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Zeroisanumber posted:Because the penalty for treason is death, or life in a box. Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen aren't likely to cause much harm either, but neither of them are ever going to see the light of day. To be fair the information Ames and Hanssen provided the Soviet Union/Russia compromised a lot of CIA agents working in the field. If I remember correctly Pollard's intel didn't compromise any operations or operatives.
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Jul 29, 2015 13:20
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Darkman Fanpage posted:To be fair the information Ames and Hanssen provided the Soviet Union/Russia compromised a lot of CIA agents working in the field. If I remember correctly Pollard's intel didn't compromise any operations or operatives. That's the kind of information Ames and Hanssen had since they were both in counter intelligence as far as I recall. Pollard on the other hand dealt more in the communications and SIGINT side, so he may not have directly compromised anything but he opened the potential for it pretty much anywhere. There isn't much nuance in treason though unless you are a Bluth.
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Jul 29, 2015 13:43
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botany posted:Why? He's clearly not a danger to society, and he can't exactly go back to spying now that everybody knows who he is. Outside of retributive justice, there is no coherent reason that I can see for why he should be locked up. Committing Treason is a bitch? Especially when its selling secrets to the highest bidder? I love that we're cheerleading the release of the one guy who actually has a legitimate reason to be behind bars for the foreseeable future. Either way, his time is up, so like others have said, its moot. Darkman Fanpage posted:To be fair the information Ames and Hanssen provided the Soviet Union/Russia compromised a lot of CIA agents working in the field. If I remember correctly Pollard's intel didn't compromise any operations or operatives. SIGINT breach is a step away from compromising ALL your agents, not just identifying a few select ones. See what happened to the German Intelligence Branch during World War 2. The best part of the whole Esionage deal with Pollard quote:When asked to return the stolen material, the Israelis reportedly turned over only a few dozen low-classified documents.[43] At the time, the Americans knew that Pollard had passed tens of thousands of documents. When American investigators traveled to Israel, they were treated with hostility from the moment they arrived to the moment they left.[43] The Israelis created a schedule designed to wear them down, including many hours per day of commuting in blacked-out buses on rough roads, and frequent switching of buses,[43] leaving them without adequate time to sleep, and preventing them from sleeping on the commute.[43] The identity of Pollard's original handler, Sella, was withheld. All questions had to be translated into Hebrew and answered in Hebrew, and then translated back into English, even though all the parties spoke perfect English.[43] The Commander Jerry Agee remembers that, even as he departed the airport, airport security made a point of informing him that "you will never be coming back here again." After his return to the US, Agee found various items had been stolen from his luggage.[43] The abuse came not only from the guards and officials, but also the Israeli media. Our allies. 
CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 16:10
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Zeroisanumber posted:Because the penalty for treason is death, or life in a box. Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen aren't likely to cause much harm either, but neither of them are ever going to see the light of day. Shouldn't the guy who assassinated a prime minster of a country literally be one of the most hated people in that country? I don't get Israel.
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Jul 29, 2015 16:21
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Yeah I know the American prison system sucks, but this guy pretty much deserves to have his rear end locked up until he dies.
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Jul 29, 2015 16:40
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The problem is that on one hand he's already spent what I consider to be a life sentence for a crime that doesn't deserve that lengthy a sentence. But on the other hand gently caress Israel so I'm conflicted.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:16
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Being caught spying for a foreign power should probably be a death sentence honestly. I don't really see what good is served by imprisoning people for it.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:28
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OwlFancier posted:Being caught spying for a foreign power should probably be a death sentence honestly. I don't really see what good is served by imprisoning people for it. America isn't even that great that spying on them is a big deal. So you should be let off with a minor warning IMHO.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:30
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OwlFancier posted:Being caught spying for a foreign power should probably be a death sentence honestly. I don't really see what good is served by imprisoning people for it. It usually is, though it's basically only there to induce the traitor into cooperating and spilling everything so we can root out any other spies/foreign agents they were working with. PT6A posted:Shouldn't the guy who assassinated a prime minster of a country literally be one of the most hated people in that country? I don't get Israel. Rabin made the mistake of treating Palestinians as human beings, which is a capital offense in the eyes of many Israelis (as evidenced by the fact that, you know, they loving shot him for it). Oh yeah, the question to hand: gently caress Pollard, he should die in jail.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:41
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Bedshaped posted:The problem is that on one hand he's already spent what I consider to be a life sentence for a crime that doesn't deserve that lengthy a sentence. selling state secrets and spying is pretty much one of the few crimes that deserves a life sentence. It's potential for causing harm to people is huge.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:42
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I mean I don't generally see the point in prison or punitive sentencing but I think espionage is possibly the best case you can make for both. It's someone consciously and willingly undergoing extensive training in subverting the ordered functioning of a society for personal gain, or for the gain of an organisation which is actively hostile to that society and has no interest in improving it. It's difficult to really imagine any more anti-social crime that one could commit. Other than possibly running a bank.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:55
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Bedshaped posted:America isn't even that great that spying on them is a big deal. So you should be let off with a minor warning IMHO. Nah, its spying on America when you are not only supposed to be a strong ally, but also on the receiving end of large amount of American tax payer money to begin with. Pollard's handler was welcomed back to Israel as a hero, and given command of an Air Base until the US Congress threatened to cut funding to Israel, and he stepped down to defuse the situation.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:57
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His release should be contingent on Netanyahu publicly endorsing the Iran deal, at the very least.
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Jul 29, 2015 18:36
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botany posted:Why? He's clearly not a danger to society, and he can't exactly go back to spying now that everybody knows who he is. Outside of retributive justice, there is no coherent reason that I can see for why he should be locked up. What everyone else said - he literally sold classified documents for his own profit. That's on a whole other level than dealing drugs or other crimes. This is an instance where deterrence is necessary because otherwise you're making treason very low-risk/high-reward relative to other crimes.
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Jul 29, 2015 18:51
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Abner Cadaver II posted:What everyone else said - he literally sold classified documents for his own profit. That's on a whole other level than dealing drugs or other crimes. This is an instance where deterrence is necessary because otherwise you're making treason very low-risk/high-reward relative to other crimes. And it wasn't only Israel, the guy was trying to setup weapons deals with Iran, South Africa, Pakistan, etc. The guy is a loose cannon and helped get his wife classified documents to benefit her own personal business interests.
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Jul 29, 2015 18:53
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CommieGIR posted:And it wasn't only Israel, the guy was trying to setup weapons deals with Iran, South Africa, Pakistan, etc. Wouldn't that have been apartheid era SA too? Man, gently caress that guy.
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Jul 29, 2015 18:55
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Bear Retrieval Unit posted:Fry Jonathan Pollard. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 29, 2015 20:00
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Abner Cadaver II posted:Wouldn't that have been apartheid era SA too? Man, gently caress that guy. Not that its suprising that a guy working the the Israeli Intelligence would be a-okay with apartheid or anything.
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Jul 29, 2015 20:01
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CommieGIR posted:Nah, its spying on America when you are not only supposed to be a strong ally, but also on the receiving end of large amount of American tax payer money to begin with. It's not even just "caught spying on America", it's doing so and being so brazenly proud of it as to act like we're the assholes for daring to lock up one of our citizens for committing one of the most legitimately serious felonies on the books.
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Jul 29, 2015 20:20
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:It's not even just "caught spying on America", it's doing so and being so brazenly proud of it as to act like we're the assholes for daring to lock up one of our citizens for committing one of the most legitimately serious felonies on the books. It's not a crime when Israel does it.
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Jul 29, 2015 20:36
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:It's not even just "caught spying on America", it's doing so and being so brazenly proud of it as to act like we're the assholes for daring to lock up one of our citizens for committing one of the most legitimately serious felonies on the books. Well, its easy to act like this when nearly every political or diplomacy move made is justified by "We're right no matter what"
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Jul 29, 2015 20:39
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I was talking to my GF about Pollard the other day (she's from a very Orthodox Israeli family) and found out that she used to get together with her friends in grade school and call the White House to ask for Jon Pollard's release. When we talked about it, she was unaware of all the relevant facts like : -He was selling the secrets for money, not to help Israel -He tried to sell stuff to Iran and Pakistan -The Info ended up in the USSR -He has a history of opportunism and drug abuse ("He was no angel") She was a saying most people who are uber-orthodox don't know this stuff and the narrative is rather that he was a committed Jew who volunteered when he saw America wasn't helping Israel enough. IMO, he should be paroled, since he's pretty sickly, but he should have his passport revoked until Mordechai Vanunu gets his back.
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Jul 29, 2015 20:55
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ReidRansom posted:His release should be contingent on Netanyahu publicly endorsing the Iran deal, at the very least. I've got a feeling that the Israeli higher-ups consider Pollard to be a useful idiot at best and that there are limits to much that they're willing to bend over for a seedy little spy. Spies are meant to be disposable but Pollard is some loving anomaly who has actually attained popular support, but that only means so much.
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Jul 30, 2015 04:22
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The timing seems to be entirely coincidental: --- WASHINGTON — In July 2014, after Jonathan J. Pollard had served 29 years of a life sentence for spying on behalf of Israel, his hopes for freedom were thwarted when a federal panel denied his request for parole. But that hearing set in motion an intense scramble by lawyers for Mr. Pollard to ensure a different result a year later, when he would be eligible for parole after serving 30 years. They wrote letters, cited statistics and introduced evidence that their client met two legal standards for parole: that he had behaved well in prison, and that he posed no threat of returning to a life of espionage. On Tuesday, the effort finally succeeded, as the United States Parole Commission announced that Mr. Pollard, 60, met the legal standards and would be released just before Thanksgiving. ... But Mr. Pollard’s lawyers and American officials insisted Tuesday that the parole decision was not an effort to ease friction between Mr. Netanyahu and President Obama over the agreement that world powers reached this month with Iran to curb its nuclear program. Mr. Netanyahu has said the deal will lead Iran to construct a nuclear weapon. Secretary of State John Kerry, who testified before Congress on Tuesday on the Iran deal, told reporters after the hearing that there was no connection between Mr. Pollard’s parole and the agreement. “I haven’t even had a conversation about it,” he said. Longtime observers of the Iran negotiations said it would have been a mistake for Mr. Obama to try to connect Mr. Pollard’s release to the nuclear deal, especially since the fate of four Americans who are being held prisoner in Iran is not addressed by the agreement. “Any perception that an Israeli spy was released as a result of the Iran deal and not the Americans in Iranian jails would have been a P.R. disaster,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations. “Netanyahu would have had to protest even harder against the agreement to make sure nobody thought he was being bought off.”
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Jul 30, 2015 05:19
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How many people who oppose Pollard being released are otherwise critics of the security state and the prison industrial complex? Pollard isn't a hero, but he was made an example of because he had a lovely lawyer and got horrible advice. It's the exact same thing as the USS Liberty. Critics of Israel obsess over a nothing case and turn a complete blind eye to say, the USS Stark. We should dismantle the majority of American intelligence gathering operations, and any blow towards their continued operation is a net good for society. Furthermore, prison sentences should solely be constructive and rehabilitative; never punitive, as this case clearly was.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:22
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Kim Jong Il posted:Pollard isn't a hero Pollard is a traitor. Traitors are punished harshly to deter other potential traitors. Your other points are secondary and tertiary to Pollard's case.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:27
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Kim Jong Il posted:We should dismantle the majority of American intelligence gathering operations, and any blow towards their continued operation is a net good for society. Furthermore, prison sentences should solely be constructive and rehabilitative; never punitive, as this case clearly was. While I generally agree with you, I think that there's a certain subset of crime where prison sentences as a form of deterrent makes sense; namely, white collar crime of a nature where the person committing the crime is likely taking into account the risks when they do so. Stuff like insider trading or high level corruption in financial institutions should be dealt with very harshly in order to make such actions have a lower "expected return" for those individuals that might consider them. Not to mention the fact that serious white collar crime can cause far more harm than a random murderer. I don't really feel comfortable considering this that sort of crime, though. I have trouble really thinking of the net harm caused by someone like Pollard compromising state secrets, particularly when he's giving them to a nation that we aren't at war with. Like, the guy sounds like an awful person from reading his biography/history, but I can't think of any benefit to continuing his prison sentence.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:35
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I'd say 30 years in prison for selling secrets to a relatively neutral nation is a reasonable deterrent by itself. I think Pollard's motives were self-serving but in terms of harm caused I don't think there's anything to be gained by differentiating betwen motives for disclosing state secrets. How many people here would be arguing just as strongly that Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden should get the chair or spend the rest of their lives in Federal prison without parole? I think what they did was far better motivated and possibly less damaging overall but if the long prison sentence is a deterrent then you'd have to apply the same standard. If the goal is to prevent people comitting the crime at all you can't differentiate punishments by motive and after losing most of your best years in prison and being essentially unemployable there's no reason not to keep you in prison. If you really want to go for permanent punishment I'd be more in favour of passport confiscation combined with a basic living allowance provided by the state. It would be cheaper than keeping someone like that in prison but it's basically condemning them to a subsistence level of existence. It also give them the freedom to meet their family and actually live a real life though.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:44
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botany posted:Eh, can't get mad because somebody got to leave the American prison system. Good for him. Same here, 30 years is a long time to be in prison, best of luck to him moving forward. Life is going to be a hell of a lot different that it used to be for him. Last time he saw the light of day as a free man was 1985.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:45
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So I'm generally someone who believes that deterrence isn't a very good justification for harsh punishments (for reasons that have already been discussed). And usually, when people argue that deterrence is a necessary element of our society, I argue that deterrence should be done with carrots instead of sticks. We shouldn't deter kids from becoming drug dealers by threatening them with punishment. We should deter them by giving them better education and access to better legal jobs, and make crime less attractive on the front end. My question is, what does this look like in the context of espionage? If we get rid of the threat of harsh punishment for espionage, how else can we make "not spying" more attractive to potential spies? Or is that even possible? I'm caught between my hatred of our criminal justice system and my hatred of the Israeli government, but maybe there's a way to satisfy both those impulses?
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Jul 30, 2015 07:23
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Killing all the spies is one way to disrupt the commission of espionage in general.
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Jul 30, 2015 07:29
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Over at Slate, Fred Kaplan gives a good run-down on why Pollard completely deserved his sentence. For example,quote:Pollard had offered highly classified documents to three other countries before hitting up Israel. (Those countries were later reported to be Pakistan, South Africa, and Australia.)
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Jul 30, 2015 08:06
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Ytlaya posted:While I generally agree with you, I think that there's a certain subset of crime where prison sentences as a form of deterrent makes sense; namely, white collar crime of a nature where the person committing the crime is likely taking into account the risks when they do so. Stuff like insider trading or high level corruption in financial institutions should be dealt with very harshly in order to make such actions have a lower "expected return" for those individuals that might consider them. Not to mention the fact that serious white collar crime can cause far more harm than a random murderer. I disagree in the case of insider trading. It should be legalized so Americans realize that Wall Street is gambling and stop placing misguided faith in it. If there are any penalties they should be civil.
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Jul 30, 2015 12:32
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So how was Pollard ultimately caught, anyway?
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Jul 30, 2015 13:03
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Who What Now posted:So how was Pollard ultimately caught, anyway? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard#Capture
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Jul 30, 2015 14:48
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Kim Jong Il posted:I disagree in the case of insider trading. It should be legalized so Americans realize that Wall Street is gambling and stop placing misguided faith in it. If there are any penalties they should be civil. I don't think you understand the concept of "faith" 
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Jul 30, 2015 15:51
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MrNemo posted:I'd say 30 years in prison for selling secrets to a relatively neutral nation is a reasonable deterrent by itself.  Neutral Nation Like trying to setup weapons deals with Iran?
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Jul 30, 2015 15:58
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In the context of the Cold War Israel was pretty close to neutral, I used the phrase to differentiate from selling secrets to a nation that is actively antagonistic or at war with your own nation where I can see greater desire for the strongest possible deterrence. Ultimately I can't see a workable justification for treating this crime as different from what Manning or Snoweden did and I couldn't in all conscience endorse the death penalty or life imprisonment for either of them. I don't think legal cases should be decided on an ideological basis.
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Jul 30, 2015 16:04
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Well OP, hopefully he steps out of his jail cell and hits a trip wire which causes a giant pendulum blade to swing from the ceiling and slice him in two. Admittedly I might want this primarily to see Kirschen have another stroke, but Pollard is also an rear end in a top hat and deserves to stay in prison.
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Jul 30, 2015 16:07
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MrNemo posted:Ultimately I can't see a workable justification for treating this crime as different from what Manning or Snoweden did and I couldn't in all conscience endorse the death penalty or life imprisonment for either of them. Uhhhhhhhh..... What? Are you comparing a guy who stole and sold intelligence assets for financial gain to guys who were trying to blow the whistle? Are you serious?
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Jul 30, 2015 16:07
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