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News organizations filed documents in federal court Monday opposing a government request to close portions of an upcoming trial of two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of violating the Espionage Act.
Media organizations, including The Associated Press, are concerned the government wants to keep large portions of evidence in the case out of public view when former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman go to trial.
Defense attorneys have expressed a similar concern, filing a motion to ''Strike the Government's Request to Close the Trial.''
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III rejected a similar motion filed last month and said at the time that he thought defense lawyers were being overdramatic in portraying the government as seeking to ''close the trial.''
In rare cases, courts have allowed the government to use what is called ''the silent witness rule,'' in which a jury sees certain evidence against the defendants that is never made available publicly.
Rosen and Weissman are accused of violating a rarely prosecuted World War I-era law that bars the receipt and disclosure of national defense information.
The Italian Connection
Carlo Bonini, journalist for La Repubblica in Italy and author of Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror, describes Italy's role in the flawed intelligence that helped justify the war in Iraq.
"Now, bear with me a moment here. Back in 2002-2003, officials in the Bush administration and their neocon supporters, retro-think-tank admirers, and allied media pundits, basking in all their Global War on Terror glory, were eager to talk about the region extending from North Africa through the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the former SSRs of Central Asia right up to the Chinese border as an "arc of instability." That arc coincided with the energy heartlands of the planet and what was needed to "stabilize" it, to keep those energy supplies flowing freely (and in the right directions), was clear enough to them. The "last superpower," the greatest military force in history, would simply have to put its foot down and so bring to heel the "rogue" powers of the region. The geopolitical nerve would have to be mustered to stamp a massive "footprint" -- to use a Pentagon term of the time -- in the middle of that vast, valuable region. (Such a print was to be measured by military bases established.) Also needed was the nerve not just to lob a few cruise missiles in the direction of Baghdad, but to offer such an imposing demonstration of American shock-and-awe power that those "rogues" -- Iraq, Syria, Iran (Hezbollah, Hamas) -- would be cowed into submission, along with uppity U.S. allies like oil-rich Saudi Arabia."