December 21, 2010
Appeals court turns down wrongly accused spy’s lawsuit
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A Jewish civilian employee of the U.S. Army wrongly accused of spying for Israel was turned down in his second attempt to sue the federal government.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Tuesday declined to overturn a lower court decision that dismissed David Tenenbaum’s lawsuit.
The judges agreed that Tenenbaum was subject to a high level of scrutiny and intrusion in his family’s life due to the investigation, and that Tenenbaum’s Orthodox lifestyle in part brought about the investigation, according to the Detroit Free Press. However, the judges said the issues already had been litigated.
A 2008 Department of Defense investigation concluded that David Tenenbaum, now 52, had his security clearance privileges revoked inappropriately more than a decade ago because of his Jewish faith and the perception of a dual loyalty to the United States and Israel.
During a 1997 polygraph test administered by the Army, Tenenbaum said anti-Jewish epithets were shouted at him. He said the next day his computer was gone and his name erased from the e-mail system at the Tank Automotive and Armaments Command, the military facility in Warren, Mich., where he worked.
After a yearlong FBI investigation, the U.S. Justice Department in 2008 determined that there was no basis to prosecute Tenenbaum.
