Apparently the original source of this is the WSJ, but their article is behind a pay-wall so all I have is a secondhand account from The Guardian.
It’s no surprise that Israel spies; everyone spies. What’s troublesome is the claim that they then fed the information to Congress.
If the claims are true, should the individuals in Congress who knowingly received the information have reported it to the proper authorities? Did they violate any laws by not doing so?
When it comes to international relations, Congress is the proper authorities. The Senate must consent to any treaty that is made.
Frankly, my thinking is that if Kerry is making a deal that the Senate will respond to by saying, “No fucking way,” we might as well find out now before we waste any more time.
It’s debatable as to whether or not the Senate needs to ratify this agreement-- that is, it’s not necessarily a “treaty”.
But was there any violation of the law when they failed to report Israel’s espionage? (Assuming the accusation is true.)
I only skimmed the article, but while I see the reference to the part about the US accusing Israel of spying the part about handing the data to Congress seems speculative and perhaps an embellishment from The Guardian because…well, The Guardian. After the last few threads with cites from them I’m not sure I’d trust them if they said water was wet, not without some sort of corroboration from multiple trusted sources and speaking in plain language. Perhaps not even then.
As to Israel spying on the US in this instance I’m kind of meh on it to be honest. I mean, from their perspective it might be useful to determine where their primary ally stands on this whole Iran nuclear talks thingy, especially if the leaders of the US and Israel don’t really get along very well and perhaps this has lead to some trust issues where there really shouldn’t be any. If they did give the data to Congress then…well, for one thing I’d be shocked that Israel would do something like that with any expectation it would remain a secret so either they want everyone to know or this is kind of obvious…I’m not sure how I feel about it, to be honest.
OK, everybody spies on everybody else, no story there. Using the information to persuade congress to undermine the talks, isn’t that what Netanyahoo was doing on television? There are plenty of ways Israel could undermine the negotiations without risking their intelligence relationship with the US. This sounds like careful manipulation of a non-story to stir up controversy.
I’m not aware of any violation.
I am certainly willing to be educated.
Is it just me, or were you really hoping that this would turn out to be some sort of crime?
No. I’m just asking. I found the article interesting and I’m genuinely curious. As others have noted, this could all be spin by the Guardian, or even the WSJ. The article tries to frame it as Israel passing classified info to Congress but it’s not really clear that that’s even what happened, or that it would be illegal on the part of Congress if it did happen.
Absolutely. Very clearly correct.
The article is very careful NOT to state that Israel received information by spying on US. There are lots of ways Israel could receive information on the talks, both fully legally (I understand the French are a lot freer with the information sharing with Israel on the talks than Obama administration) and by clandestine methods (like monitoring/intercepting Iranian government’s internal communications).
So - let’s say Israelis got information from some method such as intercepting phone conversations inside Iran. If they pass that info to a Congressman, how exactly is such information “classified” and why would it be “illegal” for the Congressman to receive it?
Note the bolded part, and do not fight the hypothetical.
What hypothetical? “spying on international negotiations”? That includes commint on intra-Iranian conversations.
For myself, I’d hope that there’d be laws that prevent a worst-case scenario. A worst-case scenario would be something like this:
Now, I’m not saying the worst-case scenario occurred; on the contrary, I’m in a “need more information” phase, and I strongly suspect it’s not this worst-case scenario. But if it is, then yeah, if #3 isn’t breaking a law, I’d like the law to be changed to make members of congress Required Reporters of suspected espionage.
Unfortunately, there are two barriers to your wish. One is purely political; one is political and legal.
The purely political: Congress has a low tolerance for making itself subject to the laws it passes.
The political/legal: some Congressional activity is protected constitutionally, by the Speech and Debate Clause. To the extent that we’re talking about information that is received in the course of “things generally said or done in the House or the Senate in the performance of official duties and into the motivation for those acts,” the Constitution (Art I, § 6, Cl. 1) may immunize the Representative or Senator beyond the power of Congress to act.
It seems like common sense that a government employee contacted by foreign spies should immediately report that contact, regardless of content, to the people who are in charge of looking after foreign spies and the the kind of things foreign spies get up to. I would hope that in the US that this common sense would be backed up a law of some sort, but I have no knowledge of such a law.
I have no idea if this idea is even remotely applicable in this case since as far as I can tell there are zero verifiable facts at this point.
Is there any circumstance under which a congress person can be held accountable for treasonous behavior?
If, for example, a senator deliberately passed classified military information to foreign spies (say, told Iran about our nuclear subs in the gulf, or told Israel about our willingness to deploy troops in Iran), would they be constitutionally protected? Do they have some sort of immunity in this case?
If they could be prosecuted for that, what’s the line between passing on military secrets, and staying quiet about known spies in the US, that has Constitutional relevance? I mean, I can clearly see how they’re different (one’s more active than the other, for example), but I’m not sure what the difference is constitutionally speaking.
I was struck by one passage from the article -
If the US can spy on Israel and give the results to The Guardian, I don’t see they have much reason to complain if Israel spys on the US and gives the results to Congress.
FWIW -
But I guess he would have to say that.
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
If, for example, a senator deliberately passed classified military information to foreign spies (say, told Iran about our nuclear subs in the gulf, or told Israel about our willingness to deploy troops in Iran), would they be constitutionally protected? Do they have some sort of immunity in this case?
If they could be prosecuted for that, what’s the line between passing on military secrets, and staying quiet about known spies in the US, that has Constitutional relevance?
[/QUOTE]
Bricker can answer this better, but
[ul][li]Treason is giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Israel isn’t our enemy. Iran, ISTM, fits that description much better.[/li][li]Handing over military secrets isn’t part of the official duties of a Congresscritter. Considering treaties and agreements is. [/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
The way they’d have immunity would be if they passed the information to the spies by reading into the Congressional Record, or by some other action that was “…said or done in the House or the Senate in the performance of official duties and into the motivation for those acts…” such as considering a trade or treaty.
If they pass the info by trading identical briefcases while studiously looking away from each other during rush hour at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station, that’s prosecutable.
What we are talking about IIUC is not passing data, but receiving it and not reporting to someone where you got it. Is that illegal?
IOW Israel spies get some data, and passes it along to Congress. Israel denies, then and now, that they got it from spying on the US - they say they got it from spying on Iran, or Russia, or they don’t say where they got it at all. Is there a law saying that a Congresscritter has to report that Israel gave him some information that they got from espionage? He doesn’t pass it along, he just uses it in his consideration of whether or not to support whatever deal the Obama administration comes up with.
Is there anything like whistleblower protection? Is it different from an editor keeping quiet about the source of the (allegedly) illegally obtained information he used investigating the government?
Regards,
Shodan
Don’t look at this as just a partisan political issue.
Let’s say I’m an employee of the United States government. Through some means I become aware of specific information about a foreign government spying operation directed against the United States. Am I under any general requirement to report this information to somebody?