Judge Denies Effort To Toss Out Pro-Israel Spy Case

Judge Denies Effort To Toss Out Pro-Israel Spy Case

http://www.nbc4.com/news/9662873/detail.html

POSTED: 5:15 pm EDT August 10, 2006

CHANTILLY, Va. -- A federal judge has rejected a constitutional challenge filed by two former lobbyists with a pro-Israel group.

Steven Rosen of Silver Spring, Md., and Keith Weissman of Bethesda, Md., are charged under a World War One-era espionage law with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

Lawyers for the men had argued that the 1917 Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague. The act seeks to bar receipt or disclosure of "information related to the national defense" to "persons not entitled to receive it."

The lawyers also argued that prosecutors were out of bounds for using the statute in an unprecedented manner, prosecuting lobbyists who in the normal course of business discuss policy issues with government officials.

But a judge in U.S. District Court in Alexandria upheld the law as well as the government's effort to apply it to the lobbyists.