Arrest First; Investigate Later: FBI Bumblers Wrongly Arrest Chinese-American Scientist
Matt Apuzo reports for The New York Times:

When the Justice Department arrested the chairman of Temple University's physics department this spring and accused him of sharing sensitive American-made technology with China, prosecutors had what seemed like a damning piece of evidence: schematics of sophisticated laboratory equipment sent by the professor, Xi Xiaoxing, to scientists in China.

The schematics, prosecutors said, revealed the design of a device known as a pocket heater. The equipment is used in superconductor research, and Dr. Xi had signed an agreement promising to keep its design a secret.

But months later, long after federal agents had led Dr. Xi away in handcuffs, independent experts discovered something wrong with the evidence at the heart of the Justice Department's case: The blueprints were not for a pocket heater.

Faced with sworn statements from leading scientists, including an inventor of the pocket heater, the Justice Department on Friday afternoon dropped all charges against Dr. Xi, an American citizen.

It was an embarrassing acknowledgment that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents did not understand -- and did not do enough to learn -- the science at the heart of the case before bringing charges that jeopardized Dr. Xi's career and left the impression that he was spying for China.

"I don't expect them to understand everything I do," Dr. Xi, 57, said in a telephone interview. "But the fact that they don't consult with experts and then charge me? Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn't do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game."

His daughter, Joyce Xi, wrote in USA Today:

This is not the America I thought I knew.

I did not know FBI agents could wake my family in the early morning and enter our home, point guns at my mother, sister and me, and forcefully drag my father away in handcuffs without real evidence of a crime. I did not know they could then obtain a search warrant to flip through our entire home and seize our belongings, including some of my little sister's things. I did not know the government could restrict my father's freedom for months and force him to fight for his innocence with only false and reckless claims against him.

My father is Xiaoxing Xi, who was charged by the federal government for passing U.S. technology secrets to China. Many labeled him a spy. He faced the threat of 80 years in prison and a $1 million fine. But my father never shared secrets with China. Underlying the FBI's key argument was a blatant factual error -- the technology involved in my dad's communications was not the sensitive technology they claimed it was. World-renowned scientists, and even a co-inventor of the technology, supported the fact that the FBI's incriminating "evidence" was wrong.

...We still do not know why this happened. We do not know why the government started watching my father, and why they arrested him before consulting fully informed experts. This was a surprise my family never could have imagined.

What we need to remake is our perception of law enforcement as intelligent, effective, and well-targeted. I haven't had that impression for a really long time.

What happened to Xi is just the federal version of those SWAT teams that raid the wrong apartment or the home of the granny who lives with her teenaged granddaughter, but didn't know that she needed to have somebody password-protect her Wifi (which somebody hijacked to make some threats).

What seems to happen? They figure, "We've got all this paramilitary equipment and power -- we might as well use it."

Then: "Oh, wait...did we kill you or your dog or ruin your life or kill you? Whoopsy!"