20/10/2009 A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and the US space agency NASA was arrested Monday and charged with attempted spying for Israel, the Department of Justice said.
The Justice Department said Stewart David Nozette, 52, of suburban Chevy Chase, Maryland, was charged in a criminal complaint with attempting to communicate, deliver and transmit classified information to an individual he believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer.
In Tel Aviv, where the story broke late at night, Israeli government officials had no immediate comment.
Nozette was arrested Monday by FBI agents. He is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Washington on Tuesday.
"The conduct alleged in this complaint is serious and should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation's secrets for profit," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.
In addition to stints with NASA and the Department of Energy, Nozette worked at the White House on the National Space Council under then-president George H.W. Bush in 1989 and 1990.
"From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense," the Justice Department said.
He developed the Clementine biostatic radar experiment that purportedly discovered water on the south pole of the moon. He worked from approximately 1990 to 1999 at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where he designed highly advanced technology.
In early September, Nozette received a phone call from a person "purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who was in fact an undercover employee of the FBI," the DOJ said.
"Nozette met with the UCE (undercover employee) that day and discussed his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence," informing the agent that "he had, in the past, held top security clearances and had access to US satellite information."
The scientist offered to "answer questions about this information in exchange for money."
Over the next several weeks, Nozette and the undercover agent exchanged envelopes of money for answers to lists of questions about US satellite technology.
"In addition, Nozette allegedly offered to reveal additional classified information that directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, and other major weapons systems," DOJ said.
FBI agents retrieved a manila envelope left by Nozette in a designated location this month that "contained information classified as both top secret and secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy."
Since the arrest and conviction of Jonathan Pollard for spying for Israel, all Israeli officials, including intelligence officers, are instructed to avoid any activity that could be interpreted as information harvesting in the United States, and to reject any approach by American or other citizens who seek to volunteer and provide intelligence or espionage services for Israel.
In 2005, two former pro-Israel lobbyists with AIPAC were charged with conspiring to communicate national defense information to unauthorized personnel, in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act. The indictment said the classified material included information about the al-Qaida terror network, the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel, and U.S. policy in Iran. The case against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman was eventually dropped.
ISRAEL BUSTED AGAIN ~~ ANOTHER SPY ARRESTED IN AMERICA
October 20, 2009 at 7:58 am (Espionage, Guest Blog, Israel)
BUSTED~ANOTHER ISRAELI SPY ARRESTED IN AMERICA
This would be funny if it were not so pathetic. Talk about a “Glutton for Punishment” America, the stupidest country in the world, Honestly, when will Americans Wake the Flook Up? You people need to clean out your Country of all the Zionist spies working for Israel. This is what you get for letting them have dual citizenship. They are not “loyal Americans” they are LOYAL to only Israel, the sooner you realize that the better off your country will be. How many is that now? Stealing all your secrets from the Pentagon, “Star Wars Missile Defense Systems, nuclear weapons systems,and NASA you name it and this guy had accesss to it! Read it and weap for what America “used” to be, free and strong, now it’s just part of Israel. Oh and one more thing, get ready for the “screams of Anti-semitism”: TWO REPORTS:
A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and Nasa was arrested on Monday night, accused of trying to spy for Israel.
Stewart Nozette, 52, developed an experiment that fueled the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon, and held a special security clearance at the United States Department of Energy on atomic materials.
He has been charged with “attempted espionage for knowingly and willfully attempting to communicate, deliver, and transmit classified information relating to the national defense of the United States to an individual that Nozette believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer,” the US Department of Justice said
The 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a US civilian intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, and his subsequent conviction for spying for Israel seriously strained US-Israeli relations. After his conviction, he was granted Israeli citizenship and his release is a perennial Israeli demand.The Justice Department said: “From 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as top secret and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the US national defense.”
Mr Nozette “discussed his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence” and offered to “answer questions about this information in exchange for money”.
He was then given envelopes of money in exchange for answers to lists of questions about American satellite technology.The FBI retrieved a manila envelope left by Mr Nozette in a post office box this month. It “contained information classified as both top secret and secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy”. . LINK
AND IT GETS EVEN BETTER KEEP READING:
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. From the FBI release, it’s hard to figure out what he might have given the Israelis and 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.
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