The difficulty of maintaining secrecy in the Internet Age was on full view in America, this week, as the U.S. military found itself forced to explain the events captured in a leaked video of an Apache gunship killing Iraqi civilians. And the Israeli military and judicial system found itself coping with a similar problem as the cloak of secrecy over potentially embarrassing operations began to fray.

For the first time since she was placed under house arrest in December, the Israeli government allowed the Israeli press to publish the name of a 23-year-old journalist, Anat Kam, who has been charged with stealing thousands of secret documents while serving in the Army and leaking evidence of an allegedly illegal assassination program that targeted Palestinian militants. An Israeli judge had previously not only ordered the Israeli press not to cover the case, but also to refrain from even mentioning that a gag order was in place.

The silence broke only last week, after Jewish bloggers and news agencies outside Israel, as well as foreign news media, began reporting on the case. The appearance of reports outside of Israel – but easily read by Israelis using the Internet – prompted a cascade of outrage and ridicule inside the Israeli press. The local media was especially miffed that while the case was generating buzz online, they were still unable even to mention Kam’s name. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

Barred from informing the public directly about the case, the popular newspaper Yediot Aharonot suggested last week that readers might find it interesting to search the Internet using the keywords “Israeli journalist gag.” The left-leaning Haaretz newspaper titled one article about the yet officially unnamed Kam “the case we’re forbidden to report on.” Finally, Israel’s defense establishment bent to mounting pressure, and on Thursday asked the judiciary to partially lift the ban.

Israel’s media generally cooperates with official censorship policies on military matters, but the Kam case is unusual in that it involved a judicial gag order rather than military censorship, which is normally limited to instances involving a clear and present danger to security. The Kam case did not appear to pass such a test, according to critics. “The silence that the court has imposed on the Israeli media is ludicrous,” wrote Haaretz earlier this week. “It infringes on the right of the Israeli public to know … and it makes a mockery of Israeli democracy.” (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East.)

Read the whole hot breaking news