May 1st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
AIPAC Spy Case Dropped
This is almost certainly the right decision. I enjoyed AIPAC getting a black eye, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if their dealings got somewhat more scrutiny, but the particulars of this case seem an awful lot like an effort to establish a dangerous precedent that can be used in the future against all manner of journalists.
25 Responses to “AIPAC Spy Case Dropped”
Register
RSSLogin
Advertisement
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Books By Matthew Yglesias
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Basketball
Budget
China
climate
Congress
DC
Denmark
Economics
Economy
education
Energy
Environment
Finance
Gender
Germany
Health Care
History
International Law
International Relations
Iran
Israel
Media
Monetary Policy
National Security
NBA
Pakistan
Palestine
Philosophy
planning
Political Reform
Proliferation
Public Health
Public Opinion
Race
Regulation
Russia
Science
Sports
Stimulus
Sweden
taxes
Technology
Trade
transportation
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Contact Matthew Yglesias
Use this form to contact blog author Matthew Yglesias.
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
May 1st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Mr. Don Williams is steaming in impotent rage.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I am not seeing the dangerous precedent. Journalists should be afraid of publishing leaked information because the government prosecuted two lobbyists who passed secret information to a foreign government?
May 1st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I could never understand how this case got off the ground. A complex plot to smear Jane Harman?
May 1st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Am I wrong but didn’t the case originate under a Republican Justice department and am I the only to think it is ironic (if that is the right word) that it was a Democratic Justice Department that dropped the case? Of course I doubt anyone at AIPAC will see it that way.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Nothing yet from Mr. Williams. He’s probably too busy chewing on his rug.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
The issues in this case would have been much clearer were AIPAC required to register under FARA as other foreign agents are required to do. But we know that will never happen.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
As I have said on numerous occasions on this blog, this case was a crock of shit from day 1. This was nothing more then the Bush Administration attempting to set up an official secrets act without Congress passing a law. Under the theory of the prosecution, Woodward and Bernstein, to day nothing of the late Jack Anderson and his predecessor, Drew Pearson, could have been prosecuted for the same things under the same theory.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Re Yglesias
By the way, AIPAC isn’t off the hook yet. Steve Rosen is suing them for millions for firing him.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I agree, Matt. It’s the government’s job to keep its secrets secret. Government officials who violate secrecy have committed a crime, but private citizens must be allowed to speak as they please.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I don’t think anything I’ve read about this on any blog is accurate.
The indictments for Rosen and Weisman were not a “crock of shit”. Nothing about it resembled what a reporter does. They were charged with conspiracy to communicate classified/defense information. They were never indicted for the non-conspiracy count of transferring the information.
The theory of the crime was not that they simply received information, it was that they conspired with Franklin to obtain information for the Israeli embassy.
If Franklin goes to a reporter and presents him with information, Franklin is committing a crime and the reporter isn’t. If a reporter asks Franklin to get information, the reporter should damn well have his ass put on trial. If it was a genuine story needing the light of day, the reporter will not be convicted. If you don’t do that, any foreign intelligence service can just set up a little local paper, and run their spies out of it.
If, instead of AIPAC you had an American communist who, for ideological purposes, acted as a go between for the KGB with a person in Franklin’s position, would he be a criminal? Of course he would. He wouldn’t be a foreign agent. He wouldn’t have a government job or security clearance. He would still be part of a criminal conspiracy.
The charges were almost certainly dismissed because the conspiracy couldn’t be proven, not because it wasn’t a crime.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I see after reading the Times article that the reason for dismissing was that the government could not prove its case without revealing more classified information. There wasn’t a hint that they dropped it because there wasn’t a crime.
I notice that one bias Matt shares with traditional media is that anything that infringes upon a journalist’s own opinion of what privelidges they should have must be fought against.
If you conspire with someone to commit a crime, you’re committing a crime. If a journalist decides to commit a crime to get a story, they better make sure that there is a compelling case for that story to be printed.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Njorl got this exactly right.
Conspiracy charges are notoriously difficult to prove, so that sets an extremely high bar for convicting a journalist, or anyone else who isn’t collaborating in some way with a foreign government.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Yiglesias needs to apologize to Rosen for being part of the smear campaign.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
So the ongoing Israeli espionage apparat in the US is safe once again because Obama doesn’t have the guts to reveal some classified information and more importantly doesn’t have the guts to confront the Israel Lobby.
Well, what can we expect with Obama’s administration loaded with “Israel Firsters” like Joe “I’m a Zionist” Biden, Rahm “I Fought with the IDF” Emanual, Hillary “Obliterate Iran” Clinton, and Jane “This Conversation Doesn’t Exist” Harman?
May 1st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Thanks, Njorl.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
The Lobby strikes again!
[/Walt and Mearshiemer's anti-Semitism]
May 1st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
In reality Israeli intelligence is American intelligence. They are full equal partners. I don’t even think of it as espionage. It’s just the way the world is. The world mind you of self important screw ups lost down the rabbit hole fighting factions within their ranks as much as any enemy.
I cannot imagine a single important policy issue, foreign or domestic, that Israel does not have up to the day information on as to the direction of decision making and the people behind them.
I mean you would have to throw half of DC into the clink if you wanted to attack Israeli espionage. which makes this whole case so exceedingly odd. Why did they bother?
May 1st, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Two guys named Rosen and Weissman, with noses shaped like that, and you’re telling me that they aren’t part of an international Zionist conspiracy?? Obv. this is just another example of journalists being biased in favor of being legally permitted to ask questions
May 1st, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Wow S, you’re a real dumbass. They probably were, in fact, part of an international conspiracy. I doubt it was “zionist”. I think the only people who would call it that are anti-semites and reactionary Likudniks who think everyone is an anti-semite.
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:54 am
Yet another instance of thieving, sneaking Jewry. Why has the West forgotten Dickens’ Fagan and Shakespeare’s Shylock- the archetypal Jew?
Next, we’ll all be told how Israel acts for the benefit of the world and Madoff was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Never trust a Jew- genetic thieves, paganist Mammon worshipers, pedophiles par excellence and economic parasites.
235 million Indonesians, part of 1000 million global Muslims, want Israel and all Jews eradicated especially for their financing and profiteering during colonialism- or have they forgotten Rothschild and Oppenheimer?
May 2nd, 2009 at 3:09 am
Why has the West forgotten Dickens’ Fagan and Shakespeare’s Shylock- the archetypal Jew?
Dude, those are fictional characters, you know that, right?
May 2nd, 2009 at 6:58 am
Re Purba Negoro
Well, well, and antisemitic goatfucking fucktard shows up with comments right out of Mein Kampf. I have a flash for son of a fucking whore Mr. Negero. Hitler lost the Second World War through his own incompetence. I would suggest that Mr. Negero read Richard Rhodes’ history of the nuclear bomb, “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” about how all the Jewish scientists that Hitler gave the boot to contributed to the US beating Germany to the bomb. Mr. Negero is cordially invited to take his fucking comment and shove it up his fucking ass.
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
[...] On that other hand, Matt Yglesis looks at another aspect of the prosecution and concludes differently. This is almost certainlythe right decision. I enjoyed AIPAC getting a black eye, and it wouldn’t [...]
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Damn SLC, struck a nerve there huh? Typical of a filthy Shylock like you to answer only with insults. That shows what’s in your secret heart: Perversion and filth, typical Jewish behavior.
Purba Negoro: Yes, everyone in the West that hasn’t been Zio-Lobotomized knows what a goddamned plague these Jews are.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:48 am
Dude, those are fictional characters, you know that, right?
As if those characters weren’t based on objective assessments of the behavior observed in Jews, retard. Or are you one of those that just thinks Jews were “poisekewted” for no reason? If so I suggest you acquaint yourself with history so as not to sound so cranially deficient.