Watch This Spy Story

[NATO AIR]

interesting to say the least....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301176.html

Watch This Spy Story

By David Ignatius

Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A15

The news media have been worrying this summer about the Valerie Plame leak investigation, which has landed a New York Times reporter in jail. Meanwhile, a potentially far more dangerous threat to the press has emerged in a federal criminal indictment that lists contacts between reporters and sources as "overt acts" in an alleged conspiracy to commit espionage.

The case involves two former officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, and their alleged dissemination of classified information that they received from a former Defense Department analyst named Lawrence Franklin. The Aug. 4 indictment charged that the three disclosed secret information about U.S. policy toward Iran and terrorism to an unnamed foreign power, identified by sources as Israel.

Like the Plame investigation, the indictment is politically sensitive. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where the two lobbyists worked, is one of the most potent advocacy groups in Washington. AIPAC, as the group is known, fired Rosen and Weissman in April, and the group has seemed eager to distance itself from the fallout of the case. Given the stakes, it has received surprisingly little attention so far in the media.

But a careful reading of the indictment shows that this is a very peculiar case, indeed, and one that could have damaging consequences -- both for the news media and for lobbying groups that depend on regular exchanges of information with government officials. If the prosecution succeeds, it could change the way business is done in Washington.

The heart of the indictment is a conspiracy count, which alleges that "in an effort to influence persons within and outside the United States government, Rosen and Weissman would cultivate relationships with Franklin and others" and then transmit the classified information they obtained "to persons not entitled to receive it." The indictment lists 57 "overt acts" to further this alleged conspiracy.
Continue article @ Link