A professor of cyber security disappeared in the midst of an FBI search. His family is determined to fight ‘

The woman of Dataprivacy Professor Xiaofeng Wang, who was fired from his permanent job At Indiana University, Bloomington (IU) on the same day that the houses of the couple were searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, said on Monday that she believes that her family is unfair on the US government and is the victim of what she described as “misplaced accusations of academic misconduct.”

“Our family is determined to fight, not just for ourselves, but for the broader research community that would be affected if this kind of claim remains undisputed,” said Nianli Ma.

This is the first time that MA has publicly spoken since the FBI search assignments took place at the end of March. She appeared on a webinar organized by the Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), a non -profit group founded in early 2021 to argue for the rights and recognition of Asian American scholars. Ma worked as a library analyst at the university before she was abruptly fired from days before the FBI searched two of the houses of the couple, the Indiana Daily Student reported.

“I just can’t understand how the university, to which we have devoted two decades of our lives, could treat us like that, without even telling us why or a suitable process, especially for my husband,” said Ma. “I lost weight and had trouble sleeping. I feel trapped in a constant state of worries and sorrow.”

The case of Wang has worried about academics that a closed program of the Department of Justice called the China Initiative is being revived under the new Trump government. The campaign, which was started during President Trump’s first term of office with the aim of combating economic espionage, was accused by critics of unfairly focused on researchers born in China and other Asian immigrants and Asian-American academic communities. The DOJ later left the program under the Biden administration after it had lost or withdrawn a number of accompanying things.

One of the most controversial of them was the case of MIT-professor Gang Chen, which was sued in 2021 in the context of the China initiative for alleged ties with different Chinese institutions in subsidy applications. Chen also spoke on Monday’s webinar. The charges against him were withdrawn the following year after the disclosures by the federal government were not obliged to be.

“The story of Nianli is heartbreaking. The images of the FBI raid from Nianli and the house of professor Xiaofeng Wang brings shivers to our spines,” Chen said. “It brings back the fear that my family and many others have undergone under the China initiative. If you have read the news item about you, you cannot stop asking if the China initiative has actually returned,” he said, directly speaking with MA.

Brian Sun, a member of the AASF Legal Advisory Council, said during the webinar that there is currently no evidence that the case of Xiaofeng contains an illegal transfer of technology or something that would imply the kind of worries that led to the creation of the China initiative. “

The American representative Grace Meng of New York, who held a keynote speech during the event, said that she is worried about efforts of the current US Presidential Administration to restore the China initiative that “did nothing to tackle the national security problems and instead creates a deep chilling effect on research and liveling and liveling his complaining. “