By Tom Burridge, BBC News
The Obama administration is facing criticism for prosecutions brought under the US Espionage Act against government employees accused of leaking sensitive information. Some accuse the US government of over-reacting, following the release of files by Wikileaks.
When Steve Rosen spotted two men walking up his drive early one morning in August 2004, he thought they were evangelicals from a local church.
In fact, they were FBI agents who had come to his home in the US state of Maryland to inform him he was being prosecuted for receiving and passing on classified information.
''You could have knocked me over with a feather," Mr Rosen said. ''I hadn't the remotest clue what they were talking about.''
At the time he was working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a powerful Washington DC-based pro-Israel lobbying group.
The FBI had been following him for five years and monitoring his conversations.
'Sham'
One of his sources, included in the charges against him, was Pentagon intelligence analyst Lawrence Franklin.
Five years later, the Department of Justice's case against Steve Rosen and his Aipac colleague and co-defendant Keith Weisman collapsed. The prosecution was unable to show they had criminal intent.
"If we had had a trial we would have been able to show in great detail what a sham this prosecution was," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment