Chinese-American Physics professor Xi Xiaoxing has filed a lawsuit, claiming that the FBI agents who accused him of espionage in 2015 knew that the evidence against him was false. The suit is claiming malicious prosecution, due process violations, and unlawful searches and seizures. The FBI alleged that Xi, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, was sending advanced technology to China. Xi claims that in reality, he was transmitting a technical invention he had made himself, and sent it to China as part of regular academic collaboration.

“They are paid with taxpayer money to catch spies. And they catch people like me, who have done nothing wrong,” Xi said to the New York Times. His lawyers say that the FBI was ordered to investigate Xi as a potential spy. Agents then stormed into his house and arrested him in May of 2015.

But there was allegedly no evidence of espionage. Instead, the agency charged him with handing over confidential blueprints for a piece of laboratory equipment called a “pocket heater” to Chinese researchers. But during the trial, several months after Xi was arrested and handcuffed in front of his family, leading scientists testified in court that it wasn’t even a pocket heater.

He was wrongly charged with spying for China. Now this professor is accusing the FBI of falsifying evidence https://t.co/YZohzli0et

— Karin Fischer (@karinfischer) May 10, 2017

In fact, it was a device that Xi had designed. The mistake was embarrassing for U.S. law enforcement and raised confusion about why Xi was targeted–including potential racial profiling. According to Xi’s lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, it seemed like the FBI also never consulted any experts or scientists to see what the device really was.

“If he was Canadian-American or French-American, or he was from the U.K., would this have ever even got on the government’s radar? I don’t think so,” Zeidenberg said at the time. Xi’s lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday, alleges that the FBI agent who arrested him, Andrew Haugen, knew the evidence was not what it was made out to be.

Prosecutors have never explained the 2015 decision to drop the case, and Xi never received an apology. And unfortunately he is not alone. There have been many cases in recent years of high-profile Americans with Chinese ancestry wrongly accused of espionage. But this is believed to be the first lawsuit by a Chinese-American scientist against the federal government since 2006.

Xi said he would also like an apology. After the arrest, he was suspended from work and lost the chance to become his department’s interim chairman. He could no longer enter campus or talk to students. He said that he and his family live in fear of surveillance and being targeted again. Agents storming his house with guns and handcuffing him in front of his children was also a traumatizing experience. But, he said, “They will probably never apologize.”

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Literary critics have spent the past week reeling after the Nobel Prize committee’s announcement that it has granted the 2016 Prize in literature to Bob Dylan (who hilariously failed to even acknowledge the prize for five days). The attention that Dylan’s win has garnered has detracted attention from the Nobel Prizes in both Chemistry and Physics, announced earlier this month, each resulting in an award of 8 million Swedish kronor, or $930,000, to the recipients. Three British physicists who currently work in the U.S. were awarded the prize for their examination of the properties of matter in extreme states , research which can be used for the next generation of superconductors and even quantum computers. The prize in Chemistry was awarded to a team of three scientists from France, the U.S., and the Netherlands respectively for their development of molecular machines, molecules with controllable movements. While these prizes do not draw the same attention as a Peace Prize or a Literature Prize among the general public, they are critical factors that influence what research gets funded at our top universities and how scientists decide what is worth studying. But is that really a good thing?

Incentivized research projects such as the XPrize or Cancer Research UK’s research prizes motivate innovation in certain fields but the Nobel Prize does not have such a targeted aim. Although the Nobel Peace Prize is centered around positive impact on the human race, the scientific prizes are not always as concerned with the human factor. Yes, the matter in extreme states that won the 2016 Physics Prize is incredibly innovative and the molecular machines that won the Chemistry Prize may be used to create revolutionary new materials and energy storage–but do they have immediate benefits that we will feel in 2016? Will they transform medicine, or public welfare, or the lives of the greater population of the planet within the coming months?

These projects are incredible but they are the first step in a larger chain of exploratory science that, while it is admirable and truly commendable, will not be ending world hunger, curing a disease or creating a more equitable and inclusive society within our lifetime. The Nobel Prize is a beautiful way to recognize some of our brightest minds, but it also detracts from the work going on to solve problems that need to solved in order to save lives.

The brightest scientific minds of our world often get caught up in theoretical problems, and when we reward them with financial incentives, the spotlight falls on that research rather than the work of scientists tackling more “mundane” problems. If a research institution gains a Nobel Prize, it will attract the best and brightest minds but will force them to focus on the project that received Nobel acclaim. By giving financial prizes only to scientists who are working on projects that are far-reaching rather than those who are tackling immediate crises, we may cut the legs out from valuable research that needs funding today. Projects that create crops resistant to climate change, make transit more affordable and simple  and design affordable vaccines are all revolutionary and have immediate positive effects on human well being–yet none of them have received the Nobel prize. The Nobel Prize should not by any means be done away with–but perhaps the committee should consider doing even more good by rewarding research that will save lives immediately rather than possibly improve lives after several more decades of research.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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