As this newspaper reported, US spy chief James Clapper has claimed in a filing to a New York court that Jonathan Pollardcontinues to hold "sensitive and confidential information classified as top secret," and should be restricted in his parole…[and] Pollard's release could cause serious harm to the national security of the United States.And this is somehow based on his esteemed judgment thatinformation obtained by the former-spy pre-imprisonment is still considered sensitive, giving reason to impose limitations on his release.
In the first instance, this is but a refashioned Catch-22. As we know, Catch-22 is a type of unsolvable logic puzzle sometimes called a double bind. It isa paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules
Can Clapper inform us just when Pollard’s supposed knowledge of sensitive information expires as regards its dangerous value and possible harm caused? When does Pollard cease being a risk? Or is it forever?This reminds me of Vladimir Slepak’s appearance on the BBC Panorama program four decades ago when he was asked to explain his refused exit visa based on his knowledge of Russia’s technology. He told his interviewer that he told his supervisor that there are no secrets he could reveal to the West because the West was a decade ahead of the Soviets in this field. Russia was woefully behind. The supervisor told him, “ah, yes, but that is the secret”.But let us return to Clapper. Have we forgotten his own ‘knowledge’?I quote from an item in Politico by Josh Gerstein on February 10, 2011:-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is backing away from comments he made Thursday calling Egypt's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement "largely secular."At a House Intelligence Committee hearing earlier in the day, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) questioned Clapper about the threat posed by the group. Clapper replied by suggesting that the Egyptian part of the Brotherhood is not particularly extreme and that the broader international movement is hard to generalize about."The term 'Muslim Brotherhood'...is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence…In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally."
Any judge who would trust a background estimation brief by Clapper should immediately have alarm bells going off in his mind.Does US President Obama trust him?Back on September 9, 2015, Clapper testified thatU.S. intelligence officials have a “huge concern” about Islamic State’s ability to infiltrate waves of Syrian war refugees flowing into Europe and potentially the United States…”one of the obvious issues that we worry about, and in turn as we bring refugees into this country, is exactly what’s their background?”...“We don’t obviously put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees.”
But this week we have been informed thatThe State Department is hoping to bring an average of nearly 1,500 Syrian refugees to the United States per month in order to meet President Obama's target of settling 10,000 refugees in the country by September. About 1,300 refugees have already been placed in the United States since Obama first made the commitment in September.
If Obama can toss Clapper to the wastebasket, so can Pollard’s judge.^