A judge ruled against two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, attempting to have espionage charges dropped. The two received classified information from a former Pentagon analyst, Lawrence Franklin, who has plead guilty and is facing over 12 years in prison. Franklin gave them secret intelligence information about Iran which they passed on to Israel. They also passed it on to media and government officials in repeated attempts to influence U.S. foreign policy more strongly against Iran.
In the larger context, some of their activities are covered in the Rolling Stones article Iran. The Next War. Ironically, Franklin, and other neocon associates not charged, also passed on this information to Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was the original neocon choice for the leader of Iraq. It was later determined Chalabi passed the information on to Iran. This compromised not only the intelligence but alerted Iran that their diplomatic codes had been broken. Another unintended consequence of neocon and AIPAC foreign policy plans - the Iraq war has resulted in the opposite of what they intended. An overextended U.S. military, a rise in influence of Iran, an increase in terrorism, and Iraq electing a pro-Iranian government. The result of all the policy failures and bad judgements has gone unnoticed by the White House which is now working on the main neocon objective - attacks on Syria and Iran.
Back to Rosen and Weissman, the judge in his ruling noted the Bill of Rights concerns and national security conflicts in the charges against Rosen and Weissman. But in the conflict between national security and the right of free speech and freedom of the press he came down on the side of national security. They are the first non-government persons to be charged with receiving and passing classified intelligence.
The Federation of American Scientists is worried that the guidelines the judge used in permitting the charges to go forward would have enabled charges to be filed against many government whistle-blowers in the past. Recipients of leaks may now be charged with crimes which will undoubtedly slow leaks and prevent publication of government misdeeds. A clear example of a leak that now could be charged with being a crime is the publication of the report of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
There is a clear national security interest in preventing damaging leaks. In this case, leaks were used by both bureaucrats and a foreign interest group with an agenda that may not be in American interests. At the same time, there are national security interests, and the people's interests, at stake in preventing government cover-ups of wrongdoing. The proper course would seem to be for an open debate of the guidelines for determining true national security interests in Congress and in another look at this ruling in a higher court.
Voters, and Congress, will have to make the decision as to rather the repeated failures of the military and foreign policy schemes pursued by Rosen, Weissman, Franklin and their neocon associates should be allowed to continue.
Tags: AIPAC, FAS, Steven Rosen, Keith Weissman, Lawrence Franklin, secrecy, courts, Iran, neocons, voters, Congress
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