AIPAC protests current and threatened disclosure of its highly sensitive secret files by former official Steven Rosen

IRMEP – Today the Israel Lobby Archive releases new filings from the Rosen v. American Israel Public Affairs Committee defamation lawsuit.

AIPAC formally protests former employee Steven J. Rosen's possession, partial release and ongoing threats to disclose his entire cache of highly sensitive AIPAC internal information about the US National Security Council, US campaign contribution limits impact on AIPAC operations, employee-related matters and files on the political activities of AIPAC members.

Presiding Judge Eric Christian will make a decision about AIPAC's motion to dismiss today.

Israel Lobby Archive (Latest filings marked "new").

Antiwar.com-GrandSmith – ...Proprietary documents AIPAC claims Rosen has in his possession include AIPAC's benefits and personnel policy handbook, AIPAC's bylaws (already released by Rosen), a memorandum of an AIPAC luncheon with National Security Council member Lisa Johnson, an internal memo about how limits on individual contributors would affect U.S. political campaigns, another internal memo about the individual political activities of AIPAC members, and Keith Weissman's employee performance review. Johnson worked in the Bush 43 NSC Near East and South Asian Affairs division under Bruce Ridell and Zalmay Khalilzad. Former AIPAC employee Keith Weissman was indicted for espionage alongside Rosen in 2005. AIPAC claims, "Most offensive is that Mr. Rosen has stolen the private employment evaluation of another employee and produced it in this litigation with no regard for that employee's privacy and personal information."

...While Rosen appears to have violated some narrow provisions of the protective order, he still has room to maneuver out of an immediate dismissal. In both his original defamation suit filing and subsequent introduction of evidence Rosen tried to thread a needle by claiming that it was somehow not unlawful for AIPAC to routinely collect and circulate classified U.S. government documents and that he was unjustly punished for such activities. Rosen could now claim the obvious--that AIPAC has long engaged in illegal activities, such as functioning as an agent of a foreign government--which drove it into the classified information-handling business.

Confidentiality agreements cannot limit or supersede established whistleblower protections over disclosing illegal activities. For example, if Rosen introduces the Lisa Johnson NSC memo as proof that AIPAC acted as Israel's foreign agent for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it could blow a hole not only in the confidentially agreement, but in AIPAC's tattered official stance that it was not intimately involved in planning and promoting the invasion.

Rosen could make similar whistleblower claims about the still-sealed deposition of AIPAC legislative director Ester Kurz's involvement in an earlier AIPAC economic espionage affair investigated by the FBI between 1984 and 1987 but quashed by order of the Justice Department.... Read more