| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:33 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: Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:14 am Post subject: How AIPAC agents will be defended: Then They Came for Me |
| Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:26:13 -0800
From: "Jeff Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net>
Subject: How AIPAC agents will be defended: Then They Came for Me
It is increasingly apparent that the defense of the two AIPAC agents arrested for receiving and passing secrets about Iran to the Israeli government will be spun as an attempt by the US government to further restrict access to classified documents and penalize those who reveal them to the public, i.e., whistle blowers, despite the fact this is NOT what these two agents did. They gave the information to a foreign government. But already journalistic organizations, under the sway of the lobby, are concerned about the prosecution of Rosen and Weissman as being a threat to our civil liberties. This from the folks at "the lobby" who gave us the Effective Death Penalty and Counter-terrorism Act under Clinton.
http://www.forward.com/main/printer-friendly.php?id=7276
HTML Attachment [ Download File | Save to Yahoo! Briefcase ]
Editorial
Then They Came for Me
By
January 27, 2006
The Justice Department's investigation of two pro-Israel lobbying officials in Washington, shrouded in mystery for much of the past year and a half, is rapidly gaining some clarity as the case moves toward trial. As the fog lifts and the facts of the case become clear, some of the more paranoid conspiracy theories that have been circulating over the months are going to look mighty foolish. On the other hand, the facts might give us some brand-new reasons to be scared.
The investigation became public in August 2004, when CBS News reported that the FBI had a "full-fledged espionage investigation under way." The probe involved a "suspected mole" in the Pentagon allegedly passing secrets to Israel via officials of the vaunted pro-Israel lobbying organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The CBS report launched a frenzy of chattering among anti-Israel types who decided it was another Pollard case, final proof that Israel and its friends in this country represent a looming security threat.
Over the months, leaks and disclosures from the closely guarded investigation began to paint a very different picture. The "mole" was no agent-in-place, but a loyal (and non-Jewish) Pentagon official alarmed at the course of American policy. Nor was there any "espionage"; the Pentagon aide, Lawrence Franklin, evidently hoped to reach his own higher-ups by sidestepping the chain of command and sharing information with well-connected lobbyists, something that happens every day in Washington. As that picture became clear, it helped fuel a whole new conspiracy theory among pro-Israel activists convinced the entire investigation was driven by a single FBI agent with an anti-Jewish agenda.
But the investigation has continued and broadened in reach, costing the federal government millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours. The one-rogue-agent theory, however plausible to begin with, could not stand up in the face what was clearly a full-court press by the federal government. But what were the feds after?
Control, it seems. As Ori Nir reports on Page 1, the government's increasingly public actions in the case make it plain that its goal is to deter leakers and tighten its hold on classified information. The plan, legal scholars are increasingly convinced, is to stake out new legal ground and extend government secrecy laws, making private citizens accountable for violations that were previously enforceable only on government employees.
Under American law as it now stands, a government employee can be punished for leaking classified information, but private citizens can?t be sanctioned for receiving it. If private citizens could be punished, it would have an enormous chilling effect on the ability of the press and the public to expose government wrongdoing. And that, it seems, is the point.
That appears to be the reason that the government took the curious tack of pleading out the case of Franklin, the government employee accused of leaking classified information, and using him to bring down the two lobbyists accused of receiving it, former Aipac aides Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The administration evidently wants to make their case into a show trial, hoping to make new law out of the ruined lives of two respected public advocates.
The truth, as it comes out, could prove something of a brain-twister — not just to the conspiracy theorists but to hard-core advocates on both sides of our increasingly polarized national debate. Those most opposed to the Bush administration and its security policies tend (with many exceptions) to view Israel and its supporters as part of the problem, a hawkish amen corner pushing for an ever more draconian national security state. It's going to be hard for some of them to get their minds around the idea that the cause of Israel's advocates has become their cause. But it has.
Israel's strongest boosters could have an even tougher time. Pro-Israel organizations and their leaders have been (again, with exceptions) an important source of backing for President Bush as he's developed his war on terror into an all-encompassing philosophy of government. As the building blocks of his strategy have emerged — the Patriot Act, the detentions of foreigners and citizens without trial or due process, the systematic abuse of detainees, the domestic wiretaps without warrant — the onetime champions of civil rights have either applauded or stood mute. Few of them ever imagined that the apparatus would one day be turned against their own cause and its advocates.
But that's what happened. As the saying goes, first they came for the enemy combatants?
Last edited by Alpha on Tue Jan 31, 2006 11:55 am; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 11:49 am Post subject: The AIPAC case: Is $1.6 million enough? |
| http://groups.google.com/group/wash.politics/browse_thread/thread/bf64db57390b8a01/7924c66076d7e49b#7924c66076d7e49b
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=676155&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=2#article676155
Posted: January 30, 2006
The AIPAC case: Is $1.6 million enough?
Monday, January 30, 16:25 EST
In the story I filed earlier,
dealing with the case against two
former AIPAC lobbyists Steve Rosen
and Keith Weissman,
a source familiar with the AIPAC
side of the story revealed that
the two rejected an AIPAC offer
of more than $1.6 million.
The source assumed that
"Rosen and Weissman are simply
not interested in the money now -
because it is their intention to
sue after the trial.
A few months ago,
and after consultations
with the defendants' lawyers,
the two were offered a large sum -
$1.625 million,
in addition to the money that the
organization had already spent on
their defense last year.
They rejected the offer."
Now, is this a lot of
money to reject or what?
As always,
it depends on the person
who answers the question.
Some sources close to the defense made
a couple of interesting points this
morning regarding AIPAC's offer.
1.
AIPAC insisted that after
it pays Rosen and Weissman,
it will be absolved of any
responsibility for the
funding of an appeal,
in the event the two are convicted.
(As mentioned in my previous report,
an appeal is imminent in such case).
The AIPAC bylaws,
the source reminded me,
refer to
"final judicial determination."
2.
AIPAC's offer might sound like
a lot to people who are not
familiar with the costs of
legal defense today.
But it was, in fact,
only about a third of the
eal cost just at the trial
level.
The defense for Rosen and Weissman
estimates total legal costs of $4
million.
AIPAC's offer does not even cover
the arrearages already accumulated
($1.2 million for Rosen and about
$800,000 for Weissman).
3.
AIPAC's offer provides nothing
for costs beyond fees paid to
law firms.
For example:
experts on classified information,
jury consultants, etc. These,
the source said,
"are vital in a modern defense."
4.
AIPAC fired the defendants after
they had worked for the organization
for many years.
(Rosen worked for AIPAC for a
quarter century during which
"he received only the highest
praise year after year."
He is 63 with three children,
the youngest of which is seven).
They took from Rosen
and Weissman salaries,
health insurance,
and pensions - everything they had.
The two can't even think about
finding a new job as long as
the trial goes on.
5.
AIPAC's offer should also be
seen in light of its own revenues
which have tripled in the past
five years.
The real cost of the defense will
be about three percent of its
revenues since August 2004,
(when the defendants troubles began),
"and that is what AIPAC should and can pay,"
the source suggested.
6. Since August 2004,
AIPAC will have raised
(by this summer) over $120 million
in hard and soft donations excluding
the capital fund for its new building
and its endowment fund.
"Permit me also to point out,"
said the source,
"that AIPAC's special appeal
for this case in September 2004
raised $4 million over the expected
donation level,
according to its own chief fundraiser,
not to mention extra donations that
came in at later dates."
AIPAC's offer, the source states,
"means it would make a profit on this case."
To be continued... | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:57 pm Post subject: A high-risk game of nuclear chicken |
| A high-risk game of nuclear chicken
http://www.sibernews.com/the-news/world-news/a-high%11risk-game-of-nuclear-chicken-200601313615/
Kenneth Timmerman, told Israeli radio in mid-January that he expected an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran "within the next 60 days", ie just after Israeli elections or just before.
Timmerman is close to Richard Perle, the indicted Cheney chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Douglas Feith and Michael Ledeen.
The question is whether ordinary Israelis are war weary, whether with Palestine or with Iran, and seek a compromise solution. Polls seem to indicate so. However, the very strong showing of Hamas in the January 25 Palestine elections could change the Israeli mood. The day after their vote success, Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahhar claimed that his movement would not change its covenant calling for the destruction of Israel, reported the Israeli online news portal Ynet.
Last week, a new element appeared in the chemistry of the long-standing Israeli Likud-US Congress influence nexus. Larry A Franklin, a former Pentagon Iran analyst and close friend of leading Pentagon neo-conservatives, was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in jail for sharing classified Pentagon information with pro-Israel lobbyists through an influential Washington-based lobby organization, AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.
AIPAC has been at the heart of ties between the Israeli right-wing Likud and members of the US Congress for years. It is regarded as so powerful that it is able to decide which Congressmen are elected or re-elected. Previously it had been considered "untouchable". That is no longer true it seems.
Franklin pleaded guilty last 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 in the affair, are facing charges of disclosing confidential information to Israel, apparently about Iran. The sentencing is causing major shock waves throughout leading US Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith. The conviction has hit a vital lobbying tool of AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobby groups, namely, expenses-paid trips for US Congressmen to Israel. Hundreds of politicians are taken to Israel every year by non-profit affiliates of groups such as AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee - trips Jewish leaders say are a vital tool in pro-Israel lobbying.
The Bush administration had tried to bury the Franklin case, unsuccessfully. It could only delay the trial until after the November 2004 US elections. The Franklin scandal as well as the Abramoff lobbying affair have both hit severe blows to the suspicious money network between Likud and the White House, potentially fatally weakening the Israeli hawk faction of Netanyahu. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:34 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.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8564 | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
