| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:11 am Post subject: |
| Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney and company haven't been touched... Franklin was just an errand boy.. Feith just did a controlled burn on Franklin to keep the fire away from him (the traitorous serving Israel first JINSA Jew that Feith is - shown at the top of www.nowarforisrael.com ):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/politics/20cnd-franklin.html?ei=5094&en=1a2688daa350509b&hp=&ex=1137819600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
January 20, 2006
Pentagon Analyst Gets 12 Years for Disclosing Data
By DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 - A federal judge sentenced a former Defense Department analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, to more than 12 years in prison today after Mr. Franklin admitted passing classified military information to two pro-Israel lobbyists and an Israeli diplomat.
The sentence meted out to Mr. Franklin, 59, by Judge T. S. Ellis III in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., was at the low end of the federal sentencing guidelines. Judge Ellis said at the hearing that he believed Mr. Franklin was motivated by a desire to help the United States, not to damage it.
Mr. Franklin's sentence, which included a fine of $10,000, was the first victory for the government in a case in which prosecutors have also indicted the two lobbyists with whom he shared classified information. The charges against Mr. Franklin and the two lobbyists are offenses under the Espionage Act, but none of the men have been accused of spying.
The lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were senior staff members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, a pro-Israel lobbying organization with close relationships to officials in the Bush administration.
The case is unusual because of the charges against the lobbyists, who did not hold security clearances, were not government employees or representatives of a foreign government. They operated in a small circle of lobbyists who have commonly traded gossip and inside information with administration officials, Congressional aides and journalists.
Before his sentencing, Mr. Franklin pleaded guilty to three felony counts for improperly retaining and disclosing classified information in exchange for his cooperation and the government's willingness to drop three other charges against him. He will not have to begin serving his sentence until after the completion of legal proceedings against Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman, who are scheduled to go on trial in April. That could lead prosecutors to agree to seek a reduction in Mr. Franklin's sentence, government official said.
Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were charged in an indictment in August 2005 with conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to journalists and an unnamed foreign power that government officials identified as Israel. Aipac dismissed the two men in April 2005.
The indictment said the two men had disclosed classified information about a number of subjects, including American policy in Iran, terrorism in central Asia, Al Qaeda and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment in Saudi Arabia, which killed 23 Americans, mainly members of the military. Lawyers for the two men have sought to have the indictment against them dismissed.
As Aipac's director of foreign policy issues, Mr. Rosen was a well-known figure in Washington who helped the organization define its lobbying agenda on the Middle East and forged important relationships with powerful conservatives in the Bush administration. Mr. Weissman was a senior Middle East analyst. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman have denied any wrongdoing.
Mr. Franklin, who was regarded as an Iran expert, was among Bush administration conservatives who had pushed for an aggressive policy towards Iran, including a more confrontational approach to restrain its nuclear program.
Mr. Franklin worked at the Pentagon for a time under Douglas Feith, a former undersecretary at the agency. Mr. Franklin has said he developed a relationship with the two lobbyists in the belief that they had access to officials a the National Security Council and could communicate his views to senior officials there.
In addition to his meetings with the lobbyists, the government charged, Mr. Franklin also met with an Israeli embassy official and passed on secret military information about weapons tests in the Middle East and military activities in Iraq. He contended that the information was already known to the Israelis and that he obtained far more information than he gave away. | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject: |
| Saturday, January 21, 2006
Franklin's fate
Larry Franklin has been sentenced to twelve years for his role in the AIPAC spy scandal. Since the Zionists have assured us that there is no AIPAC spy scandal, and it is just anti-Semitism, you have to wonder what the twelve years are for. The kicker is that he doesn't have to report to jail, but gets some time in the great outdoors to consider whether he'd like a lower sentence in return for cooperating in nailing AIPAC. If he goes to court and tells Americans what AIPAC has been up to, that will be the end of the 'special relationship' between Israel and the United States. It goes without saying that he can't be allowed to go to court. So what will it be, 'accident' or 'suicide'?
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/ | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:40 am Post subject: ADL chief: Franklin affair could pose threat to Jewish lobby |
| ADL chief: Franklin affair could pose threat to Jewish lobbyists
By Shlomo Shamir and Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondents
Two days after former Pentagon analyst Larry A. Franklin was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in jail for sharing classified information with pro-Israel lobbyists, several American Jewish community leaders echoed a single refrain: There's reason to worry, but no need to feel like this is a crisis.
Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman said the Franklin affair could potentially pose a threat to all Jewish lobbyists.
Foxman said it is not clear what exactly is allowed in terms of the relationships between the administration and the media and between nongovernmental organizations and foreign governments. The lack of clarity, he said, could have a destructive influence on the activities of all U.S. Jewish groups.
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Franklin pleaded guilty in October to sharing the information with AIPAC lobbyists and Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon. Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were fired from AIPAC in 2004, are facing charges of disclosing confidential information to Israel, apparently about Iran.
Some American Jewish leaders are concerned by the influence the trial could have on the relations between Jewish groups and the administration.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, said on Sunday that he found Franklin's sentence "disturbing."
"The very fact that this kind of climate can exist in the capital of the U.S. is unacceptable," he said at the Herzliya Conference.
Rosen and Weissman, he said, "are two patriotic American citizens working for a Jewish organization, who did nothing to violate the American security."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/673472.html
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Ex-Pentagon man gets 12 years in AIPAC case
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/01/20/ex-pentagon-man-gets-12-years-in-aipac-case.php | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:34 am Post subject: Sentence In AIPAC Case Seen As Ominous |
| http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=11977&print=yes#
(01/27/2006)
Sentence In AIPAC Case Seen As Ominous
Judge’s comments could reflect shift in judicial thinking on secrecy; ‘chill’ already on, say activists.
James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent
The stiff sentence meted out to former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin for improperly passing on sensitive government information could bode ill for two former pro-Israel lobbyists implicated in the case, who will face the same judge in April.
Franklin was handed a 12 ½-year sentence, which could be reduced if he fully cooperates in the case against two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): Steve Rosen, the groups’ former policy director, and Keith Weissman, an Iran specialist.
Some experts say the government’s arguments in the case and the judge’s comments at the sentencing reflect a shift in judicial thinking on government secrecy that could complicate the defense of the former AIPAC officials — and pose a big problem for lobbyists, journalists, academics and others who deal with government officials.
Neal Sher, a former Justice Department official and onetime AIPAC executive director, said the Franklin ruling could be ominous.
“What’s troubling about this entire saga is that the Espionage Act is being used in an unprecedented way against people like Weissman and Rosen, who were the recipients of information, and the judge seemed to accept that view of the law,” he said.
At last week’s sentencing, Judge T.S. Ellis of the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., said that “persons who have unauthorized possession, who come into unauthorized possession of classified information, must abide by the law,” according to a JTA report. “That applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever.”
Franklin was sentenced on counts of providing “national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it; conspiracy to communicate classified information to an agent of a foreign government; and the unlawful retention of national defense information,” according to government attorneys.
Ellis conceded that Franklin provided the information because he thought it would alert U.S. officials to the danger posed by Iran. The result was a sentence considerably lighter than the 25-year maximum.
But United States Attorney Paul J. McNulty said, “The defendant violated his pledge to protect classified information. In doing so, he compromised national security and the system that protects it.”
Sher said that it would be a mistake to read too much into Ellis’ words — but that his comments can’t be good news for the other defendants. And it could be bad news for a variety of Jewish and pro-Israel lobbyists who now have to wonder if their routine activities could land them in jail, too.
The ongoing government crackdown is “having a big impact” on a wide range of Jewish groups, said Abraham Foxman, national director for the Anti-Defamation League.
“All of us have to think twice now about what we do; the difficulty is, you don’t really know what the ground rules are,” Foxman said. “It’s already having a chilling impact.”
The twin cases leave some big, disturbing gray areas for all lobbyists and advocates who routinely meet with government officials and discuss a wide range of issues.
“A day doesn’t go by when some confidential report doesn’t end up on the front page of the Washington Post,” said Akiba Covitz, a law professor at the Phoenix International School of Law. “What they’re saying is that something that is confidential is really confidential; not only can’t you pass it on, you can’t talk about it. That’s not the way it’s traditionally worked in Washington.”
Last week’s court action and the upcoming Rosen-Weissman trial “are putting everybody on notice: Even if you didn’t actually get a document, you could be called to account,” he said. “That’s never been true before.”
A former government prosecutor said the “legal theory that Judge Ellis seemed to accept is very troubling. The government is lowering the standards that make one culpable for simply receiving information.”
In practical terms, he said, that will kill off the routine contacts that lobbyists, journalists and think-tank academics depend on to do their jobs.
“You don’t know what’s classified or not. If you’re an academic working for some Middle East think tank, you have to worry that just hearing something from a government official could land you in jail.”
On another front, Jewish leaders are watching anxiously as Congress tries to come up with a lobbying reform package it can pass before facing disgruntled voters in November. At the top of their anxiety list: proposals that would limit or ban outright congressional travel sponsored by interest groups.
The attack on congressional jet-setting was triggered by the extravagant trips lavished on top congressional leaders, mostly Republicans, by the disgraced Abramoff. The super-lobbyist recently pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges.
But the resulting legislation could also prohibit the all-work, no-play fact-finding trips to Israel sponsored by a number of Jewish groups.
In recent days the United Jewish Communities’ office here has sent e-mail alerts about Democratic and Republican proposals. A Democratic bill sponsored by Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan would prohibit trips sponsored by nonprofit affiliates of lobbying groups.
Hundreds of politicians are taken to Israel every year by nonprofit affiliates of groups like AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee — trips Jewish leaders say are a vital tool in pro-Israel lobbying.
Several GOP proposals are in the works; House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois is proposing a complete ban on congressional travel.
William Daroff, the UJC Washington representative, said it’s not just Israel trips that are in jeopardy. Local Jewish federations and other organizations frequently bring lawmakers to their cities to provide a closer look at government-funded programs.
Daroff said Jewish groups would have no problem supporting tougher approval and disclosure requirements for congressional trips.
“We as a community welcome bright lights and full disclosure,” he said.
But barring trips, Daroff said, would be a disaster for Jewish advocacy groups on domestic and Israel-related issues.
“There are so many members of Congress who have been on genuine fact-finding trips — not just overseas, but throughout this country — who have really learned about the issues,” he said. “We don’t want to see that disappear.”
Museum Spat Revived
The old quarrel over just how involved the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum should be in current world affairs has re-emerged — but with some key actors reversing roles.
A group affiliated with Amcha: The Coalition for Jewish Concerns, the organization created by activist Rabbi Avi Weiss, is demanding that the museum attack today’s rising tide of anti-Semitism in the Arab and Islamic world and change its exhibits to document Arab support for the Nazis during World War II.
It was Rabbi Weiss who insisted that the museum should have no political role when the State Department in 1998 tried to get Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat invited to tour its permanent exhibition.
A group called Holocaust Museum Watch held a meeting in Washington last week and threw down the gauntlet.
“We are demanding that the museum call for a conference on Arab anti-Semitism,” said Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, spiritual leader of a synagogue here and a longtime associate of Rabbi Weiss. “We want the museum to start exploring the role the Arab world played in the persecution and death of Jews between 1933 and 1945. We would like to see both done as soon as possible.”
Rabbi Herzfeld said a museum statement criticizing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling for Israel’s destruction and denying the Holocaust was a result of his group’s pressure.
Not so, museum insiders say. They insist the statement on Iran had been in the works for weeks and had nothing to do with outside pressure.
In that statement, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council chair Fred Zeidman said that “President Ahmadinejad’s offensive remarks reflect an extremist mindset of the worst sort and should be cause for concern worldwide. A national leader promoting anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and genocide is simply unacceptable.”
Rabbi Herzfeld rejected charges that his group is hypocritical, supporting the museum’s involvement in current affairs only when it suits certain political objectives.
“The museum opened the door to this,” he said. “They are talking about persecutions in the Congo, in Darfur; they’ve universalized the Holocaust message. And they’ve taken on the role of talking about anti-Semitism in the world today, in America and in Europe. So you have to ask yourself, what is missing?”
What’s missing, he said, is talk about “the Arab countries that want to destroy Israel, who are taking the people killed by the Nazis and depicting them as Nazis themselves.”
The museum declined to comment, but a longtime supporter jumped right in.
Michael Berenbaum, a top Holocaust scholar and former member of the council, agreed that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are growing problems in the Muslim world, but said the museum should “reserve its moral platform for issues of mass murder and genocide. That was clearly the intention of its creators, including no less a figure than Elie Wiesel.”
Becoming involved in the current battle over anti-Israel, anti-Semitic sentiments in the Muslim world would be to “politicize the Holocaust and transform the museum into just another Jewish defense agency,” he said.
Berenbaum said that while Arab support for Hitler “deserves mention” in the museum, “it was not a major factor. They were unimportant allies, and it had little to no impact on the Final Solution. We have to remember that the museum is an exhibition, not an encyclopedia.”
More Robertson Woes
It’s apparently a really bad idea to say that a revered leader of Israel was struck down as divine punishment for his policies, a lesson the Rev. Pat Robertson is learning the hard way.
A long trail of controversial statements by the televangelist and former GOP presidential hopeful produced press coverage that ranged from the critical to the mocking. But it was Robertson’s claim that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recent stroke may have been punishment for giving up Gaza that has produced some real headaches for the controversial preacher.
More leading Evangelical figures have denounced Robertson for his Sharon comments than for any of his previous verbal missteps. That includes such heavy hitters as the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.
A bigger blow to Robertson was the cancellation this week of his upcoming speech to the National Religious Broadcasters convention apparently because officials of the group feared his presence would draw attention away from other issues. The group once regarded Robertson, a Christian radio pioneer, as a hero.
The Israeli government has accepted Robertson’s apology, but his future business dealings in the Jewish state remain a question mark.
Adding to Robertson’s woes, the National Jewish Democratic Council began a petition campaign this week demanding that the Bush administration “take immediate steps to ensure that not one more taxpayer dollar flows to Pat Robertson’s programs.”
The Democratic group also called on the Republican Party to “clearly condemn the disturbed rhetoric and divisive actions of longtime Republican leader Pat Robertson.”
NJDC cited news reports that funding for Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” program has skyrocketed under President Bush’s faith-based initiative to more than $14 million annually. n | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:32 pm Post subject: Spycraft, free speech, and the AIPAC espionage case |
| http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8564
February 17, 2006
Espionage and the
First Amendment
Spycraft, free speech, and the AIPAC espionage case
by Justin Raimondo
Is there a First Amendment right to steal and transmit vital U.S. secrets to a foreign power? Viet Dinh, the intellectual author of the PATRIOT Act – and a rising star among the neoconservative legal theorists who have commandeered the Justice Department in the service of presidential omnipotence – thinks so.
In the latest development in the AIPAC spy case, in which two longtime employees of one of the most powerful lobbies in the Washington are charged with passing classified information to Israeli officials, Dinh has submitted a legal brief [.pdf] that, in so many words, asserts exactly that.
Dinh starts out by citing none other than Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who, at his press conference announcing the indictment of Scooter Libby, explained why he did not prosecute under the terms of the Espionage Act. The context is in response to a question about Valerie Plame's covert status:
"And all I'll say is that if national defense information which is involved because her affiliation with the CIA, whether or not she was covert, was classified, if that was intentionally transmitted, that would violate the statute known as Section 793, which is the Espionage Act.
"That is a difficult statute to interpret. It's a statute you ought to carefully apply.
"I think there are people out there who would argue that you would never use that to prosecute the transmission of classified information, because they think that would convert that statute into what is in England the Official Secrets Act.
"Let me back up. The average American may not appreciate that there's no law that's specifically just says, 'If you give classified information to somebody else, it is a crime.' There may be an Official Secrets Act in England. There are some narrow statutes, and there is this one statute that has some flexibility in it.
"So there are people who should argue that you should never use that statute because it would become like the Official Secrets Act. I don't buy that theory, but I do know you should be very careful in applying that law because there are a lot of interests that could be implicated in making sure that you picked the right case to charge that statute."
I have bolded the portions omitted by Dinh, in hopes of underscoring what are really Fitzgerald's key points. The important phrase here, of course, is "I don't buy that theory" – and neither, we hope, will the jury in the AIPAC case. Dinh's brief in favor of dismissing all charges against the AIPAC defendants is basically an argument calling for the abolition of the relevant sections of the Espionage Act. In which case it would be perfectly legal to release documents or hearsay "respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation," as the language of the Act puts it.
Furthermore, the presentation of the citation in its complete context ought to make clear that Dinh is distorting and even reversing not only the true significance of what Fitzgerald said, but also what the special counsel's investigation portends. For clearly Fitzgerald was and perhaps still is gunning to get the vice president's chief of staff – and others in the administration – on violating the same provisions of the Espionage Act of which Rosen and Weissman stand accused. The problem for Fitzgerald is that, as he put it, what Libby and his cohorts have done is throw sand in the umpire's eyes, preventing investigators from ascertaining the facts in the case and establishing a conspiracy to "out" Plame. No such problem exists for the prosecutors in the AIPAC spy case.
As revealed in the indictment of the AIPAC defendants – Steve Rosen, the lobby's longtime director, and Keith Weissman, a top policy analyst – the FBI was watching their every move as they milked Pentagon Iran specialist Larry Franklin for every drop of classified information to which he had access, including top-secret intelligence relating to al-Qaeda as well as Iran. The FBI's counterintelligence unit listened as the conspirators arranged assignations and watched as they engaged in furtive meetings: "On or about March 10, 2003," the indictment informs us,
"Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman met at Union Station early in the morning. In the course of the meeting, the three men moved from one restaurant to another restaurant and then finished the meeting in an empty restaurant."
Hardly the sort of behavior one might expect from a group supposedly engaged in, as Dinh puts it, "a core First Amendment activity" – unless spying is now constitutionally protected. Dinh's brief characterizes the accused as a couple of public-spirited guys whose only crime is exercising the "public's right to associate, advocate, and speak in an effort to shape foreign policy." What this fanciful version of events conveniently ignores is the central role played by Israeli "diplomats," including Naor Gilon, the Washington embassy's chief political officer. Franklin repeatedly met with Gilon and others and handed over classified information, in addition to indirectly transmitting U.S. secrets via the Rosen-Weissman tag team. Neither Gilon, nor any reference to specific foreign officials as described in the indictment, is so much as mentioned in Dinh's brief.
Dinh goes so far as to cite Attorney General Clark, who, when the relevant sections of the Espionage Act were amended, declared:
"Nobody other than a spy, saboteur, or other person who would weaken the internal security of the nation need have any fear of prosecution."
Rosen and Weissman have been charged with espionage because they are spies and were acting on behalf of a foreign power, just like the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss before them. They cultivated Franklin, who, convinced that U.S. policy in the Middle East is insufficiently pro-Israel, approached Rosen and Weissman, who put them in touch with Israeli agents. The pair then proceeded to act as a conduit for top-secret information gleaned from Franklin, which was passed directly to the Israelis.
How is it that someone who had a hand in drafting legislation – the PATRIOT Act – that permits the indefinite detention of American citizens, the surveillance of phone calls, e-mail, and other communications on an unprecedented scale, and otherwise represents the most invasive incursion into our civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition Acts, is now posing as a champion of the First Amendment rights of these two spies caught red-handed?
This will have to remain one of the murkiest mysteries of recent times, one that defies all explanation but this one: that this former assistant to Attorney General John Ashcroft and head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy believes that there ought to be one standard for lobbyists on behalf of a foreign country – in this case, Israel – and another for us hoi polloi who owe no foreign country our allegiance or bias. There is to be one standard for AIPAC and another for the rest of us.
Now, this imputation may seem like an unfair stretch of the facts, but ask yourself this: what if, instead of Rosen and Weissman, the two accused were named Abdullah and Mohammed? And what if the organization they worked for was, say, the Muslim American Political Action Council (MAPAC), and the two of them had been caught handing over sensitive intelligence to employees of the Iranian embassy? One has the right to wonder if Dinh – author of legislation that empowers the government to conduct surveillance of mosques and detain thousands of individuals of Middle Eastern descent, including American citizens – would be quite so forthcoming in his call for dismissing all charges.
Somehow, I doubt it.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
An interesting side note: The Franklin-AIPAC indictment dates the time-span of the AIPAC spy conspiracy as being "Between in or about April 1999 and continuing until on or about August 27, 2004." At around this time, in 1998, the U.S. rejected Israeli demands that their citizens be included in the visa waiver program: they would now have to undergo an interview and be fingerprinted. Why the change in policy, coming from the most ostensibly pro-Israel administration in memory? The AIPAC spy case is just the tip of the iceberg, as this UPI dispatch by Richard Sale makes all too clear.
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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8564 | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
