indeed every Asian looking person to brutal speculation. In doing so, the CBS not only has attacked the personal integrity of every ethnic Chinese by questioning their motives of coming to this country, but also insulted many of us who have fought hard for freedom and democracy under extremely dangerous conditions. After extensive research by our committee members, we have found many serious cases of inaccuracy, exaggeration and outright lies in the CBS report. As you can see, and I hope you will also agree, the way this particular report is done in constructing the whole spy theory are flawed to say the least, and their attitude toward the original source of data is hardly professional. Once the distorted pictures presented are accepted by the general public and become deeply rooted through the news media they will bring nothing but racial tensions to this society. They will create prejudice, stir fear, arouse suspicion and generate resentment and even hatred toward ordinary Chinese, be they employees, job applicants, business partners, next door neighbors or even oriental looking strangers walking down the street! The news organizations are entitled to their opinions on the Chinese community. We recognize that and we respect their assessment of the espionage situation based on the information they think they have, so long as the information is true and the assessment unbiased. However, we feel that it is irresponsible and professionally unethical on the part of CBS to express opinions to the public without any justification and without considering the possible damages those opinions may cause. Recently our committee has compiled a comprehensive report on this incident, based upon our several month's research, which is totally contradictory to the CBS report. However, our report has been turned down by even some local Chinese newspapers on the ground that our results are not consistent with the CBS! This highlights the profound damage which has been done by CBS, which has been regarded as a reliable source of information, and the anchorwoman, Ms. Connie Chung, who aired the program, has been perceived as a knowledgeable insider of China! We support Ms. Chung as a minority individual who has achieved celebrity status by her hard work. However, protecting one person's achievement should not victimize tens of thousands of people's lives. And Ms. Chung is not the only one who is responsible for this incident. Ms. Chung has apologized on a Chinese publication with very limited circulation, which is far from enough to comfort people's fears and to stop their nightmares. There are many possible remedies from the CBS that we look for which may let our members feel more secure for their civil rights. For instance: 1. Apologize on air about the May 19 program, for a. being unbalanced; b. wrong choice of words like "ordinary"; c. wrongfully targeting ONLY the ethnic Chinese; d. the paranoid views about "Chinese spy network". 2. Apologize on printed media We can even offer making connections to reporters, including the Chinese media. Many of them are interested. 3. Produce and broadcast a balanced report about a. those ethnic Chinese who work hard for the United States b. those authoritative opinions, including the US government and prominent scholars, against the Chinese "spy threat". c. those opinions that are clearly racist, anti-immigrant in the name of anti-spy. 4. Arrange an interview with Connie Chung, Dan Rather and our members and other concerned organizations to address this and related issues. 5. Release a written statement addressing all of our concerns in our official letter to Mr. Venardos, the Vice President of the CBS News Division. Dear Commissioner, thank you for your attention. I am looking forward to your kind response. Sincerely, Lin Huang National Coordinator, CBS Incident Committee Chair, Committee on Civil Rights The Independent Federation of Chinese Student and Scholars in the U.S. ***************************************************************** Mr. Lin Huang National Coordinator CBS Incident Committee (CBSIC) 3044 Albany Crescent 1G Bronx, NY 10463 (718)-548-9114 Oct. 12, 1994 Honorable Mary Frances Berry US Commission on Civil Rights 624 Ninth Street NW Room 737 Washington, DC 20425 Dear Commissioner: This is a accompanying letter further regarding the CBS Incident. The sole source of the CBS information is a Mr. Eftimiades, a self-proclaimed agent of Defence Intelligence Agency. However, in a response to our inquiry, the agency openly declared that Mr. Eftimiades was acting as a private individual, and he is not even employed in the Defence Intelligence Agency in the capacity of a China expert. When he wrote his little black book, he was working on MIA task force, which has nothing to do with Chinese intelligence. Therefore, We are questioning the appropriateness on the part of Mr. Eftimiades to seek personal gains by posing as a credible agent from a government agency which has authority on the subject matter that his personal profit venture is based on. We understand that the DIA can not possibly authorize Mr. Eftimiades' book and his public appearances, but the public will perceive Mr. Eftimiades as an "insider" of the agency in the name of an active agent, and having access to internal top secret information which led him to reach his unsubstantiated conclusions. Mr. Eftimiades obtained clearance for public release of the manuscript of his book in 1992 from the Department of Defense. However it is only a security clearance and there has been no public report on whether ethic codes are violated. We hope the Commission on Civil Rights will look into this matter, too. Sincerely, Lin Huang National Coordinator, CBS Incident Committee Chair, Committee on Civil Rights The Independent Federation of Chinese Student and Scholars in the U.S.