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What kind of information did those "others" provide to our allies?

Here are some examples:

Name	Spied for	Served	In
S. Baba	South Africa	5 months	1982
S. Scranage	Guyana	8 months	1986-87
S. Morrison	Great Britain	3 months	1985-86
T. Dole	South Africa	5 years	1989-94
A. Helmy	Egypt	2 years	1992-94
M. Schwartz	Saudi Arabia	no time; discharged from the Navy without pension	1996

Israel is not an "ally" of the United States in any formal (i.e., legal) sense of the word.

They aren't members of Nato, true. However, they're friendlies. In order to be guilty of the actual crime of "treason", you must be spying for an enemy nation in a time of war. Israel not only isn't an enemy nation, it isn't even a hostile nation.

I didn't ask who these people were -- I asked what kind of classified information they provided to other countries.

They aren't members of Nato, true. However, they're friendlies. . . . Israel not only isn't an enemy nation, it isn't even a hostile nation.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, Israel has the same legal status as Egypt -- i.e., the U.S. grants them formal recognition as a nation and has agreed to provide direct active military support in very limited circumstances (kudos to anyone who knows exactly what these circumstances are). Neither country is an ally in the formal sense of the word, which means the U.S. has not signed a mutual defense treaty with them in which both countries formally agree to provide military support to the other in the event of aggression by outsiders. The U.S. has signed formal treaties of this sort (NATO, SEATO, etc.) with a number of countries around the world that make these countries allies of ours. No such treaty exists between the U.S. and Israel, so Pollard's supporters have no legal basis for their claim that "spying for an ally" is a less serious offense than spying for anyone else.

In order to be guilty of the actual crime of "treason", you must be spying for an enemy nation in a time of war.

Right. This is why Pollard was never charged with treason.

Sharon Scranage was NOT spying for Guyana. She was a low-level employee at the Station in Accra. She was a country girl who fell under the spell of a Ghanian Intelligence Officer and ultimately compromised some sensitive information from the Station.

Caught you in another, er, misstatement.

S. Morrison [sic]

Great Britain

3 months

1985-86

Samuel Loring Morison (one "r") was an analyst who provided a classified photo, not to a foreign country, but to Jane's Publishing Group, where it was published on the cover of Jane's Defence Weekly in 1984. (Where I saw it, actually, and recognised it, and said, "oooh, heads will roll..."). The theft was quickly traced to Morison, who confessed and cooperated with a damage assessment, revealing that he had provided three satellite photos (inclusing the cover shot, of an aircraft carrier under construction), and information paraphrased from a classified document on an explosion in a Soviet shipyard.

Morison, well-represented legally, also pursued his case to the Supreme Court, losing in 1988 [nytimes.com].

Some differences between Morison and Pollard:

Morison cooperated with the damage assessment, Pollard didn't.
Morison provided material classified no higher than "Secret" (although protected by a code word). Pollard provided numerous top secret documents, and some documents so highly classified that the codeword is classified itself.
Morison's theft was limited to three photographs and the contents of one text document. Pollard gave up tens of thousands of documents.
Morison gave up information in the mistaken belief it could not be traced to him; but he selected a very small amount of what he had to give up. Pollard first stole an index to classified documents, and subsequently stole documents to the order of his case officer.
Dirtbag Morison was not convicted under the law that double-dirtbag Pollard was convicted under, but under a provision of the Espionage Act of 1917 relating to "unauthorized disclosure to the press."
Morison did not release information which compromised human intelligence sources; Pollard did.
Morison did not compromise cryptographic and cryptanalytical material; Pollard did.
Morison did not compromise missions in which Americans risked their lives underseas, in the air and on land in and around "denied areas." Pollard did.

Likewise, most of the others on Shill4Israel's list are not actual spies like Pollard, or even unauthorized disclosers like Morison. Schwartz, unlike Pollard, stole nothing higher than Secret (Noforn) -- no TS, no codeword stuff. Unlike your boy Pollard, he didn't take money. Unlike Pollard, he didn't put himself under the direction of foreign intelligence officers. See here. He threw his career away and went from Lieutenant Commander to Other-Than-Honorable discharge. Baba, for another example, sent documents to the South African Embassy, which returned them immediately. He was sentenced to eight years' hard labor (and other penalties) by a Naval General Court-Martial. Here is his case and some other Navy spies (including Morison) of the eighties. You will see that many got six or ten years in prison just for stealing documents without actually doing anything with them. Conversely, Morison gave them to the media and Pollard stole to order, for money.

Don't feel too bad about Morison. After serving part of his time for leaking classified material to the media, Morison (prisoner number 12824-083, you can look him up) was released on Jan. 23, 1989 and finished his two-year sentence under parole.

He was pardoned by President Clinton, who actually considered pardoning Pollard, too, but for possibly the only time in his eight years in office listened to his DCI.

Finally, here is a thorough list of military espionage cases of the last thirty years. The case most nearly parallel to Pollard's is probably Larry Wu-Tai Chin, who was another member of the Spy Class of 1985. Like Pollard, Chin tried to say he was just trying to smooth over some relationship bumps between his ancestral homeland and his land of nominal citizenship, the USA. Like Pollard's judge, the Chin jury didn't buy it and found him guilty on all counts.

Chin died in prison, although he did it by his own hand, before sentencing. If Pollard doesn't like prison, let him look to Larry Wu-Tai Chin for an example.

Then again, if he's released, he'd have to wonder what really happened to Ed Howard.

You could also select some of Pollard's partners in treachery and make a different table. Walker: two life sentences plus ten years; Pelton: three life sentences; Trofimoff (another ethnic-homeland spy): life; Hansen: life; Regan: life without parole; Anderson (islamic convert): life; Hernandez, Labanino and Guerrero (Cuban spy ring): life for each; Lessenthien: Life, parole after 27 years; Ames: life without parole... and the hits just keep on coming.

Finally, think about the effect that Pollard's treachery had on loyal Jews, casting a light of suspicion on all of them, quite unfairly, but that's how people's minds work. A Jew is already going against most of his community and often against his family by serving in the military or intelligence agencies. Now he also has to get the hairy eyeball from the goyim. "Hmm, can I trust Steinberg with this sensitive project?" Fortunately, most people answer that question "sure I can" but it's a shame, and it's Pollard's shame, that they ask. The mossad used to claim that it never used local Jews. Well, they still claim that, but after Eli Cohen, Wolfgang Lotz, and the Norwegian and Danish members of the 1973 assassination team, not to mention Pollard, it's a transparent fiction.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F