All but unnoticed by most of the news media, a criminal case working its way to trial in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Va., could create perilous new restrictions on both Americans' political speech and the right of their free press to report national security issues.
The constitutional implications of these proceedings are alarming enough on their own. However, the general silence among commentators and editorial pages that usually are quick to react when speech is threatened raises another troubling question: Is this case being ignored because so many of those involved in it are members of the Republicans' neoconservative faction, a group many in the press now blame for pushing the U.S. into the Iraq debacle?
The case involves Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Defense Department analyst, and two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman. As the lobby's longtime director of foreign policy issues, Rosen was one of Washington's better known lobbyists, with strong personal connections among the Bush administration's neoconservatives; Weissman was a senior Middle East analyst in his department. Both were fired from the organization after they, along with Franklin, were indicted for conspiring to violate the Espionage Act of 1917.
The government alleges that, three years ago, Franklin, an expert on Iran then working for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, orally passed classified information on Tehran's nuclear program and other Middle Eastern issues related to terrorism to Rosen and Weissman over lunch in an Italian restaurant. Franklin already had been arrested by the FBI and had agreed to participate in a sting against the two lobby officials. He subsequently has pleaded guilty to three felony counts of illegally retaining and distributing classified information; three other counts have been dismissed. In January 2006, he was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison and fined $10,000, the minimum under federal sentencing guidelines. Even that penalty was stayed, pending the resolution of Rosen and Weissman's trial -- presumably to guarantee Franklin's testimony against them.
As the New York Times reported after the sentencing: "The charges against Mr. Franklin and the two lobbyists are offenses under the Espionage Act, but none of the men have been accused of spying. . . . The case is unusual because of the charges against the lobbyists, who did not hold security clearances, were not government employees or representatives of a foreign government. They operated in a small circle of lobbyists who have commonly traded gossip and inside information with administration officials, congressional aides and journalists."
