[Wall Street Journal] Norman Pearlstine - In the next few weeks, the new attorney general is expected to review the Justice Department's flawed, embarrassing prosecution of two former lobbyists for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The indictments don't accuse the two of spying and the case appears to revolve around telephone and in-person conversations instead of leaked documents. The AIPAC lobbyists are the victims of selective prosecution for behavior that has become commonplace. They did what journalists and lobbyists have been doing since the founding of the republic. Before AIPAC, the government had never sought to make receipt of classified information and passing it on to others a crime under the Espionage Act. It is often impossible for a journalist or a lobbyist to know whether leaked information is classified. The writer is a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former editor-in-chief of Time Inc.
2007-11-12 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive