Judge rejects government plan for secret evidence at trial of two former pro-Israel lobbyists

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A federal judge on Monday rejected prosecutors' request to close portions of an upcoming trial for two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of violating the Espionage Act.

The government's proposal to keep huge swaths of evidence in the case out of public view was unprecedented and violated both the defendants' and the public's right to an open trial, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis said.

The defendants--Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, who had been lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee--are charged with illegally disclosing sensitive national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, including journalists and foreign diplomats.

Under the prosecutors' plan, only the judge, lawyers and the jury would have been given access to classified evidence. Ellis said the proposal not only raised constitutional questions, but would have been unwieldy and likely confuse jurors.


Read more: http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-pentagonspyprobe0416apr16,0,7055251.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia

[liberal N proud]

1. Secret evidence - Secret testifying all in the name of injustice

What is a little secrecy in the name of protecting the guilty?
:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kagemusha]

3. I'm no fan of their activity but I too have a problem with secret evidence.

That's not something a judge should allow lightly.

[peacetalksforall]

4. It seems it would set a precedent? Worse - for the WH - they don't

want us to know what it was. I just don't believe that this stuff goes on without coordination with the WH/DOD or WH/CIA.

[DCKit]

7. Woo Hoo, you got that right. Why shouldn't we know the depth of spying by our "allies?"

We've had enough secrets in the past six years. It's time to open some windows and get the stink out.

[The Stranger]

12. Where is all the concern when the Government uses "secret evidence" against Muslims, other "Others"?

End Government Use of Secret Evidence Against Immigrants

The aftermath of September 11, 2001: The targeting of Arabs and Muslims in America

[Kagemusha]

13. On other threads.

Because I have responded to those subjects when they have arisen. This thread concerns a different matter. I thought that's how a message board was supposed to work.

Have a nice day.

[The Stranger]

14. There may be a double standard at work here.

That was the point of the post -- certainly it was not to make you defensive.

[Kagemusha]

15. There may be a double standard at work, but not by me.

That was the point of my response.

[The Stranger]

23. Fine.

[TacticalPeek]

5. I think it's actually the prosecutors who want to play it secret as much as they can.

It allows them to use more classified information and make the strongest cast against these traitors.

IMO, Abbe Lowell and the spies are blackmailing the US by pushing for classified info to be revealed more fully and publicly, ostensibly in their defense, which the government might be unable or uninclined to do, so that they would drop the charges rather than compromise the classified info.

It's similar to what Libby and Cheney did in Scooter's trial, but in the end they chickened out when it came to testifying and the ploy was never used. Unless the prosecutors get some relief from appeals courts, and work out something with the defense and judge, these particular worms might wiggle off the hook.

[The Magistrate]

22. Exactly, Sir

It is a pretty common tactic. If someone were accused of stealing an automobile, its particulars would be in evidence at the trial. These people are accused of, in effect, stealing secret documents, but if the particulars of them are made public at trial, then the government is showing no real harm was done by disseminating the information they contain, since they are willing to do it themselves. The prosecutor's proposal is only to be expected, as is the defense's demand for openness. In my view, the judge did right, as the principal of open trial is the highest value of our legal process, and there is something inherently rotten to conviction on secret evidence.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. "It seems the U.S. has been taken over by Israel."

Really? How did you jump to that conclusion?

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lurking Dem]

16. They colluded with Hezboallah to attack them?

Donations? Votes? Uncle ZOG controls all?

WTF?

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lurking Dem]

18. First you are talking about Lebanon

now you are talking about Palestine. I'm confused.

Israeli operatives now? And Jew s represent a whopping... what? 2% of the voting public? We get calls from AIPAC telling us who to send money to?

ZOG = Zionist Occupation Government It is a conspiracy theory alleging Jewish control of various governments.

[peacetalksforall]

19. Lebanon-Palestine-Syria - decade old eye for eye incidents.

in perpetuity, so it seems. It allowed Israel to gain from the power of the U.S. Government. And you would reply that Lebanon, 'Palestine', and Syria gain from Saudi Arabia. And on it goes. On and on. Eye for eye.

Donations and votes - a given.

ZOG- I'll check it out to see whether it can be labeled conspiratorial, imo.

[Lurking Dem]

21. LOL!

ZOG- I'll check it out to see whether it can be labeled conspiratorial, imo.

You do that, hon.

[Lurking Dem]

27. I have to wonder

how Uncle Zog's Medicinal Mazl Tov panties get deleted? Curious.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[barb162]

20. Did you miss the news about Israel ceding Gaza

about two years ago and the Palestinians thankfully responding by shooting kassams into Israel daily

[mod mom]

8. If the govt doesn't want this info out you can bet the corporate media will comply

and make it a non story. In other words, it will be up to the netroots to make the public aware of this trial and see it gets the proper attention.

[hvn_nbr_2]

10. This will become a pretext to let them off.

Prosecutor: "We can't expose this sensitive national security information to the public, so you leave us no choice but to drop the charges."

Judge: "Well, okay."

[The Stranger]

25. "Secret evidence" and "state secrets" -- totalitarianism and the destruction of due process.

[IChing]

26. And the government's collusion with American Israel Public Affairs Committee

This is a spy trial. AIPAC is in league with the war mongers.

Iran-Contra II commenced August 27, 2004, when CBS News broke the story that Defense Intelligence Agency Iranian policy analyst Larry Franklin was under investigation for allegedly spying for the state of Israel. <1>

Franklin allegedley offered highly classified draft documents regarding the United States policy towards Iran to two members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The two AIPAC Iran analysts, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, have retained a well known criminal defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, for counsel.<2>

Attorney General John Ashcroft assigned highly partisan Republican U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty to the espionage case. Charges of espionage were expected to be downgraded to charges of mishandling classified information.

Franklin's security clearance was revoked in June 2004.

[IndianaGreen]

29. Look at all the Presidential wannabes that crawled as supplicants at the AIPAC convention

We are talking about the creme de la creme of both major parties acting like subservient lapdogs of an organization that should be treated as an arm of a foreign government.

[Lurking Dem]

30. "Crawled as supplicants"???

:eyes:

[Behind the Aegis]

31. It's a clever linguistic run-around of the old...

...Israel runs the Congress (and WH).

[Lurking Dem]

32. How cute.

If I join AIPAC can I have minions? I've always wanted minions.

[IndianaGreen]

33. AIPAC is a threat to the American people, here is why

Working towards good relations between the US and Israel is one thing, lobbying to get America into another war in the Middle East is something else altogether. AIPAC was one of the megaphones calling for the invasion of Iraq, and they are now doing the same in opposing any attempt by Congress to reassert its Constitutional authority to declare war by putting limits on Bush.

Published on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 by The Hill

Dems Divided over Webb’s Proposal Requiring Approval for Attacking Iran

by Elana Schor

WASHINGTON - Supporters of requiring President Bush to secure congressional approval for any preemptive strike on Iran are regrouping for a new push, presaging a difficult vote for Democratic leaders and presidential hopefuls alike.Democrats hailed the Iraq withdrawal language attached to the emergency supplemental as a signal of a newly assertive Congress, even though the House removed a mandate for authorization of attacks on Iran from early drafts of the bill. The reversal quieted some Democrats’ concerns that reining in Bush on Iran could endanger Israel’s security in the Middle East.

<snip>

Iran’s recent saber-rattling detention of a British naval crew, which ended in the soldiers’ safe release, appears to have sparked less escalation than expected between Bush and Ahmadinejad. But pro-Israel stalwarts such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) see any curb on U.S. action against Iran as a potential handcuff in Iraq.

“What if the president decides, at the request of General Petraeus, that we have to take action to take out base?” Lieberman said yesterday. “I wouldn’t want to have to go through a month-long debate in Congress before you could do that.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Washington’s most influential pro-Israel lobbying group, held its capital policy conference just after the House removed Iran authorization language from its version of the supplemental. AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr told members there that any legislative attempt to limit U.S. options in Iran would be harmful and signal weakness.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/18/601/

[Lurking Dem]

34. And this opinion

(which is all this is) justifies your use of over the top rhetoric echoing some very ugly agitprop from the past how?

[IndianaGreen]

35. Are you in favor of Congress giving Bush another blank check for war?

That's the issue we are facing. AIPAC already decided that one IWR was not enough!

[Lurking Dem]

36. I think that AIPAC has

a mere percentage of the influence you think it has.

We have oilmen in the Whitehouse. How about spending more time bitching about the influence of the American Petroleum Institute PAC? They spent more than AIPACs annual budget to defeat one proposition in California.

Of course the ever nefarious Jew and/or Israel supporter and their alleged behind-the-scenes manipulation of our government is so much more fun to masticate.

[LeftishBrit]

37. It seems to me that BUSH and his cohorts decided that one IWR wasn't enough

AIPAC may well be going along with them, but what makes you think that anyone, except perhaps Halliburton through Cheney, is giving the government orders? They can make their bad decisions very well on their own.

I disagree with lots of what the Israeli government does, but blaming Bush's bad foreign policy on them is paranoid at best. It would IMO be closer to the truth to turn that saying on its head and say that some of the Israeli government's bad policies, like some of ours, are due to Bush egging them on. But ultimately bad governments - ours, yours, Israel's, Poland's, China's, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all's - have to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame other countries or organizations (on the right here, usually the Europaean Union), or any group of 'bloody foreigners'.

There seems to be a recent pattern of American (and sometimes British)governments getting involved in, or even starting, self-defeating imperialist wars in other regions; and of 'liberal' politicians being too afraid of seeming unpatriotic to resist this as firmly as they should. Vietnam. Reagan's messes in Central America. Now Iraq. Did Israel order America to get involved in Vietnam or Central America? It seems to me that American goverments did these things. Not Israeli ones.

[HuffleClaw]

11. 'secret' meaning, of course, 'damaging to the administration' n/t

[IndianaGreen]

28. The public needs to know the extent of treason committed within AIPAC

This is the same AIPAC that acted as a neocon megaphone for an attack on Iraq, and is now doing the same for war on Iran.

[LeftishBrit]

38. Hold on...

You genuinely think that if not for AIPAC, America wouldn't have gone into the war in Iraq?

That Big Oil, Halliburton and the sheer power of Empire had nothing to do with it? Add some Christian religious extremism and rapture-freakery, a little bit of weird almost-Freudian stuff about Bush wanting to show Saddam that his penis was bigger than his daddy's, and Tony Blair rushing into the fray to support Georgie because he always wanted to bear the White Man's Burden in an Empire on which the Sun Never Set, and was born at least 70 years too late to do that on his own. And you get an almighty nighmarish mess.

I think AIPAC from the sound of them have become dominated by right-wing Republicans who are very unrepresentative of American Jews as a whole, and that the organization needs a lot of reform to make it more balanced. But some of the posts here remind me a bit (as I think I've said before) of McCarthyism, with 'Israel' and 'AIPAC' taking the place of 'the Soviet Union' and 'fellow-travellers'. And at least the Soviet Union WAS a real superpower - Israel isn't.