FBI searches offices of pro-Israel lobby

[Book Lover]

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents conducted searches Wednesday in AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) offices, as part of the investigation into suspicions that senior AIPAC officials received classified information from Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, and transferred that information to Israel.

When the investigation began in August, the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby denied serving as a conduit for documents from Franklin, who is connected to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office.

Three months ago, FBI agents interrogated AIPAC officials, and confiscated computer files. According to AIPAC, the organization is fully cooperating in the investigation, and they hope they will soon prove that the accusations are groundless.

Shortly after the investigation began, American media reported that the U.S. administration believes that the FBI will refrain from charging Franklin with espionage. The FBI apparently lacks any evidence that the Pentagon data analyst was operated by either Israel or AIPAC.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/508652.html

[htuttle]

1. So because he wasn't 'operated' by Israel...

...it doesn't matter that he passed classified information to them?

Sounds like the same defense Perle must have used when he was caught red handed doing the same thing in the 80's. He had been recorded on tape disclosing classified information at an Israeli embassy, but was never charged for it. The FBI had the embassy under surveillance for a different reason altogether, and catching Perle on tape was just 'luck'.

[Career Prole]

2. The investigation and questioning began three months ago.

I'm sure conducting office searches today will turn up all kinds of incriminating evidence.
/sarcasm

[bluestateguy]

3. I am not comfortable with this

Federal agents raiding the offices of interest groups, whether it be AIPAC or the ACLU or International ANSWER.

Many people here do not like AIPAC, and that's fine, but this only reinforces the precedent that it's OK for government agents to raid offices belonging to political organizations.

[wuushew]

4. Um but aren't these searches related to espionage?

To my knowledge the ACLU never has been involved in passing intelligence information to Israel. Interest groups that are possibly involved in felonies should be investigated.

[bluestateguy]

5. Well, OK

But that only opens the door to searches and seizures and surveillence under the Patriot Act if the government simply says that a crime "might" have been committed.

Everytime some conservative screams "treason" (that's also a felony) the door is open for groups on our side of the aisle to be scrutinized by the all mighty Big Brother.

[htuttle]

7. The door is ALREADY open for groups on our side to be searched

Been open for years.

[bluestateguy]

18. I'm no huge fan of AIPAC

At least not in the last few years, but I just know that everybody here, including me, would be outraged if the FBI searched the offices of the NAACP, the ACLU or the AFL-CIO.

[flying_blind]

20. I hope you don't mean to imply they are in kind

AIPAC -

not a PAC

and, right up to a supreme court case, not required to be transparent under FEC regs.

*FUCK* this kind of manipulation of our politcal system by foreign agents.

http://clusty.com/search?query=aipac+fec

[AP]

27. You have to assume that if it's going to hurt Republicans, whatever Due

Process and Equal Protection standards that need to have been met were probably exceeded by about 10 miles.

[peacetalksforall]

13. Isn't an espionage investigation a cause to investigate.

The word raid implies: Guns. Uniforms. Surprise.

What is needed for an investigation?

[Moloch]

6. Kick

This is one of the most important, under-reported stories of the last few years.

[BamaBecky]

8. Whose side is the FBI on? Or could they not find a prosecutor? n/t

[flying_blind]

9. If Americans Knew

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

[flying_blind]

10. 200 Israeli Spies arrested, but you never heard about it

http://www.911-strike.com/dea-il-spy.htm

[flying_blind]

11. Israel – A Rogue State

Anti-Semitism is "commonplace" in Europe and the United States only if one redefines it to include looking cross-eyed at Ariel Sharon. As Israeli helicopter gunships shoot down Palestinian teenagers and the apartheid-like conditions prevalent in the Jewish state are given physical form in the shape of a Wall of Separation, this group has grown in numbers – evidence, we are told, of increasing anti-Semitism.
...
The case of the Mossad spies who tried to get a passport by stealing the identity of a housebound paraplegic has been the subject of a previous column, and the story has by now evolved into a full-blown diplomatic brouhaha similar to the fracas with the French. While Sharon's government – and the two Israeli agents captured by New Zealand's security services – has stubbornly denied any involvement by Israel, it turns out the Kiwis were bugging their phones from the get-go. Prime Minister Helen Clark, although reticent in relating how she knew it, wasn't shy about saying what she knew:

"The New Zealand government views the act carried out by the Israeli intelligence agents as not only utterly unacceptable but also a breach of New Zealand sovereignty and international law."

After announcing diplomatic and political sanctions against the Israeli government, and canceling talks planned for later this year, Clark challenged the Israelis to come clean:

"The ball is in Israel's court as to where it wants to move from here. Three months ago we asked for an apology and an explanation. That has not been forthcoming."
__________________________

America is too biased for Israel to have the balls New Zealand did.

[Moloch]

14. and let's not forget...

the USS Liberty.

[flying_blind]

15. Besides remembering, howsabout learning the TRUTH?

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1620694_comment.php

[flying_blind]

26. kids killing kids

After signing the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the
involvement of children in armed conflict (OP-CRC -CAC) in November 2002, the
government later ended the "early admission" of conscripts and the deployment of
under-18s in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), although it continued to accept 17-year-old
volunteers.
Palestinian and Israeli NGOs working with juvenile detainees informally reported to the
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers that under-18s were recruited as informers by
Israeli intelligence agencies, but no published documentation existed. The Israeli
government continued to detain suspected members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
including juveniles under the age of 18, holding them in cells with adults in violation of
Israel’s international obligations. The youths were held under an Israeli government
policy defining Palestinians below the age of 16 in the West Bank or Gaza as minors,
while Israeli youths in the same Occupied Territories are considered minors until they
reach the age of 18.1
Palestinian children living in East Jerusalem who were suspected of an “Intifada Criminal
Offence” such as stone-throwing were often arrested at home in the middle of the night
and subjected to interrogation inappropriate to their age and physical or mental state.2
Such interrogations have reportedly included children being blindfolded, bound and
beaten.3
http://www.child-soldiers.org/regions/country.html?id=104

[JudyM]

30. Check your facts:anti-Jewish racist acts of violence are on rise in Europe

A recent report by Human Rights First was released this summer at a conference that took place in Berlin. The conference, sponsored by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was attended by European, North American, and Central Asian representatives who met to discuss the alarming rise of hate crimes against Jews and Jewish communities in Europe.

Human Rights First's new report documents anti-Jewish acts in Europe and examines European governments' and institutions' response to the violence. The report determines that "a pattern of official indifference" remains in combating the continuing problem.

The report observes that the hundreds of documented assaults, firebombings and other acts of physical violence that are directed against Jews throughout Europe do not reflect the actual number of such incidents because in many countries there is both underreporting and lack of collection of such data.

As one small indication of the real extent of the problem, the chief rabbi of France encouraged Jewish men to discontinue the wearing the traditional head covering, to avoid inciting violence.

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/pubs/antisemitism/AntiSem_test_final41204.pdf

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/pubs/antisemitism/antisemitism_report_22_april_2004.pdf

[Paleocon]

31. btt

btt

[JudyM]

33. ?? Pardon?

[Paleocon]

34. Pointing out that there are two sides to this story.

Sorry if it somehow offended you.

Have a nice night. :)

[JudyM]

37. There are 2 sides to the story of antisemitism on the rise? Like there

are two sides to whether Auschwitz was an extermination site? Not sure what you mean - maybe something else...?

[Paleocon]

38. btt

btt

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. what does 'btt' mean? (n/t)

[Paleocon]

40. Bump To Top

Bump To Top...


That's all it means.

:)

[Paleocon]

41. BTT

Bumpity bump bump bump!

[flying_blind]

32. Check this fact - The US is (but should not be) the jew police

traitorous new law passed:
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=30900

Bush signs global anti-Semitism law
AFP: 10/16/2004

SUNRISE, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said he had signed into law a bill requiring the State Department to monitor global anti-Semitism and rate countries annually on their treatment of Jews.

"This nation will keep watch; we will make sure that the ancient impulse of anti-Semitism never finds a home in the modern world," Bush said as he campaigned in the key battleground state of Florida. The state`s Jewish population is the third largest in the world after Israel and New York.

The US State Department had opposed the legislation, saying it was unnecessary as the department already compiles such information in its annual reports on human rights and religious freedom.

"Extending freedom also means disrupting the evil of anti-Semitism," Bush told thousands of cheering supporters packed into a sports arena usually used by the Florida Panthers professional ice hockey team.

_________________

UTTER bullshit

almost makes me believe that Revelation bullshit they tried to feed me as a kid

fucking STOP THIS!

We've been Israel's little bitch every since we colluded with them in the bombing of the USS Liberty http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1620694_comment.php

[JudyM]

35. You have plenty of anger about this - there are much worse things

going on than * doing something to help people who are being attacked by neo-natzis and were once nearly exterminated altogether by racial hatred that was permitted to run rampant while the world, including the US, stood by. Or are you one of those who thinks the jews own the banks, the media and the government and have a plot cooking to take over the world?

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[flying_blind]

12. Fundies and Israel, an unholy alliance

Amid the back-and-forth between the Bushies and the Kerry camp, one campaign season fusillade has gone largely unnoticed. Fundie nut-job Pat Robertson exposed the real heart and soul of his movement of moonbats the other day at a news conference in Jerusalem, where he threatened to withdraw his support from the GOP:

"'The President has backed away from , but if he were to touch Jerusalem, he'd lose all Evangelical support. Evangelicals would form a third party' because, though people 'don't know about' Gaza, Jerusalem is an entirely different matter."

It is an extraordinary sight: not since the leaders of the American Communist Party traveled to Moscow to pledge allegiance to the Comintern in the earlier half of the last century has such an open display of fealty to a foreign power been recorded. Together with 5,000 of his followers, the Rev. Robertson – whose 1988 presidential campaign galvanized "born again" Christians into a potent force within the GOP – toured the Holy Land, much as John Reed and his comrades toured Soviet Russia, painting a portrait of the regime in roseate pastels and calling on their countrymen to support the "workers' fatherland." And the similarities do not end there. Reed, like Robertson, was inspired by a theology, a faith in the inexorable forces of History. The fundies call this Prophecy.

Commies and fundies have a lot more in common than either are capable of imagining, but one common thread stands out in particular. The dispensationalist dogma that gives Israel a key role in bringing about the Second Coming is roughly analogous to Russia's stature in the minds of the post-1917 Left as the vanguard and harbinger of world revolution. The American adherents of both creeds basically transferred their primary loyalties to a foreign country. Just as the Communists functioned as Soviet Russia's fifth column in America, so Robertson's flock serves in a similar capacity on behalf of the Israeli government. And they do so openly, and proudly.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3727

[Moloch]

19. Thanks...

I hadn't seen that doc before.

[peacetalksforall]

16. everyone

please post often and please repeat.

all of this must be exposed and become common knowledge.

[flying_blind]

17. for today, I am indian - KICKapoo

[flying_blind]

21. Is AIPAC actually a '527' ???

http://www.fec.gov/pdf/nprm/def_committee/FR66n45.pdf

In Akins v. FEC, 101 F.3d 731 (D.C.
Cir. 1997) (en banc) (‘‘Akins’’), a group
of former ambassadors, congressmen,
and government officials argued that the
American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (‘‘AIPAC’’), an organization
they considered to be a political
committee, had failed to register with
the Commission or file campaign
disclosure reports. In 1989, the year in
which the challenged activity took
place, AIPAC had a budget of about $10
million. The Commission determined
that AIPAC likely had made campaign
contributions exceeding the $1,000
FECA threshold, but concluded that
there was not probable cause to believe
AIPAC was a political committee
because its campaign-related activities
were only a small portion of its overall
activities and, therefore, not its major
purpose.
****
Organizations that qualify as
FECA political committees qualify as
527 organizations, and thus are able to
take advantage of this beneficial tax
treatment.8 Other 527 organizations,
however, are alleged to have engaged in
substantial political activity that fails to
trigger the FECA registration and
reporting requirements, and
contribution restrictions.
unless they qualified as FECA
committees, or voluntarily disclosed
this information, little was known about
their funding or activities.
When the Commission first
considered the possibility of a
rulemaking in this area, it anticipated
that one of the issues such a rulemaking
might address would be treatment of
11 CFR 100.5 Political committee (2 U.S.C.
431(4), (5), (6)).
* * * * *

[Merlin]

22. I'll bet those AIPAC people were completely taken by surprise!

Oh, my! How swiftly the great winged justice doth swoop down upon her prey, in rapid response to the cries of alarm!

A mere several months after these allegations, the forces of righteousness move in and thoroughly search the suspected lair.

Gratefully, our fears are assuaged upon learning that nothing of consequence was discovered.

Mighty Justice triumphs again!

God bless America!

[flying_blind]

23. kick

[Rose Siding]

24. Here's a Time link and Laura Rozen has more

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,845221,00.html

There are some updates on Rozen's site. She's done investigative work, along with Josh Marshall, on Chalabi, Iran and the yellowcake source

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001444.html

[donkeyotay]

25. I've heard that the wheels of justice turn slowly, but this is ridiculous

They had to wait until after the "election" to pursue this and any other inquiry that might make the fuhrer look bad. Now, all these insincere investigations will quietly fall by the wayside, and Pravda will continue to endorse our great leader.

Folks, the empire is crumbling under the weight of its corruption.

[flying_blind]

28. kick

[Paleocon]

29. Another version of the same story...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-01-fbi-israel-iran_x.htm

I posted that as a new LBN item. Sorry about that mods...

[FECvAkins]

42. Action in Legal Case Against AIPAC

To bring readers up to date, the legal “case against AIPAC” (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) was first filed in 1989 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The seven complainants were Ambassador James Akins, Washington Report executive editor Richard Curtiss, former Congressman Paul Findley, Admiral Robert Hanks, Ambassador Andrew Killgore, Orin Parker, former president of American-Mideast Education and Training Services, and the late George Ball, the former deputy secretary of state who died in 1994.

We maintained that the Federal Election Commission (the FEC), the named defendant, was delinquent in not finding AIPAC to be a political committee and thus subject to reporting the sources of its income and expenditures. The U.S. District Court rejected our argument. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed the District Court, whereupon the FEC appealed to the Supreme Court. In 1998 the Supreme Court accepted the FEC’s argument that AIPAC was “a membership organization,” and ordered the case back to the FEC to resolve the membership organization “puzzle.”

Four years later, on May 20, 2002, our lawyers filed an administrative complaint against the FEC, arguing that if AIPAC were exempt from filing its income/expenditures under the “membership communication exception,” it must nevertheless file under a different section of the U.S. Code because, according to previous FEC findings, AIPAC communications were “expressly advocating the election…of…clearly defined candidates” at a cost “exceeding $2,000 for any election.” AIPAC had failed to comply with this reporting obligation.

Our administrative complaint consists of arguments in support of our position that AIPAC must publish its income and its expenditures. The FEC, on the other hand, supports AIPAC’s position that it is exempt because it is a “membership organization.” Finally, on July 27, 2004, U.S. District Court Judge John Garrett Penn, under whose jurisdiction this case is being heard, issued an order for plaintiffs to file a motion for summary judgment. This was on agreement of both parties, and we have filed the motion for summary judgment.

On Sept. 10, defendant FEC filed its opposition to our motion for summary judgment. On Oct. 8 plaintiffs are to respond to defendant’s opposition to our motion. Defendants must reply by Nov. 5.

Finally, there is some action in our legal case against AIPAC, and Judge Penn eventually—soon—will hear the case. If he decides for the FEC (AIPAC) we will appeal to the Court of Appeals. If he decides in our favor, the FEC is expected to appeal to the Court of Appeals. And so on, up to the Supreme Court—just as happened in the earlier case.

Our attempt to drive AIPAC out of the shadows into the sunlight is now 15 years old. We note that there are unresolved allegations of espionage against AIPAC. Whether this had any effect on the present action we do not know.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2004/0411025.html