Opinion Could Dampen Zeal To Classify Government Information

If it is ultimately upheld, a memorandum opinion written by a federal judge in Virginia and released last week may limit the overclassification of information on national security grounds and prevent future prosecutions for leaking such information. The opinion could also spell the end to a four-year effort by the Justice Department to convict two former pro-Israeli lobbyists for allegedly violating the Espionage Act by passing classified government information to journalists and an Israeli Embassy official. U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Ellis III wrote the Feb. 17 opinion in a case, brought originally in 2005, that involves Stephen J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, both of whom at the time were working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Their jobs were to lobby U.S. executive and legislative branch officials who had policymaking responsibilities in areas of AIPAC's interest.