knew there was a good chance that agents would
search his house. In the middle of Shabbat lunch,
seven or eight federal agents descended upon his
home, according to his appellate brief and an
interview with Tenenbaum.

Harassment?

In an interview, Tenenbaum said the lead FBI agent
told him, "I have no idea what a doing here." But
the agents came in and turned his house "upside
down." He said his daughter, who was then 5, still is
troubled by the ordeal.
"She hears someone come to the door and if she
doesn't know them, she starts to scream, 'Don't open
the doors,"' Tenenbaum said.
He said the agents "did not act like storm troop-
ers. They could have made us all lay on the floor
under gunpoint. They asked where things were.
They took the children's drawings, music books —
things they thought might contain a code."
The next day, agents began following him in their
cars. At one point, Tenenbaum -said, six cars with
two agents in each vehicle followed him. His wife
Madeline also was followed.
From Feb. 14, 1997, until July 10, 1998,
Tenenbaum was under a full-field FBI criminal
investigation for espionage, according to testimony
of FBI Special Agent James Gugino cited in
Tenenbaum's appellate brief.
For more than three months of this period,
Tenenbaum was placed under 24-hour surveillance,
which ended when, according to 'ais appellate brief,
Tenenbaum's computer files revealed no evidence of
espionage.
On Feb. 3, 1998, in a letter sent out under the
name of Saul Green, who at the time was the U.S.
attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan,
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Liebson wrote to FBI
headquarters in Washington and notified the agency
that he declined to prosecute Tenenbaum because
there was no evidence on which to indict him.
The notification commended the performance of
the FBI agents and stated, "This investigation was
exceptionally thorough ... there is no question that if
evidence existed which would prove this case, then
these agents would have found it."
Despite that letter, the FBI continued the investi-
gation. According to Tenenbaum's appellate brief, as
of April 10, 1998, the FBI had not developed any
evidence of espionage or false swearing.
Tenenbaum was permitted to return to work on
April 20, 1998. His court appeal says the FBI did
not officially close its investigation until July 10,
1998 — 17 months after it was launched.
In April 1998, Tenenbaum norfled the Army of
his intent to sue for religious discrimination. He
filed that suit in October 1998. His security clear-
ance was revoked on Nov. 17, 1998.
Tenenbaum's appellate brief says the Army, through
t least July 24, 2000, listed his name on the Internet
s a spy. Tenenbaum told the Jewish News that while
browsing the 902nd Military Intelligence Battalion's
eb site, he saw his name listed as a spy who had
orked at TACOM. Tenenbaum was the only person
isted on the page that had not been charged, con-
icted or fined for espionage, he says.

Tenenbaum is bitter about what he describes as
the FBI's "abuse of power" during the surveillance
period. Children in his Southfield neighborhood
would tell him, "Mr. Tenenbaum, there's another car
waiting for you parked over on 10 Mile Road."
"It was like living in the Stalin regime," said
Tenenbaum in an interview. "Every time my kids were
outside, [the FBI] would drive slowly by the house."
They never identified themselves, he added.

Neighbor Support

Tenenbaum's neighbor Jerry Abraham, an attorney,
told the Jewish News, "After seeing the surveillance
around the clock in front of his [Tenenbaum's]
house, I decided I would monitor the situation. It
was getting way out of hand — this is a neighbor-
hood where Holocaust survivors live.
"So I had a meeting with Saul Green in his office
and advised him of my concern. I told him I had a
problem with the blatant attempt to harass David
and the rest of the neighborhood."
But the problem continued. "They were still in the
neighborhood. And then they were following me,"
Abraham said. "Once, I had three or four cars follow
me. I think they were just trying to intimidate me."
That same night, at 11 p.m., there was a knock at
Abraham's door. He said he opened it to find three
officers from the Southfield Police Department.
"They started making threats," Abraham said.
"'You better stop what you're doing,' they said.
`What are you talking about?' I asked. 'You know
what we're talking about. If you continue, we'll take
you in and book you,' said the officers. I told them I
knew my rights, and they left," said Abraham.
Another neighbor, Simon Kresch, also an attorney,
took pictures of the FBI vehicles. He said one agent
told him, "He [Tenenbaum] is in trouble. Now
you're in trouble."
Kresch says the FBI then followed him to the
Southfield police station and waited in the parking
lot while he made a formal complaint. "They [the
FBI] tried to intimidate me," he said. No action was
apparently taken about the complaint, said one of
Tenenbaum's attorneys, Daniel E. Harold of
Morganroth and Morganroth.
Jewish News calls to Saul Green seeking comment
were not returned prior to his leaving office as U.S.
attorney on May 1.
Southfield Police Chief Joe Thomas said the case
was brought to the attention of his department by
the FBI to ensure that the police knew there were
FBI agents conducting a surveillance operation. "We
did not have an active role," said Thomas.
He denied that any of his officers ever made a
threat against Abraham. "If a police officer tells you
something you don't want to know, it doesn't consti-
tute a threat," said Thomas.
Asked about the complaint filed by Kresch,
Thomas said: "If someone had a complaint about
the FBI agents, we told them to contact the FBI. It
wasn't our investigation."
Neighbor Matthew Kamins has known Tenenbaum
since 1973. When the FBI surveillance began, Kamins
contacted Chief Thomas and the FBI to protest.
Kamins also spoke with senior staff members of
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin. He said he called Michigan's

senior senator to protest the FBI surveillance. "I
talked to them quite a bit, but I didn't get very far.
But I tried," he said.

Official Policy

Last October, David Zwiebel, executive vice presi-
dent of government and public affairs of Agudath
Israel of America, a New York-based national organi-
zation representing Orthodox Jewry, wrote then-
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen about
Tenenbaum's plight and expressed concern about
religious profiling.
His letter followed the FBI's well-publicized label-
ing of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese American sci-
entist working at the Los Alamos, N.M., nuclear
laboratory, as having been a spy for China, although
no evidence to prove the allegation ever surfaced.
Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur L. Money,
whose responsibilities included intelligence, replied
for Cohen on Nov. 6. He wrote Zweibel that while
he could not comment upon the specifics of the case
because of the pending civil action, "all DoD
[Department of Defense] personnel who hold securi-
ty clearances are subject to periodic background
investigations. These investigations follow guidelines
applicable to all Executive Branch agencies and focus
on the individual's trustworthiness and reliability;
they do not allow investigation based on race, reli-
gious affiliation or political views or activities.
"They are conducted at prescribed intervals or
when allegations of behavior or conduct, which
might bring the individual's trustworthiness or relia-
bility [into question], are received. I would expect
Mr. Tenenbaum to be treated no differently than
any other cleared DoD employee in this regard.
"I can assure you that the Department does not
target individuals for investigation by evaluating
their religious affiliations. I am aware of no counter-
intelligence profile to single out anyone based on
religious observance," wrote Money.
Tenenbaum said he believes a congressional inves-
tigation into his case is warranted. Tenenbaum attor-
ney Harold said they were never able to coordinate a
meeting with Sen. Levin. Terry Andringa, Levin's
press secretary, said the office offered to meet with
Tenenbaum in 1997, but "neither Tenenbaum nor
his lawyer [at the time] ever followed up with the
office to schedule an appointment."
Did Tenenbaum lose any friends over the spy
charges? "Sure," he replies. "People did not want to
be seen with me at work. One of them told me, 'I
don't want them to do to me what they did to you.'"
But Tenenbaum said no one who was Jewish broke
with him.
According to testimony by Paul Barnard,
TACOM's chief of counterintelligence, quoted in
Tenenbaum's filings, "this is the only case at
TACOM in which an employee's ethnic and reli-
gious background have been used to support espi
onage allegations and a decision to revoke the
employee's security clearance.
Meanwhile, David Tenenbaum continues to work
at TACOM while waiting for the slow legal process
of his federal appeal to wind its way through the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in
Cincinnati.

"

❑

5/18

2001

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