The ACLU represents Xiaoxing Xi, a Chinese-American physics professor at Temple University, who is suing the government for ignoring his lawsuits against him for allegedly sharing sensitive technologies with scientists in China. The lawsuit, filed in 2017, calls for situations that the FBI’s baseless arrest of Xi and its surveillance strategies, as well as its discrimination of Chinese-American scientists.
In May 2015, FBI agents entered Xi’s home with guns in hand and took him away in handcuffs in front of his wife and daughters. The government accused Xi of sharing data on a superconducting device known as a “pocket heater,” in email exchanges between Xi and other scientists in China that the FBI had obtained. The government claimed the communications violated a legal agreement Xi signed with the company that owns the pocket heater in which he agreed not to share the technology.
The intercepted emails, however, were not about the pocket heater, but about some other kind of superconducting generation that had been public for years. In September 2015, prosecutors were forced to drop the charges. But the damage to Xi and his circle of relatives is already significant. As a result of the allegations, Xi was placed on administrative leave, suspended from his position as acting chairman of the temple’s physics department, denied access to his laboratory and the graduate scholars under his supervision, and had to pay really high legal fees. to protect himself.
The government has been spying on Xi’s orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which aims to spy on foreign agents. As alleged in the complaint, he was also spied on without any warrant under FISA Section 702 and Executive Order 12333, either being used through the government to conduct warrantless surveillance of foreign communications, adding those of Americans.
The government has reportedly engaged in extensive warrantless surveillance of Chinese universities and clinical study centers. It has cut off communications by phone to the servers, computers and major Internet networks that connect many of China’s most prestigious educational institutions. The NSA and FBI buy the emails and phone calls. They intercept government databases for years, where they can then be searched through analysts and agents investigating Americans. FBI agents occasionally conduct so-called “backdoor searches” on Americans that the government has called one of those massive databases “FBI Google. “”
The FBI’s conduct in the case of Xi and others suggests the government targeted Chinese Americans because of their race or ethnicity. He dropped the case before trial. Others come with the dismissal of the fees opposed to Sherry Chen, a hydrologist with the U. S. National Weather Service. He was introduced to the U. S. Army in Ohio in March 2015, and Guoqing Cao and Shuyu Li, senior biologists at Eli Lilly.
In May 2017, Xi filed a complaint against the FBI’s lead agent in the case, Andrew Haugen, and other agents, alleging that they had knowingly or recklessly made false statements to aid the investigation and prosecution. Xi’s wife and eldest daughter later joined. The case. The ACLU joined the case in October 2017. The lawsuit asks the court to award damages and claims the defendants violated the plaintiffs’ rights to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. It also asks the court to order the government to back down. or delete all communications from Xi that the investigation received.
In April 2021, the District Court rejected all ten claims in the lawsuit. Xi’s appeal against this ruling is pending.
The risks of granting such broad supervisory powers are genuine and undeniable. This case is a blatant example of a flagrant violation of an innocent American’s right to privacy, with disastrous consequences for Xi and his family.