Home

Due to his involvement in an espionage case involving Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin and two prominent AIPAC members, Uzi Arad, who is expected serve as national security adviser to Binyamin Netanyahu, is currently barred from entering the United States.

According to a report by Eli Lake in the Washington Times, the indictment against Franklin makes two references to "a person previously associated with an intelligence agency of [the foreign official's] country." Two former U.S. officials and a former Israeli official confirmed to the Times that Arad is that person.

Arad, the founding director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, and who has previously served as foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, has been denied a visa under section 212 3(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act since June 2007. The provision gives consular officers and the Justice Department authority to bar people who may seek to commit espionage in the U.S. Washington immigration lawyer Glen Wasserstein told Lake that Arad is banned under the section of law that allows the federal government to deny a person entry who they believe is there to spy for another country or to sabotage the U.S.

The "AIPAC Espionage Scandal" began in 1999 when Franklin, who worked on the Iran desk in the Office of the Security of the Department of Defense, provided national defense information (NDI) to two staffers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman. The memorandum opinion from the U.S. district court says that the NDI concerned terrorist activities in Central Asia, classified information regarding al-Qaeda, strategy opinions against an unspecified Middle Eastern country, classified information related to the Iraq War, and U.S. intelligence related to unspecified Middle Eastern countries.

Confirmation of the existence of a classified FBI report on the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia was also included in the leaked intelligence. The NDI was reportedly passed in conversations from Franklin to Rosen and Weissman between April 1999 and the summer of 2004. Franklin was found guilty in 2005 on five charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He was sentenced to close to 13 years in prison in 2006.

Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, and Weissman, AIPAC's senior Middle East analyst, received the information from Franklin while they were still active lobbyists and employees of AIPAC. According to the memorandum opinion, neither man held a security clearance at the time. In addition to lobbying, the memorandum opinion says that Rosen and Weissman made strong relationships with government officials with access to NDI, obtained the information, and then transmitted the information to "persons not otherwise entitled to receive it, including members of the media, foreign policy analysts, and officials of a foreign government."

Arad is considered an official of a foreign government. In Franklin's indictment, according to Lake, Arad is referenced twice; two former U.S. officials and a former Israeli official confirmed that "a person previously associated with an intelligence agency of [a foreign official's] country" refers to Arad.

Although Franklin has been convicted, Rosen and Weissman's trial is more complicated, and experts believe it has taken a turn that will likely lead to their acquittal. Because NDIs are not considered classified information, there is still doubt whether Rosen and Weissman received and transmitted classified information.

Classified information, according to the memorandum opinion, "may or may not qualify as NDI." The executive branch is responsible to "classify and hold closely information... of which is deemed by the government to have the potential to damage the national security." However, if the executive branch, meaning Franklin, failed to secure the information, it may be his sole responsibility to keep it safe.

NDI, according to the memorandum opinion, is "information, which at the time of an alleged unauthorized disclosure, is found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt to have been closely held by the government and to be potentially damaging to the United States or useful to an enemy of the United States if disclosed without authorization." According to Rosen and Weissman's defense, this does not necessarily mean that the information was classified. It may only imply that the information given to Rosen and Weissman was sensitive because of the time it was transmitted, but not labeled classified.

The court has subpoenaed J. William Leonard, the former director of security programs for the Department of Defense and the director of the information security oversight office, to give his opinion regarding transmitting the NDI. According to Steven Aftergood, writing at the Web site of the Federation of American Scientists, prosecutors had sought to prevent Leonard from testifying because "he had briefly discussed the case with prosecutors while he was still in government." However, according to the memorandum opinion, the conversation the prosecution had with Leonard was so vague that it could not be considered legal counsel.

"[Leonard] shared with the prosecutors his own general view regarding the government's over-classification of information," the memorandum says. "Notably, however, they did not discuss any of the particular policies or countries at issue in this case, nor did the meeting's participants discuss the particular facts of this case, they did not discuss any classified information at issue, nor did the prosecutors disclose to Leonard any of the alleged NDI information or show him any classified documents."

Afraid that he would not be able to testify because he already contributed significantly to the case, Leonard declined to testify until he was issued a subpoena to court so he could weigh his opinion as an experienced intelligence officer.

A trial date for Rosen and Weissman has been set for April 21.