Sherry Chen

If you were to go to this website: http://www.fbi.gov/cincinnati/press-releases/2014/noaa-national-weather-service-employee-indicted-for-allegedly-downloading-restricted-government-files you would find the following headline in the FBI press release…

NOAA National Weather Service Employee Indicted for Allegedly Downloading Restricted Government Files

The NOAA/National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS) employee is Xiafen “Sherry” Chen. She is a naturalized U.S. Citizen from Beijing, China; she holds a Master’s of Science degree from the University of Nebraska, worked for Missouri State government with the Department of Natural Resources for many years before being hired by NOAA/NWS to work at the Ohio River Forecast Center (OHRFC) in Wilmington, OH. Sherry is a good friend, who worked tirelessly at the OHRFC, to the point of developing carpal-tunnel syndrome in fingers of her right hand because of repeated mouse-clicks while working on the development of the Ohio River Community HEC-RAS Model (http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/ohrfc/hecras.html). The aim of the model, which is the largest HEC-RAS model implementation in the world (now over 2000 miles of continuously modeled reach), is to significantly improve flood prediction along the Ohio River and its tributaries. The model is a joint effort by the OHRFC and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE); several Corps District office supplied most of the channel cross-section data that is needed to define the river flow boundaries during non-flood conditions. However, substantial geographic information system (GIS) work must be done to geo-register the channel cross-section data, extend the cross-sections into floodplain areas, which must include levees that protect communities from flooding, bridges, and off-channel storage areas. All this data must also be corrected to lie on the same geodetic datum (which defines the shape of the Earth). It’s  a lot of work to do this, something that was started in late 2006 — 8 years ago. Sherry Chen came to the OHRFC in March 2007. She was a critical member of the team I lead at the OHRFC, where she was the hydraulic modeler, who was responsible for setting-up the model in great detail — inches matter, because it represents the difference between a levee being over topped or not, including possible levee failure, leading to significant loss of property and, possibly, lives. Sherry is and was dedicate to getting the details right — and that matters significantly. Everyone she worked with, including many with the Army Corps of Engineers know this about Sherry.

The efforts of the team’s hard work paid off significantly by receiving the 2011 National Weather Association (NWA) Larry R. Johnson Special Award “for development of and operational success with the Ohio River Community HEC-RAS Model during May 2011 Ohio and Mississippi River flooding”. Sherry worked many long hours for a several week period to get the best possible HEC-RAS model results to aid the USACE in their operational decision making during this record-setting flooding event. Because of the ‘Community’ nature of the Ohio River Community HEC-RAS model, the USACE also uses the model the OHRFC developed (using Corps channel cross-section data) for their operational purposes (or they soon will be using it operationally); having such a model is critical to the mission of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Getting the best data we could to develop the model was quintessential — we had no funding to obtain the data needed to setup the model or make needed improvements. We relied on the help and good graces of the USACE, US Geological Survey, and others to provide us with data to improve the model to better serve the U.S. public — that is the mission of the NWS and that was what the OHRFC HEC-RAS modeling team sought. I have mentioned both dams and levees. The whole of the OHRFC area of responsibility has dozens of dams and levees that were built and are maintained and operated by the USACE. Some of this data can be found at the  USACE National Inventory of Dams (NID) (http://geo.usace.army.mil/pgis/f?p=397:1:0) and the National Levee Database (http://nld.usace.army.mil/egis/f?p=471:1:). Staff from the OHRFC (and many throughout the NWS) — including myself and Sherry Chen — received direct training from the USACE on these databases, including their contents and how we in the NWS could obtain the data for use in our HEC-RAS models.

So, when the NID database became available, OHRFC staff explored the database to find, download, and test the efficacy of using the data to improve model simulations of the Ohio River Community HEC-RAS model.

For this, Sherry Chen is being charged “...that on various dates in May 2012, Chen illegally accessed restricted areas of a protected U.S. Government computer database and downloaded sensitive files from the National Inventory of Dams“.

Sherry had previously accessed the NID database before a login ID and password was required and later was given the login ID and password of a co-worker by the co-worker himself (via email), who also placed the information in a binder where all OHRFC staff had access. Sherry was using the data to improve the HEC-RAS model — US Army Corps of Engineers hydrologists and hydraulic engineers were completely aware that she needed this data and what it was being used for. The Corps was depending on her exemplary modeling skills and her model improvements. She did nothing more than this.

But since she is a Chinese-American, Sherry is being charged with a Federal Crime, with the obvious implication that she is passing sensitive information to someone in the Peoples Republic of China for, allegedly, nefarious purposes. In other words, she is being charged with spying. Are any white, anglo-saxon Americans at the OHRFC or elsewhere being charged with espionage for downloading the NID data? One has to wonder why, if the data is so sensitive, is it so easily available and why at least confidential clearance is not required to get access to the data? No one in the NWS has any security clearance at any level, unless they obtained it previously, outside of the NWS.

Sherry is currently on paid administrative leave, but she has been told that this will probably change soon, and she will soon be pennyless as her savings are depleted. She has been convicted of nothing. But she has been arrested, charged in Federal Court, harassed at her home by the media and has had her name and reputation dragged through mud by the press.

She has done nothing wrong.

She is guilty only of trying to do the best possible job for the benefit of the U.S. Public, nothing more. Her life is in shambles, she can not eat or sleep normally and is essentially a prisoner in her own home. This is the gratitude the U.S. has shown Sherry Chen for her hard work and dedication as a Federal public servant. It is shameful…