Zeroisanumber posted:

gently caress that guy he should rot in federal prison until he dies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Abner Cadaver II posted:

Wouldn't that have been apartheid era SA too? Man, gently caress that guy.

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.

MrNemo posted:

I'd say 30 years in prison for selling secrets to a relatively neutral nation is a reasonable deterrent by itself.

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.

Gravel Gravy posted:

When has "Christian thing to do" ever factored into national security?

Mandy Thompson posted:

And what he did was wrong but he didn't do it yesterday. We should be ready to forgive people. He's done his penance. It would be the Christian thing to do.

Mandy Thompson posted:

The first part applies to ordinary common violent criminals and drug dealers but I think most people here would say that an armed robber or drug dealer should have an opportunity for parole if they have done their time, been a model prisoner, and participated in programs to rehabilitate themselves. The second part suggests that you're not willing to extend him the same courtesy because of politics. Yes Israel is terrible and nationalists are assholes but we have to look at the person first. Otherwise we are just being stubborn and contrary to nationalists like Republicans are to Obama. We should be consistent instead of changing our views to be contrary to someone we don't like. Justice is supposed to be blind to politics.

Mandy Thompson posted:

And that is something to be take into consideration with the totality of what he has done in prison, by a blind, impartial, and objective parole board and court system rather than wrathful mobs based on whether they like Israel or not.

Mandy Thompson posted:

30 years ago. We should be willing to forgive people.

Mandy Thompson posted:

Justice isn't meant to serve national interests. Justice is blind. National interests aren't justice.

Mandy Thompson posted:

As do any other common thieves, but we are willing to parole thieves.

Mandy Thompson posted:

Well first of all Jeffrey Dahmer is dead so that is a moot point. But even if he was still alive, he was not a model prisoner at all, showed no evidence of trying to change, and would be very likely to commit another crime if he was released.

Obdicut posted:

The point is your opinion of Israel shouldn't play into whether or not he gets granted parole or not. It should only be based on what it is for everyone else. Is he going to reoffend? No. He won't possibly have the capacity. If he's met the legal standard for release he should be released.


Um, yeah, we parole murderers.

Mandy Thompson posted:

Yet many of you still seem to be calling for the release of Chelsea Manning (I agree) and it doesn't seem as though she has shown remorse.

CommieGIR posted:

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?

Obdicut posted:

This means Pollard committed an additional crime, which was the sale of the secrets. From a national security standpoint, though, broader release of the information is more damaging, and Manning released more than was necessary to just do whistle-blowing. She didn't even know everything she was releasing. It isn't inappropriate to note that if you want to be super-harsh on Pollard you give ammo to those who want to be harsh towards Manning--and Snowden.

OwlFancier posted:

Not really, espionage is one of the least justifiable crimes one can commit. It's moderately well off people who are well educated and well trained trying to make money off of attacking the inner workings of a society. They don't need to do it, they just want to. Violent crime and theft is predominantly crime of desperation and passion, people either aren't thinking or are in a position where they feel they have little alternative, so no amount of punishment is going to deter that, unless you provide a reasonable alternative. In the case of espionage there are plenty of reasonable alternative ways to live but the person consciously decides to behave antisocially to further their own goals. It isn't that they are in a desperate situation, it's that they are greedy to the point of showing a complete disregard for the wellbeing of others.

In that instance I would consider it more expedient to simply shoot the fucker as an example to the rest.

Narciss posted:

I'm very disappointed to see so many posters falling for the "He's a Jew so he did it for the shekels" meme.

quote:

Within a few days, in June 1984 Pollard started passing classified information to Sella. He was paid $10,000 cash and given a very expensive diamond and sapphire ring, which Pollard later offered to his girlfriend Anne when proposing to her. Pollard was paid well by the Israelis: he received a salary that eventually reached $2,500 a month, and tens of thousands of dollars in cash disbursements for hotels, meals, and jewelry. In his pre-sentencing statement to Judge Robinson, Pollard said the money was a benefit that was forced on him. "I did accept money for my services," he acknowledged, but only "as a reflection of how well I was doing my job." He said that he had later told his controller, Rafi Eitan, a longtime spy who at the time headed Lekem, a scientific-intelligence unit in Israel, that "I not only intended to repay all the money I'd received but, also, was going to establish a chair at the Israeli General Staff's Intelligence Training Center outside Tel Aviv."[26][27]

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigator Ronald Olive has alleged that Pollard passed classified information to South Africa,[28] and attempted, through a third party, to sell classified information to Pakistan on multiple occasions.[29] Pollard also stole classified documents related to China on behalf of his wife, who used the information to advance her personal business-interests. She kept these secret materials around the house, where investigating authorities discovered them when Pollard's espionage activity came to light

Mandy Thompson posted:

Then consider the wall street banks that are the wealthiest among us who completely collapsed the economy. We give them very short sentences or fines even if what they do is often as destructive as any spy.

Obdicut posted:

Yes, as i said, that means Pollard committed an additional crime. The idea that either Manning or Snowden would be likely to not do this again, though, is far less precisely because they were ideological, though. If your argument is to imprison people because they don't feel any remorse, then that will really obviously apply to Snowden and I think to Manning, though I don't know too much about her psyche now.

tsa posted:

Mandy Thompson posted:

Sure, it isn't just his lack or remorse though, he continues to be violent, dysfunctional, disassociated from reality, and has repeatedly vowed to kill again when they let him out.

Mandy Thompson posted:

We're talking about a Jewish person from Israel though

Mandy Thompson posted:

If Espionage is a sort of act of war, then in the past 30 years the political landscape has changed to the point that the war is essentially over. If he was a POW we would have let him out by now.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Plus it seems like we traded him for peace with Iran and not-war in the middle east. Seems like an good call.

Mandy Thompson posted:

Many of you think I am okay with what he did, I am not. But I feel that 30 years is long enough for just about anyone short of true monsters like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. Even Anders Brevik gets a parole hearing after 11 years and he killed 80 something people. That was in another country of course but I think it is a model that we should follow here.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34876060

Casimir Radon posted:

I say let him go to Israel, maybe a rocket will land on his house.