Julian Assange and Jonathan Pollard

Now that the authorities are talking openly about at least the possibility of pursuing criminal charges against Julian Assange we find ourselves thinking of Jonathan Pollard. He is the former U.S. intelligence analyst who spied for Israel. He slipped out of the Naval Intelligence Service a trove of secret documents and gave them to the Israelis. When the law caught up with him, he cut a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to a single count of passing national defense information to a foreign government. For that he was given a life sentence, which he is currently serving at Butner, North Carolina.

We do not want to suggest the parallels are exact — or even similar. But the question is good for a thought experiment. Both stories involve the transfer of reams of American secrets. In the case of Pollard, they were transferred to a state that was, and is, one of America’s staunchest friends, a nation that is in the lists, so to speak, with America on the same side of a vast, twilight struggle with a foe who harbors an enmity to both. In the case of Wikileaks, the secrets are being transferred to a Website that is accessible, when it is accessible at all, not only to our friends but our enemies.

No doubt there are those who will rush to point out that an intelligence professional like Pollard must have known that he could not tell for certain to whom he was actually handing the documents he handed over. If, say, the Soviet Union wanted to make a run at Pollard, they might well have done it, knowing of Pollard’s ideals, by having one of their agents posing as an Israeli agent. Others will say that nothing that Mr. Assange has made available on his Web site is as high value to our enemies as was what Pollard allegedly gave to one of our fastest friends. Reasonable points.

It will also be pointed out that Mr. Assange is asserting that he is a publisher and that Wikileaks is a publication and is protected, insofar as American law is concerned, under the First Amendment. There is no doubt that, at least in the case of Wikileaks’ recent disclosures of diplomatic traffic, much of what it has made available would be regarded as a routine, if juicy, leak by all sorts of responsible, mainstream newspapers, and that many patriotic papers wouldn’t have hesitated to publish much of the material, even if they hesitated to deal directly with Mr. Assange.

We’d be happy to stipulate, at least for this thought experiment, to those points as well. And, for that matter, the point about money, for Pollard was paid by the Israelis, though even a worst-case interpretation of the facts would suggest he had mixed in with his motives idealistic, or ideological, motives. The whole story is difficult to decipher because the material that he transferred to the Israelis hasn’t been made public. But it is said that some of what he gave the Israelis related to intelligence in respect of what their enemies in the Middle East were up to.

Mr. Assange’s Wikileaks operation is also being paid, though by whom is unclear. Reports suggest members of the public make contributions to sustain the Website. But which members of the “public” is a matter of speculation. No doubt it is many, but could it be that operatives for our enemies gleefully punched in their credit cards as well in the hope of keeping it all going? Perhaps if it ever gets to court those credit card transactions will be brought in as evidence and put into the public record.

In any event, discounting for all the above points, the question of Jonathan Pollard and Julian Assange intrigues us. Are both bad guys? Is one a good guy and the other not? Are both good guys? Will those defending Wikileaks now defend Pollard? And what would be the appropriate sentence for Mr. Assange if, in the hypothetical case, he were charged under our espionage laws? Pollard began serving his life sentence in 1987, and has been in prison at Butner, North Carolina. According to the summary of the case on Wikipedia, his projected release date is 2015.