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Feature Story /
Lobbyists to Stand Trial in Spy
Case
A judge rejects the
arguments of pro-Israel activists charged under a
1917 espionage law with conspiring to obtain U.S.
secrets.
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The ruling, by U.S. District
Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Va., clears the
way for the trial of two former officials of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a
pro-Israel lobbying
organization.
The defendants, Steven J.
Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted last year
by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to
obtain information about Iran and other Middle East
nations from Lawrence A. Franklin, then a Pentagon
analyst. Franklin pleaded guilty to passing
government secrets and in January was sentenced to
more than 12 years in
prison.
The Justice Department
prosecution of Rosen and Weissman, based on a
broadly written but little-used World War I-era
espionage law, has been controversial since the
charges were brought last August. The Espionage Act
of 1917 makes it a crime to disclose or receive any
information "relating to the national defense"; it
is not limited to classified
data.
But the government cannot
seek to punish all unauthorized leaks of
information, he wrote: For example, punishing a
newspaper for publishing a classified document that
recounts official misconduct in the awarding of
defense contracts would clearly violate the 1st
Amendment, the judge
wrote.
The government must
establish that "national security is genuinely at
risk" and that those who wrongly disclosed the
information knew that its disclosure could harm the
nation, he
said.
Part
02 /
The press has been under
fire from the Bush administration and congressional
Republicans for publishing information about
then-secret aspects of the government's war on
terrorism. A federal grand jury in Alexandria
reportedly is hearing evidence about leaks that led
to news accounts of the National Security Agency's
warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists'
communications into and out of the
U.S.
Prosecutors have said that
for the espionage law to be invoked, an individual
possessing secret information must intend to cause
harm to America. But they have not ruled out the
possibility of charging
journalists.
Some legal experts are
skeptical of the judge's reasoning that safeguards
are sufficient to prevent abusive
prosecutions.
"It is predicated on an idea
that the executive and judicial branches will
operate with rectitude and only prosecute cases
where there is a genuine risk of harming national
security" rather than political considerations,
said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and
law at the University of Minnesota. "It presumes a
degree of honest government that, sadly, does not
always
exist."
Aftergood and Kirtley said
they knew of no other case where the United States
was seeking criminal charges against someone other
than a government employee who clearly violated a
nondisclosure
agreement.
The ruling sets the stage
for a trial that will probably provide an inside
look into how Washington
works.
"It's a momentous ruling
with radical implications," said Steven Aftergood,
who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the
Federation of American Scientists. "A lot of people
who are in the business of gathering information,
such as reporters and advocates, are now going to
have to grapple with the potential threat of
prosecution. The dividing line has always been
between leakers, who may be prosecuted, and the
recipients of the leak, who have never been. Now
that dividing line has been
erased."
The ruling is a significant
victory for the Bush administration, which has been
trying to clamp down on media disclosures of
anti-terrorism programs since the Sept. 11
attacks.
At the same time, legal
experts said, it could chill the ability of a broad
segment of the public -- including lobbyists,
academics and journalists -- to learn about the
inner workings of government and expose misconduct
or controversial programs of public interest.
Lawyers for Accused,
Rosen and Weissman have
indicated that a number of senior administration
officials also provided the men with sensitive
information and that they might be called as
witnesses. Among them is Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, who at the time of the alleged
contact was White House national security advisor.
The decision appears to be the first in
which a court has found that citizens other than
government employees can be charged for receiving
and disclosing secret government information,
experts said.
The lobbyists' lawyers
sought to have the charges thrown out, arguing that
the law did not anticipate prosecution of anyone
other than government officials who leaked secrets
after signing confidentiality agreements. They also
said the law's language was too vague to give the
men notice of what sorts of disclosures were
prohibited, denying them of due process of law. And
they argued that the charges violated their
clients' right to free speech.
The Espionage Act of June 15, 1917 -
SECTION 3. Whoever, when the United States is
at war, shall willfully make or convey false
reports or false statements with intent to
interfere with the operation or success of the
military or naval forces of the United States, or
to promote the success of its enemies, or shall
willfully make or convey false reports, or false
statements, . . . or incite insubordination,
disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the
military or naval forces of the United States, or
shall willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or
enlistment service of the United States, or . . .
shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any
disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language
about the form of government of the United States,
or the Constitution of the United States, or the
military or naval forces of the United States . . .
or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign
enemy, or shall willfully . . . urge, incite, or
advocate any curtailment of production . . . or
advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of
any of the acts or things in this section
enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support
or favor the cause of any country with which the
United States is at war or by word or act oppose
the cause of the United States therein, shall be
punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or
imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or
both . . . A portion of the amendment to Section 3
of the act was subsequently repealed in
1921.
4.
Related Stories
/
"In essence,
their position is that once a government secret has
been leaked to the general public and the first
line of defense thereby breached, the government
has no recourse but to sit back and watch as the
threat to the national security caused by the first
disclosure multiplies with every subsequent
disclosure," Ellis wrote. "This position cannot be
sustained."
And, he said, "both common
sense and the relevant precedent point persuasively
to the conclusion that the government can punish
those outside of the government for the
unauthorized receipt and deliberate retransmission
of information relating to the national
defense."
Rosen, a prominent figure in
Washington lobbying circles for two decades, and
Weissman, a top Middle East strategist, are accused
of passing on information about American policy
options in the Middle East, about an FBI report on
the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia and
about terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. The
indictment alleges they disclosed the information
to AIPAC colleagues, an Israeli Embassy official
and a reporter for the Washington Post.
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
Magazine, tviNews.net, YES90, Your Easy Search,
Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, LA Times, NY Times,
VRA's D-Diaries, Industry Press Releases, They Said
It, SmartSearch, and Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia were used in compiling and
ascertaining this Yes90 news
report.
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tviNews S90 109 Pro-Israel
Lobbyists To Stand Trial in Spy
Case
A judge rejects the
arguments of pro-Israel activists charged under a
1917 espionage law with conspiring to obtain U.S.
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