Economic espionage haunts American-Israel lobby

Antiwar.com - Grant Smith - Steven J. Rosen’s $20 million defamation lawsuit against his former employer, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has now taken a predictable turn. AIPAC fired Rosen and fellow analyst Keith Weissman over their indictments under the Espionage Act in 2005. The criminal prosecution was ultimately quashed by the Obama administration to the chagrin of prosecutors in early 2009. A November 8, 2010 AIPAC defense filing in Superior Court asked Judge Erik Christian to dismiss the civil suit, alleging that Rosen’s use of company computers to surf pornographic websites and selections from damning depositions proved AIPAC’s statements that he did not comport to company standards were not slander. As predicted, Rosen has now gone for AIPAC’s jugular by deposing Executive Director Howard Kohr (PDF) and legislative deputy director Esther Kurz about their roles in an earlier espionage caper against US industries and workers involving AIPAC’s use of classified information.

...The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel could declassify the trade document purloined by AIPAC in 1984. This would allow private US corporations and organizations to sue AIPAC for damages incurred when their trade secrets (entrusted to the US government) were used against them. At present, there is no longer any legitimate national security or commercial benefit to be obtained for keeping the document out of public hands. Armed with detailed information about how Israel and its US lobby turned closely held industry trade secrets against their owners, the American private sectorcould provide the relief that stymied Espionage Act prosecutions and weird defamation suits over illegal activity cannot....Read more