On Monday, October 19, 2009, Stewart D. Nozette, 52, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) on charges of espionage. According to court papers, Nozette - a former Energy Department scientist with high security clearance - was attempting to pass top-secret information to an F.B.I. posing as an Israeli Mossad spy for a cash-payment of $11,000.

Nozette worked at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1990 to 1999. During his tenure, he co-developed a radar that infers that ice is one the southern pole of the moon. A Chevy Chase scientist was charged Monday with trying to sell top-secret information to Israel for $11,000, federal prosecutors said.

Nozette had security clearance as high as top secret even after he left government work and continue to frequently access classified material up until 2006. Nozette sparked F.B.I. interest when he started to act as a technical consultant for a aerospace company owned by the Israeli government. Between 1998 and 2008, Nozette was paid by the company for his work a total of $225,000.

Because Israel has spied on the United States before (Google: Jonathan Pollard) - and Washington was recently the scene of a espionage case involving AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, and the Israeli embassy - and is believed to spy on the U.S. more than any other ostensible friendly ally; the F.B.I. had reason to worry that Nozette might pass along sensitive information to the Israelis.

Thus the F.B.I. sent in an agent posing as a Mossad agent to test the loyalty of Nozette. Nozette met the “Mossad agent” in a hotel where they discussed passing along information. Nozette expressed interest in an Israeli hotel and stated once that if he where caught he would escape to some unidentified nation and Israel and tell them “everything” he knew.

Nozette failed the loyalty and dropped information for the agent to pick up at a “dead drop,” a D.C. post office.

This isn’t the first time a case like this took place. In addition to the AIPAC case, another federal employee was recently charged with espionage on behalf of Israel. And, unlike this case where the traitor was set up, in those previous case the person seeking information was an actual Israeli.

But rest assured, Congress is making sure that “spies” are being properly investigated. Just as long as they are “spies” for American-Muslim political groups seeking to influence - wait for it! - legislation:

This might actually be the most despicable domestic political event of the year:

A group of House Republicans is calling for an investigation into whether a leading American Muslim advocacy group tried to “spy” on congressional offices by placing interns on key security committees.

Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina Republican, cited an internal January 2007 memo in which the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) discussed placing Muslim interns on Capitol Hill to “focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community.”

CAIR said it had a particular interest in influencing the judiciary, intelligence and homeland security committees. . . . Mrs. Myrick and Republican Reps. John Shadegg of Arizona, Paul Broun of Georgia and Trent Franks of Arizona called Wednesday for an investigation by the House sergeant-at-arms into whether CAIR was successful in planting congressional interns.

“If an organization that is connected to or supports terrorists is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related congressional offices, I think this needs to be made known,” Mr. Broun said.

CAIR is a non-profit organization of American citizens who are Muslim and their “mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.” They stand accused of plotting to influence members of Congress and trying to help interns obtain positions in Congress in order to advance their political agenda. That’s consistent with what virtually every political advocacy group in the nation does; it’s normally called activism and democracy. But because, in this case, it’s a group of Muslims who are doing this, these House Republicans are depicting it as some sort of nefarious espionage plot against the U.S. that demands a criminal investigation.

All that from an “internal memo” they uncovered which discusses how CAIR can help Muslim-Americans obtain internship positions with Congressional committees:

“Muslim interns in Congressional offices” — frightening! Look at this repulsive innuendo, from Rep. Franks:

While the Republicans said they did not know of specific legislation that CAIR had affected, Franks, a Judiciary Committee member, said he wouldn’t be surprised if it was trying to amend the Patriot Act.

“One of the target policies that they might be concerned about is the Patriot Act itself — those things that give us the greatest tools to be able to surveil those conversations outside of this country . . . and I think organizations like CAIR would like to diminish that.”

Patriot Act reforms have long been advocated by what The New York Times called “an unlikely coalition of liberal civil-rights advocates, conservative libertarians, gun-rights supporters and medical privacy advocates.” Several Senators — including the Democrats’ second-highest ranking member, Dick Durbin — just voted (unsuccessfully) to impose new limits on that law. But when “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group” takes the same position, these crazed, blatantly bigoted House Republicans spit out McCarthyite smears trying to imply that they’re working from within to help Terrorists attack America. It’s nothing less than an attempt to criminalize organized political activity by and on behalf of American Muslims.