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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSpycatchers: Freeing Pollard While Pursuing Snowden Sends ‘Mixed Signals’
Former investigators who thought they'd put convicted U.S. spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard in the slammer for life lashed out today at news that the Obama administration is using his release as a bargaining chip in Mideast peace talks.
"How do you do this after Snowden?" fumed the former top prosecutor who won Pollard's conviction, Joseph diGenova.
DiGenova was referring to former National Security Agency contractor and admitted classified documents thief Edward Snowden, on the lam in Russia since last June.
The FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service never fully assessed the exact amount of classified military and intelligence files Pollard sold to Israeli agents for more than $600,000 beginning in the mid-1980s until his 1985 arrest, ABC News sources involved in the investigation said. But Pollard himself once estimated that he forked over 360 cubic feet of documents, which the sources said pertained to much more than Israel and included secrets about U.S. intelligence capabilities that made it into the hands of spies in Russia, South Africa and other countries.
"Nobody who has seen the classified damage assessment thinks Pollard ought to be freed," diGenova told ABC News.
more...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/spycatchers-freeing-pollard-pursuing-snowden-sends-mixed-signals/story?id=23145700
frazzled
(18,402 posts)That's a kind of kooky argument. Pollard has already served nearly 30 years in prison. Snowden fled and is living the good life in Russia. (It must be good, I presume, or at least better than the life under the nefarious spymasters and overlords here.)
Wouldn't the more apt comparison be between Pollard and Manning? Both were working in the military, in intelligence. Both stole classified documents and handed them to foreign entities, one state, one organizational, which released it to states. (Well, sort of the same, but not quite.) Both were sentenced to prison time.
I would be happy to release Pollard after all this time if I thought it would be useful in negotiating some really important point that would end, at long last, the Israeli - Palestinian dispute. But I don't think we're even close to that. They should probably hold on to him at least until Netanyahu is gone from office. My understanding is that Pollard is ill, though (and up for parole next year), so maybe they're not giving up much if they think he's really ill and not going to last.
Finally, wouldn't another question be: how can you support Manning or Snowden while condemning Pollard? All of them saw themselves as "whistleblowers" (I know people will reject that moniker for Pollard, but I bet you anything he thought he was doing what he did for noble reasons.)
Jake Stern
(3,145 posts)Pollard SOLD his secrets putting lie to the "noble reasons" claim.
JI7
(89,283 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Find those on Craigslist?
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Cha
(297,926 posts)JI7
(89,283 posts)and no more than that ....................