Science Quote by Wen Ho Lee

The line reads like a lab note, but it lands as a moral defense: restrained, technical, and implicitly accusatory toward anyone demanding a cleaner, more cinematic confession. Wen Ho Lee, speaking out of the firestorm that engulfed him in the late 1990s, chooses the language of method rather than motive. "Best technique" is doing double duty. It signals competence (I knew what I was doing) while also narrowing the frame to professional norms (judge me by standards of security practice, not by the hysteria of the moment). The modesty of "that I knew" isn’t just humility; it’s a strategic refusal to claim omniscience, a way to sound like a working scientist rather than a spy with grand designs.

"Protect my files" is the key phrase. It recasts the contested act - moving or copying sensitive material - as stewardship. Protection, not possession. The pronoun "my" is provocative: in a national-security apparatus, nothing is truly "yours". But for a researcher, "my files" can mean responsibility, continuity, and the everyday reality of managing data and drafts. That tension is the subtext: institutional ownership versus individual accountability, bureaucracy versus expertise.

Context sharpens the intent. Lee became a symbol in a politically charged hunt for leaks, with racialized suspicion and public panic around China. This sentence tries to pull the story back from geopolitics to procedure - a plea to see him as a scientist operating inside imperfect systems, not a villain invented to satisfy a moment’s need for certainty.