Bush Revives Espionage Act

Village Voice
by Nat Hentoff
November 10th, 2006

Not many Americans know about this trial, slated for next January, that could result in future government suppression of news stories—based on classified information—suchas The Washington Post's reports by Dana Priest of CIA secret prisons in Europe and the James Risen–Eric Lichtblau New York Times revelations on the National Security Agency's secret, warrantless spying on Americans.

The defendants, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, are former and dismissed staff members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading pro-Israel lobbying organization.

They are accused by the Justice Department of having received classified information from a Defense Department analyst, Lawrence Anthony Franklin, who has since pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison. Rosen and Weissman are charged with giving the information to an Israeli diplomat—and to a journalist.

"There's little difference between what the defendants are charged with and what reporters and advocates do day-to-day," says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy. Aftergood says a conviction would put this nation far along the path to having its own Open Secrets law, the British measure that bars public interest as a defense for revealing classified information. "That would mean a fundamental transformation of the American government," he continues. "Retreating from freedom of the press would mean surrender of the principles of self-rule as the best form of government." [Read More]