There's nothing like a good, diverting spy scandal. The FBI today arrested an eminent space scientist, Stewart
David Nozette, and charged him with espionage. He allegedly agreed to sell information about American nuclear weapons to an operative of Israel's Mossad -- only the agent turned out to be an uncover FBI agent. Nozette was the principal investigator on the NASA team that discovered water on the moon. But he spent years as a top scientist at the Department of Energy, where he specialized in satellite technology. According to CBS News, his work for an Israeli defense/aerospace consulting company owned by the Israeli government -- work that involved providing unspecified but presumably sensitive technical assistance -- brought him to the attention of investigators. The affidavit alleges that Nozette secreted two computer drives out of the company and brought them to a third country. What he did with them -- and what was contained on those disks the FBI isn't saying. From
the FBI release, it's hard to figure out what he might have given the
Israelis when he worked for them. Left somewhat vague is what he tried to sell to the undercover agent. But his resume provides a clue.
Take it as a given that Israel's nuclear weapons stockpile and its half dozen nuclear facilities in the country are targets for U.S. espionage -- be it from the the SIGINT satellites tasked by the National Security Agency to the imagery satelittes run by the National Reconaissance Office. At the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Agency, Nozette ran a program that focused on dual-use nuclear compliance monitoring satellites. The
Clementine satellite that discovered water on the moon was, before it was used by civilian scientists, a platform for a sohpisticated nuclear compliance sensor. Among the technologies that Clementine validated was a
capacity to peer beneath the ground -- one of the ways that hidden water was discovered.
No doubt that Nozette would be in a good position to know how easily it is for U.S. technologies to pierce the veil of Israel's secret nuke program.
Nozette had a "Q" clearance from the Department of Energy, which gave him access to data about nuclear weapons themselves, which might have been of interest to the Israelis. More generally, though, since Israel has nuclear weapons, its espionage efforts are probably more directed towards figuring out what the U.S. knows about them, how the U.S. monitors, say, Israeli launch preparation sites, and who the U.S. shares this data with.
During the Reagan administration, Nozette was a special assistant to the Strategic Defense Initiative "Star Wars" program's Office of Survivability, Lethality and Key Technologies.
Well actually he didn't tell the Israelis anything.
According to news reports at all times the "Mossad" agent in question was an FBI operative tasked with essentially entrapping Nozette.
This isn't to excuse Nozette, but Armbinder's rather strange take on this story seems to imply that the FBI smashed an Israeli spy operation seeking information that vital to Israel. Maybe Nozette knew something valuable to Israel and maybe he didn't. In actual fact, the US government was simply engaged in dangling tempation in front of one of its own citizens.
What I am interested in is why the FBI targetted Nozette. I find it hard to believe the FBI randomly decided to dangle the forbidden fruit for no reason. Was he suspected of passing secrets to the Israelis previously?
Well I think thats your cue Ambinder.
Why? Because for ten years, he worked as a consultant for an aerospace company owned by the Israeli government and, according to a criminal complaint, was supplying company reps questions in exchange for payments totalling $225k (http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2121706). How the *hell* was he entrusted to high positions at the Dept. of Defense, NASA, the Dept. of Energy, and the Dept. of Defense is anyone's guess. Wonder if, like Pollard, he'll get life imprisonment and become a cause celebre in Israel and among US Jewish groups who argue that his crimes did not amount to high treason against the US because Israel is a close ally?
Do your research, Jeff!
How about because he told a colleague that he was willing to sell everything he knew to Israel? That's in the affidavit--did you read it?
Um, Marc? There's no evidence he told 'the Israelis' anything at all.
I've read the indictment. The entire thing was an artificially concocted sting operation. Nozette wanted cash. He was moonlighting as a consultant for a company which was owned by the Israeli government. But that, clearly, either wasn't a violation of his employment agreements or criminal statutes, or was a mere technicality. The FBI wanted to nail him on something bigger. So they set up the sting. And sure enough, Nozette was willing to sell whatever he knew.
But here's the thing - if he'd actually been turning over classified information to Israel for the previous decade, don't the conversations in the indictment read oddly? I mean, if he already was giving them classified information, why is he puffing up his importance, and promising to give them classified information? In fact, everything about these conversations suggests that Nozette was crossing a new line - that, for sufficient cash, he was signaling his willingness to do something he had not hitherto done.
So what we're left with is the FBI's long and sordid history of singling out Israel. The AIPAC case was only the most recent instance in which it set up operations that amounted to entrapment, and which have straddled the line between busting nefarious individuals and criminalizing normal transactions. They targeted this guy because he was consulting for an Israel company. If it'd been BAE, for example, would he have been targeted? Given the number of people with security clearances who've worked for BAE, the evidence suggests otherwise. But we know that BAE is thoroughly corrupt, and that its corruption has been inimical to our national security interests - the Saudi arms scandal still reverberates. It's a typical double-standard. They target this guy, who hasn't yet done anything wrong. And then they bust him for being willing to betray secrets to an ally for cash.
So, sure, throw him in jail. I don't want scientists with classified information being willing to sell it to anyone, irrespective of the purchaser. But speculating about what the Israelis may have wanted is, well, pointless. Because there isn't a shred of evidence that Israel ever once attempted to obtain classified information from Nozette - in fact, everything in the indictment militates toward the contrary conclusion.
If I had to venture a guess, I'd bet that Nozette had been consulting on Israeli radar systems, helping them develop the same sorts of ground-penetrating capacities. And it's obvious why they'd want them. But so long as he didn't break any laws in doing so - and even the FBI hasn't suggested that he did - there's nothing wrong with that. Let's not buy the FBI's version of this - we made that mistake with the AIPAC case, only to learn what a mess that was.
He was moonlighting as a consultant for a company which was owned by the Israeli government.
A company owned by a government. Sounds like socialism to me. And what kind of an American would work for such a company? It makes you wonder. A foreign company, owned by a foreign government, with socialism involved.
There is something really fishy going on with this guy.
Well, you have a nice theory--although it's not terribly logical if you've really read the affidavit.
He told a colleague that he was willing to sell his secrets to Israel or "Country A." That's in the affidavit--did you miss it?
His motive was revenge--he was angry that he faced a jail sentence for fraud (no big deal--he only stole about a quarter of a million of the taxpayers' dollars for his personal expenses, including pool maintenance). That's also in the affidavit. Did you miss it?
By the way--I know Stewart Nozette--and he's a self-centered, bad person.
So this was not a rogue FBI attempt to entrap an otherwise innocent guy. There was plenty of evidence he was a bad actor--and the FBI simply confirmed it. Good for them! Thank God he's off the streets!
Um, Cynic? According to the indictment, the FBI had very good reason to think he was spilling state secrets:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aIOQskKerl6Q
This was not, as you said, "an artificially concocted sting operation". Early in the year, he left the country with multiple USB drives, then didn't return with them. So either you are lying about having read the indictment, or you are deliberately leaving out the details which don't agree with your rant. Shame on you either way.
You are correct that the indictment did not delineate any actual contact between Nozette and Mossad. It does say, however, that during the sting operation, Nozette claimed to be expecting to be contacted by them. So it is not at all "pointless" to speculate on what they might have wanted from Nozette.
Please demonstrate more intellectual honesty in the future.
Demonstrate intellectual honesty?
Well, let's start right here and now. You write that he "claimed to be expecting to be contacted by them." The story to which you link reads: “I don’t get recruited by Mossad every day,” Nozette allegedly told the FBI agent, referring to the Israeli intelligence agency, according to the criminal complaint. “I knew this day would come.” Asked why, he said: “I just had a feeling,” according to the complaint.
In other words, he (1) had not previously been recruited by the Mossad (2) felt confident that he eventually would because (3) of some unnamed intuition.
So try answering the following questions:
-If Nozette was so pleased to be recruited for the first time ("I knew this day would come") what makes you think he had previously engaged in espionage?
-The criminal complaint all but says that his contract was with Israel Aerospace Industries. If there had been anything inappropriate about his work for them, why wasn't it charged? Why wasn't the contract challenged during the decade it ran? And why is IAI a trusted partner on a host of defense initiatives?
-IAI is the vendor that produces Israel's satellites. Why assume that it wanted information about the extent of American capabilities, when it makes more sense to assume it wanted to develop parallel capabilities of its own, and was using Nozette to vet its own development process?
-What's so nefarious about discarding a pair of USB drives? The things are cheap - they're practically made to be disposable. The complaint doesn't tell us where he went. It doesn't tell us what was on the drives. It doesn't tell us what he was supposed to have done with them. It's pure innuendo, right?
-This guy was clearly for sale to the highest bidder. He sold out classified information for just $2,000. So if the Israelis had been trying to get secrets from him, why did they pay him more than a hundred times that amount over a decade, but never actually ask him for secrets?
The FBI's national security division has an Israel obsession. It's unhealthy. And when these cases proceed as far as trial, it's frequently embarrassing. Nozette was entrapped, but he's going to get what he deserves. The rest of this is sensationalism, pure and simple.
"The FBI's national security division has an Israel obsession. It's unhealthy."
...So the FBI is expected to ignore Israeli intelligence, one of the most aggressive and sophisticated spy agencies in the world, one that has been caught red-handed spying on the US in the past, with a vast network of supporters worldwide, a strong survivalist-mentality, currently in war and on the brink of even larger wars, a country with one of the strongest, most effective lobby in American politics, an unsatisfiable appetite for secrets and a powerful, currently receiving billions in assistance from the US, with much of it directly and indirectly in the form of military and strategic aid?
Now, THAT would be unhealthy.
Thanks, Cynic, for responding to Xolotl Loki and his clear and hugely dishonest implication that Nozette had arranged to be contacted by Israeli intelligence. I went to the trouble of signing up for an account here to make the same point you had already made by the time I got done with the registration process. Why would Xolotl Loki do something like that? Must have a bug up his/her nose or something.
According to the affidavit, the FBI undercover agent told Nozette the Mossad would like to use a dead drop location to pass information via a post office box in Washington. In a series of later meetings with undercover agents, Nozette discussed getting paid by the Israelis and made reference to the aerospace company, allegedly saying, "I thought I was working for you already. I mean that's what I always thought, [the foreign company] was just a front."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nasa-employee-steward-nozette-arrested-sting-operation-spying/Story?id=8866974&page=2
Let's wait for this story to unfold before we make assumptions.
Hm. It seems at some point between my first comment and the present Mr. Ambinder revised his original post without acknowledging the update.
Given the fact that the Feds are *not* alleging that his perfectly legal work for an Israeli company involved the sensitive technical assistance that Ambinder "presumes", and given the fact that Ambinder or his editor/assistant/whomever has had the time and inclination to alter the original post, Mr. Ambinder's take on the story makes even less sense now than it did before.
Despite the hair-splitting debate above, it should be clear to anyone that Stewart David Nozette assumed he was spying on behalf of Israel, told an undercover FBI agent that he'd expected such a contact from Mossad and that he also assumed his Israeli contract company was a front anyway on behalf of the Israeli government or intelligence.
The FBI would not have gone to the trouble of an undercover operation, and gathering evidence with drop boxes, taps, numerous conversations, text messages, etc., if it did not suspect and have strong evidence that he might be spying for Israel.
What "bias" is involved here by the FBI? This guy wanted to sell U.S. secrets to what he thought was a foreign government. He's a cheap criminal spy, like Pollard was years ago, and like Pollard, he has his hypocritical defenders who have their own problems with "bias."
To even suggest that the FBI is anti-Israel or would look the other way if it involved spying for British interests (BAE) is paranoid and delusional. And stupid. Nozette did work for an Israeli company on sensitive matters and was suspected of passing secrets, possibly in thumb drives he brought there and left behind. Well, the FBI's suspicions about his intentions proved correct, and he's under arrest!
There are a number of past cases of Israeli-planned spying on the U.S. -- how many by the U.K.?
The FBI did a fantastic job of defending the United States of America from espionage from someone once at among the highest levels of U.S. clearance.
As for Israel, yeah, I support that country in its defense against its hostile neighbors. But trust it? No way. Never in a million years. There are many reasons not to (i.e., AIPAC's scandals recent and past, people who spy on America seen as heroes, and so on).
So, even if the Israeli government never recruited Nozette (I guess we will see for sure about that later), does this story come as a surprise?
This Nozette is just another sad and disgusting example of how some individuals are willing to betray and sell out their own country -- one that allowed them to work in highly responsible, honorable places and at a high level of trust -- for a relatively small amount of money, and perhaps egoism and "ethnic pride."
What a fool. I hope he gets life.
I don't exactly see how it is hair-splitting to point out that Israel had nothing to do with this case.
The FBI is an American law enforcement agency. An agent of the FBI pretended to be an Israeli agent and initiated contact with the accused American and allegedly solicited him for espionage services for a country that was not, in actual fact, involved.
The fact that the accused was arrested by the FBI doesn't prove that the FBI was correct; it simply proves that he was arrested.
A Court of law will determine his guilt or innocence and I believe that he is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty -- I think I heard that's the way the legal system works from some tv show or movie I once saw. And whether Nozette is innocent or guilty at the end of the day there was, again, no real Mossad agent involved.
You don't seem to be letting the total absence of any evidence of actual Israeli interest in this man as a spy to stop you from engaging in wild speculation, but since Marc Ambinder isn't either, I guess you're in good company.
I've re-read the criminal complaint, and now see what I missed the first time around. As I wrote before, the FBI had no particular reason to believe that Nozette was spying for Israel. But it doesn't take much work to figure out that the unnamed 'Country A' in the complaint is actually India, and that it was Nozette's work for the Indian space program that first triggered the FBI's suspicions. That's where he traveled when the USB drives went missing. And it was the prospect of a senior American scientist with access to - among other things - technical nuclear data sharing that with India which probably gave the FBI the probable cause it needed to set up a sting operation. If that sting had been based solely on a consulting contract with IAI, a contract that must have been vetted and approved at the time, and which had in any case been terminated at the beginning of 2008, the sting might have been deemed entrapment. But the baggage search and Nozette's work for the Chandrayaan-1 mission gave the FBI reason to believe that he was telling the Indians classified secrets. And that was enough to set up the sting.
It's not about Israel - that's just a smokescreen. This is a much bigger deal - this is about India. And that means it impacts upon American-Pakistani relations. And right now, no one wants to go there.
Thanks, by the way, to Marc, for editing the headline of this post to better reflect the facts.
Am I the only one who is somewhat suspicious of the blizzard of apparently very well informed comments all claiming Israel was as pure as the driven snow in this matter and that it's all a plot by an out of control FBI to "get" Israel. I haven't read the indictment and in all honesty I don't know too much about it other than what I've read in the press but this all sounds very odd to me. Given this guy's background; Israel's previous history of spying on the US; and the fairly obvious fact that the FBI would never have mounted such a potentially controversial sting as this without some fairly solid grounds for doing so; I'm inclined to suspect some official Israeli involvement. I could be wrong of course, so we'll have to wait to see how this unfolds since there is clearly a lot more to emerge and if Israel is involved we're sure to hear about it ultimately. As for the "driven snow" school of comments above, these guys seem to have some seriously conflicted loyalties, assuming of course they are not in fact Israelis or employed/involved with agencies working for or sympathetic to the Israeli government.
So, to recap:
1. You don't know anything about this story and can't be bothered to find out; but
2. You know what's going on better than anyone!; and
3. Those who disagree with you are bad Americans, dammit.
Mr. Netanyahu, if you're reading this, I would like my payment in yuan this time, not dollars.
This is of course all silly. Everyone knows that the Americans do everything the Israelis tell them to do. Nozette would have known that Mossad would not need to spy, because all the information they want they get from the puppet master in the Illuminati wing of the White House tells the president what to do.
Or maybe the Israel haters are bigots who will cook up any excuse, however contradictory, to sustain their fantasies.
Our government today is controlled by socialists, anarchists, fascists and czars. All of them hate Israel. This should come as no surprise.
May the Holy Trinity continue to look over the state of Israel. (And by Holy Trinity, I mean Lords Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma.)
They take turns hating Israel and then spying for it. Sometimes they do both at the same time. Divide and conquer. That's how they keep The People down.
Notice the duplicity taking place on this blog (perpetrated by "Cynic" & Co.) as well as the profound ignorance surrounding the defense of entrapment in American law (although perhaps if one's template is Israeli criminal law, it would be understandable).
In there thoughtful factual dissection, and even more logical and seemingly dispassionate rebuttal, they have left out the 3 most important observations. Having examined the complaint as thoroughly as they profess to have done, its only fair to infer their disdain for those of us reading their responses. First, Nozette discussed getting paid by the Israelis and made reference to the aerospace company, per the criminal complaint, saying "I thought I was working for you already. I mean that's what I always thought, [the foreign company] was just a front." This statement alone more than suggests that whatever relationship traitor shared with the Israeli company (which everyone knows is a Mossad front, although Cynic gets an A-for-effort in attempting to mask this) was -- presumptively illegal from the standpoint of one of the parties to it. Second, in highlighting the small sums of money exchanged in this sting, and invoking the figures (less than $11,000) as proof of traitor's small-time status, Cynic conveniently fails to mention the more than quarter-million dollars traitor had already earned from the Israeli defense firm in the near decade preceding his arrest which, using traitor's own words now, he had always believed was a front for the Israeli government (and for those of us still possessing a shred of intellectual dignity and honesty, can be presumed as such). Lastly, the defense of entrapment requires both coercive pressure from a government agent (as opposed to mere inducement, think prostitutes here) as well as the absence of a reason to suspect the individual's predisposition to commit the charged offense at the time of the arrest. Assuming for the sake of argument that the FBI agent-cum-Mossad operative held a gun to traitor's head and coerced his participation (perhaps Cynic can locate that fact in the complaint) the defense still fails since the very reason traitor even attracted this intense scrutiny were his prior statements (circa 2007) when, while the object of an federal investigation unrelated to this one, he told a colleague that -- should an arrest appear imminent -- he would flee to Israel and deliver all his classified knowledge to the Mossad.
Some of the deniers trolling Marc's blog really should be ashamed of themselves.
Our country is crawling with Israeli sleeper and old geezer spy cells. But why so many in New Jersey? Remember the former NJ governor was outed by his Israeli staffer/lover whom he appointed to head NJ's homeland security. Go figure that one out. Some people up thread forget that Israel is a FOREIGN COUNTRY. If you can't be a loyal American, then don't serve in our government. Otherwise you are a traitor, pure and simple. I hope the NSA has "son of a Irgun" Rahm's phone tapped just in case he's working with Jane Harman who got those two AIPAC's spies off the hook.
Here's an update and further reporting on this from Politico.
Israeli daily Haaretz reports that the Israeli government-owned aerospace company that Nozette consulted for is Israel Aircraft Industries.
(Incidentally, Yosef Yagur, the alleged Israeli handler of an elderly American man Ben-Ami Kadish arrested last year in an old age home in New Jersey for having passed classified information to Israel in the 1980s, was also previously ostensibly employed by Israel Aircraft Industries (along with Kadish's brother). Kadish later reached a plea deal with the US. Yagur had also reportedly received information from Jonathan Pollard.)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1009/Maryland_scientist_indicted_for_attempted_espionage_for_Israel.html