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Comment by segasaturn | Hacker News Reader

>In 2019, the United States Department of Justice indicted Tao for 'failing to disclose conflict of interest with a Chinese university' .. The evidence used by the Department of Justice was obtained after Tao was reported to the FBI for alleged espionage by a vengeful co-author, who presented manufactured evidence to the FBI. Based on this evidence, the FBI obtained a search warrant. Tao was subsequently indicted for an email regarding a contract to teach in China, but not for alleged espionage

I don't even understand how any of this is illegal? You can be thrown in prison and have your reputation and career ruined by the government for sending an email to someone in China now?

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The federal government has a strong interest in carefully selecting recipients of grant funds (often large sums) and in controlling the purposes and uses of those funds. As a condition of receiving funds, the government may naturally wish to confirm that recipients will not be using the funds in ways that benefit other state actors, in conflict with the government's policies.

Officially misrepresenting that state of affairs to the government with so much on the line is what's illegal, not "sending an email to someone in China."

It isn’t illegal, that’s the point. For political reasons an initiative was created to “hunt Chinese Innovation theft” and that initiative needed to go after “someone” so they looked through what hints they could find and went after people who were doing nothing wrong, but looked like they could at least be pressured into taking some plea deal, so the politically motivated xenophobic which hunt committee could present a result of “this many people were ‘caught’” and get a nice big bonus for creating a Fox News sound bite.

This was started under Trump, and canned under Biden. It’s a travesty and complete circus of an injustice and a racially motivated assault on the scientific community.

He was taking money from the department of energy for research while collaborating with Chinese universities and did not disclose this and lied to investigators about it.

Isn't that the charge he was cleared for?

He was cleared of espionage. He was not cleared for lying about the conflict of interest.

That conviction was overturned a week ago[1]

[1] https://cen.acs.org/research-integrity/misconduct/Court-over...

LOL. Because those that make these laws pass and participate in the witch hunt turned into a justice show never lied about conflict of interest, what actual agenda they have in mind, and how much they really care abouto serving humanity best interests.

FTA:

> At issue in the new ruling, issued 11 July, is whether Tao’s lack of disclosure about his affiliation with Fuzhou University in China affected federal agency funding decisions. The Denver appeals court agreed 2-1 that it was irrelevant because Tao had no grant proposals pending before those two agencies in question – the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation – at the time he made his affiliation statement.

I know a lot of people who are working in collaboration with Chinese universities and does get funded from the US government budget (through NSF and DOE). DOE funds a lot of open research and not only the nuclear/national security related research. I don't think this is in itself a problem. I'm not sure also what is defined as a lie here. Exchanging emails with people interested in your research does not automatically mean you collaborate together. The case is ambiguous, and you shouldn't jump to generalization like that.

There is no ban on collaborating with Chinese universities in the US. There are restrictions for some type of research (that actually extend to the other countries as well).

The point is that he wasn’t charged for sending an email

> I'm not sure also what is defined as a lie here.

It's the "Martha Stewart" lesson. It may be that you have done nothing wrong. The government may stop by and ask you questions anyways. If you lie during those questions you have committed a felony.

Do NOT speak without a lawyer. In particular if you have anything worth losing. Which is more or less everyone.

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