Perhaps trivia....perhaps more.
Notice the fourth and fifth-to-last paragraphs quoted directly below:
"Journalists, increasingly denied access to the Bush administration,
have taken in recent years to soliciting information from groups and
lobbies close to the White House. AIPAC is known among journalists as
a premier conduit for hard-to-get information, and two such incidents
are cited in the indictment. JTA has learned that the incidents
involve The Washington Post and The Nation."
"Additionally, defense sources say they have reason to believe that
the defendants' relationship with a New York Times reporter might have
been monitored."
(end of quote)
In all probability, that is Judith Miller.
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Intelligence gathering under the microscope
AIPAC trial could expose ways information is gathered in D.C.
By Ron Kampeas, JTA
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/11/aipac_trial_cou.php
It's a classified leak case that could rattle U.S. foreign policy and
fundamentally alter how Washington does business - but while the world
watches the implosion in the vice president's office, this case is
proceeding quietly across the Potomac.
Motions filed in recent weeks in the case against two former senior
staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have gone
virtually unnoticed in the mainstream media, but their implications
could be as explosive as the perjury indictment last week against
Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and a principal
architect of the Iraq war.
Defense motions suggest that the trial, scheduled to start Jan. 2,
could expose the extent of covert U.S. surveillance of an ally,
Israel, and how Israeli diplomats gather information about the United
States.
It also could shed light on how journalists use intermediaries like
AIPAC to gather information, on how U.S. officials selectively leak
information to manipulate public perception of U.S. policy and on the
inner workings of AIPAC, an organization famed for its media-shy
profile.
A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday on the pre-trial motions in the
case charging Steve Rosen, AIPAC's former foreign policy chief, and
Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, with illegally transmitting
classified information.
Lawrence Franklin, a Pentagon analyst, pleaded guilty last month to
leaking classified information relating to Iran. Judge T.S. Ellis says
he will entertain postponements, partly because recent Jewish holidays
impeded defense preparation.
Two defense motions filed Oct. 21 seek to subpoena as witnesses
Israeli and U.S. diplomats, raising the possibility that the case will
expose how the countries share information and how U.S. diplomats try
to manipulate public perception through strategic leaks.
The diplomats are not named in the documents, but JTA has established
that one of the three Israelis sought in the case is Naor Gilon, who
was chief political officer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington until
this summer.
Two of the four U.S. officials sought are David Satterfield, currently
the deputy ambassador in Iraq and formerly an assistant deputy
secretary of state, and Kenneth Pollack, a member of President
Clinton's national security council, JTA has established.
David Siegel, the Israeli Embassy spokesman, acknowledged receipt of
the defense request for Israeli diplomats' cooperation. He would not
comment further, but Israel already has offered limited cooperation to
the prosecution.
Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, previously described the Israelis as
uncooperative with the defense.
Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles,
likened the case to that of Zacarias Moussaoui, allegedly involved in
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. A judge in the same Alexandria, Va.
courthouse where Rosen and Weissman will be tried expressed sympathy
for Moussaoui's claim that the government's refusal to allow him to
see testimony of other Al-Qaida suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
unfairly prejudiced his case.
"The more the defendants show it's not their fault that the Israeli
witnesses are not available, the likelier it is they will get relief
from the court," Levenson said.
The State Department refused to make Satterfield available for
comment. A spokesman said that the decision about whether or not to
testify was Satterfield's alone, and the department would not compel
him to do so.
Pollack did not return calls.
One motion also seeks to subpoena the FBI agents in the case. Sources
close to the defense have suggested that the strategy is to show how
little the FBI came up with during a broad, six-year investigation.
The strategy also is reflected in a separate exchange of motions on
how much of the transcripts and tapes of tapped phone conversations
the prosecution must share with the defense. The prosecution is
offering only nine hours of what could amount to hundreds of hours of
recordings.
The strategy also would have the effect of exposing the breadth of
covert attention that U.S. agencies pay to Israel and to AIPAC, a
respected domestic lobbying organization. The prosecution hopes to
stymie that exposure with its own motion that seeks not only to
suppress most of the tapped conversations, but even their quantity.
A close analysis of the indictment shows that FBI tracking of Rosen
and Weissman did not begin in earnest until 2002. Yet there is much in
the indictment preceding that date, suggesting that the FBI might have
had other targets, including Israeli diplomats, journalists and even
U.S. officials.
Another government practice with the potential for embarrassment, as
the Libby case has shown, is the tendency for administration officials
to selectively leak information to manipulate public opinion.
Satterfield and Pollack, neither of whom has been charged in the case,
allegedly leaked information related to Iran. If required to testify,
they likely would be asked why it was important to get this
information to the pro-Israel lobby.
In previous hearings, Judge Ellis has expressed sympathy for defense
demands for full sharing of files. But it's not just the U.S.
government that stands to be embarrassed should Ellis grant the
motion.
"Any and all statements made by the defendants to the following people
are relevant," says a defense motion filed Oct. 21. "Their employees,
supervisors or co-workers at AIPAC; their alleged co-conspirators;
anyone referred to in the superseding indictment; any government
official of Foreign Nation A," a reference to Israel; "any employee or
official of the United States; and/or any journalists."
That list threatens to blow open a number of Washington practices.
Diplomats of all countries in Washington avidly mine government
officials and lobbyists for unclassified tidbits.
Journalists, increasingly denied access to the Bush administration,
have taken in recent years to soliciting information from groups and
lobbies close to the White House. AIPAC is known among journalists as
a premier conduit for hard-to-get information, and two such incidents
are cited in the indictment. JTA has learned that the incidents
involve The Washington Post and The Nation.
Additionally, defense sources say they have reason to believe that the
defendants' relationship with a New York Times reporter might have
been monitored.
Finally, the defense will argue that the practices alleged were
routine for AIPAC.
AIPAC has insisted that Rosen and Weissman overstepped bounds. The
group fired the two in April because of what its spokesman said was
information arising out of the FBI investigation. It is obligated to
pay their legal fees under AIPAC's bylaws, however. [...]
Posted by Ted Belman at November 2, 2005 01:06 PM
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This article linked from: http://www.antiwar.com/
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http://www.lp.org/
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