MAN CLAIMS FBI, CIA HARASSMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303510002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303510002-9
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
4 October 1983
SALT LAKE CITY
XAN CLAIMS FBI, CIA HARASSMENT
A psychologist who says he refused to join in a covert U.S. espionage scheme
while living in Finland has filed a federal suit, asking the courts to force the
FBI and CIA to produce agency records on him.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal court suit Monday on
behalf of Lee Lasater, a Salt Lake City psychologist who said he has been under
surveillance and harassed since he refused to join a covert spy ring.
''My problem is I can't prove anything unless they release the records, If
requested through the Freedom of Information Act, Lasater said. He said the
agencies have refused to release them on the basis of national security.
Lasater developed a stress test that determines when a person will panic and
become a danger to himself or others. He lived in Helsinki as a guest of the
Finnish government while officials there decided whether to buy his test.
He said the American Embassy asked him to become involved in the spy effort
by ''luring a Finnish officer to our camp. I told them to stick it.''
He said harrassm.ent began right after the incident, including anonymous phone
calls to his Finnish wife, Sinikka Laster, saying her husband was seeing another
woman and entanglements over her immigration status.
First, he said, the Finish government cancelled an invitation to visit a
Finnish military base at the request of the United States government.
Then his wife received the phone calls and her immigration status Was
cancelled in Finland, supposedly due to faulty information obtained in the
United States, he said. The immigration problem was straightened out, then was
cancelled again. However, she was told her status would be extended because she
was trying to comply with the requirements.
The next day, he said, the FBI called and asked Lasater who he knew in the
Soviet Union. He gave them the names of several professors.
The following day, he said, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had no
record of her application for immigration status.
"They said she could go home to Finland but she couldn't come back here, of
Lasater said.
" I told the FBI if I went to Finland alone, I'd raise hell in both
countries," he said. ''They extended her status."
ACLU Director Shirley Pedler said the allegations cannot be proved without
his records.
''We maintain the records were wrongfully withheld. The order will require
them to justify withholding records on an item-by-item basis," she said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303510002-9