Officials: Pollard-Barghouti release deal may be on horizon

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Israeli officials believe that in several months, when the chaos in the Palestinian Authority increases, the United States will agree to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for the release of Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving time in an Israeli jail.

The officials said it was still too early to put such a deal on the table, but when the tide turned against the Hamas government, a situation could develop in which Barghouti's release could restore Fatah to power in the PA. In such an event, the officials said, the Americans were likely to agree to a Pollard-Barghouti deal.

The officials confirmed that two years ago, around the time that Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences plus 40 years, the idea of releasing him in exchange for Pollard was raised.

An Israeli official mentioned the idea in conversation with a U.S. counterpart, without prior approval from former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The U.S. official rejected the offer categorically, but Israeli officials believe nevertheless that the entry of Hamas into the PA government will lead the United States to change its position."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/705976.html

[Scurrilous]

1. 'U.S. demanding Pollard document held by Eitan'

<snip>

"Jonathan Pollard's attorney said Sunday that the United States would release the convicted spy if Pollard's onetime handler, Rafi Eitan, handed over a secret document which details broad Israeli government involvement in the affair.

U.S. and Israeli officials Sunday denied media reports that Israel may free jailed Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti in exchange for the Bush administration releasing Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for treason."

<snip>

"On Passover Eve last week, Leitner sent a letter to Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert asking him not to appoint Eitan as a minister in the new cabinet. Leitner has threatened to petition the High Court of Justice against any such appointment. She claims that it would disgrace the government if Eitan, Pollard's recruiter and handler, were given a portfolio.

"Pollard's handlers threw all of the responsibility for this enterprise, for this operation, onto Pollard himself. They claimed that this was a one-man operation, they claimed that the prime ministers and all those who benefited from this information, were not privy to the secret. For this reason, the U.S. buried Pollard under an indeterminate life sentence."

Asked if the secret document lists all the israeli officials aho knew of the Pollard affair, Leitner said she could not divulge the contents of the document, but said "Israel stands by its refusal, still dumping all the responsibility on Pollard ... even though we know that all the prime ministers knew of this matter."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/705976.html

[Poll_Blind]

2. Seymour Hersh: The case against Jonathan Pollard (link inside)

The case against Jonathan Pollard, by Seymour Hersh.

PB

[Coastie for Truth]

3. RASIN was basically released by a fallen Benedictine priest

Fr. Jean-Baptist Fourier, and you can reproduce a heck of a lot of what's in NSA's in-house RASIN manual if you can follow Father Fourier's writing, along with the writings of a Northeastern University academician - John Proakis and an Arizona State academician, Constantine A. Balanis, and a Mac hacker, Bruce Schneier. Not hard if you've got UNIX or mainframe MATLAB.

Straight skinnie.

[Poll_Blind]

4. What point, exactly, are you trying to argue with that?

I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm genuinely curious. It appears that you are obliquely hinting that Pollard's crimes were not so heinous as one may attempt to produce something similar to one of the items Pollard stole and sold using publicly-available information.

And when I say similar, I think that's a fair use of the word. RASIN is somewhere around 10 volumes and highly classified.

The implication that the U.S. government has kept a spy behind bars so long for stealing and selling the recipe to a 4-ingredient dish which everyone already knows is...well, not very convincing.

PB

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Wrong.

First, I worked on commercial encryption technology (especially MPEG and MP-3) and PGP. When I was forced to switch out of real chem e to digital signal processing and antennas I took some intensive training in dsp from the guy who wrote a lot of the packet based wireless communications code (including encryption) for the Navy's airborne ASW. Encryption is not a black art once you get a handle on DSP.

A lot of the algorithms are out there in open source.

If you are adept with commercial MATLAB, and really work through Bruce Schneier's books and papers and John Proakis' books and papers - you can generate a lot of the stuff in RASIN. This was told to me a Si Valley engineer who had spent 8 years at the NSA.

Some years ago an engineer (I forget if he was from Xerox or Kodak) gave a demo of simple (64 bit) crypto out of UCSC Professor Ira Pohl's text book, "Object-Oriented Programming Using C++" and web site at a Naval Reserve Center. Before he got more then 15 minutes into it - a Naval Intelligence reservist seized his lap top -- and the Office of naval Intelligence seized and kept the lap top -- and tried to court martial that Reservist for unauthorized disclosure of crypto material.

When I hear some "Navy Intelligence Type" say that "there has been a serious compromise of crypto algorithms" -- I think "A flight school flunk out who has difficulty with Word and Excel and PowerPoint - and is totally befuddled by Outlook."

I'm just a techie snob.

Having screwed around with just recreational (MPEG, MP-3) cryptography - it's incredibly easy to inadvertently create crypto top secret stuff.

And there is a hell of a lot of it on the web - and in Hong Kong and Singapore and Akihabra. Don't be too naive about techie stuff.

[bemildred]

6. Coastie is correct as to the open availability of crypto technology.

Although the situation was different when Pollard was caught.
The NSA effectively lost the crypto wars in the 90s.
The government now mostly relies on security through obscurity,
in terms of trying to maintain surveillance, and a certain amount
of FUD. I would not conclude from that, however, that Pollard's
theft of the RASIN material did not do great harm, from the NSA
point of view, and my personal opinion is that pigs will fly
before he is allowed to walk, if the spooks have anything to say
about it; and if he did manage to walk, he should investigate
personal protection services.

[eyl]

7. It's my understanding that a lot

of the information Pollard supposedly stole later turned out to have been the work of Ames. Also, given that the crime he was convicted was carries a maximum sentence of 10 years (though it didn't at the time), apparently it wasn't considered too serious.

[bemildred]

8. I am not arguing the legalities of the matter.

Nor the facts of how much damage was actually done.

If it were up to me all this secrecy crap would be done away with anyway. It is far more trouble than it's worth, and as much about keeping ones own citizens ignorant as any concerns about what foreigners might "steal" from you.

On the other hand, it is true I have little sympathy for Pollard.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Aldrich Ames and Robert Philip Hanssen

(Robert Philip Hanssen was a member of the super secret "Opus Dei") did a lot more damage then Pollard - although they all did damage.

But when it comes to breaking crypto secrets, Father Jean-Baptiste Fourier, John Proakis, Bruce Schneier, Alan Turing, Andy Grove, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Ira Pohl, among others, did far more damage -- heck they facilitated "popularizing" cryptography.

If you have reasonable facility with C++ and a little bit of aptitude, imangination, and creativity -- you can write and break code. There are blogs on crypto stuff - just to hack into MP3 files, for example.

And hacking into CD and file sharing really blew the secrecy of cryptography away.

[bemildred]

10. Don't forget Zimmerman (PGP). nt

[DavidMS]

17. AFAK Pollard needs to stay in Jail

He stole some (for the time) very sensitive documents and I spoke with a retired navy intelligence person who was familiar with the Pollard Case and from what he could tell me (given the fact that most of what the Bastard stole) releasing him would be a bad thing.

[cali]

11. It would be insane to release Barghouti

I just saw a segment on 60 minutes with an interview of Barghouti. He's a real piece of work. Hard to see him as anything but a true sociopath.

[Englander]

12. That's a different Barghouti.

The B. on 60 minutes was not Marwan.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/12/60minutes/main1494467.shtml

Profile of Marwan Barghouti;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/israel_and_the_palestinians/profiles/1473585.stm

[Violet_Crumble]

16. How can you be sure??

Are you sure he hasn't changed his name?

[Violet_Crumble]

15. I must compliment you on yr posts, Cali!

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say that I think yr posts are informative, objective and I enjoy reading them...

Yes, Barghouti is a sociopathic piece of work. To release him would be giving in to the terrorists. I always rely on 60 Minutes to give me the real picture of what someone's like. I love their hard-hitting and concise journalism and that Ticking Clock sends tingles down my spine!

:)

Violet...

[King Mongo]

13. This means that Barghouti is being wrongly held...

... since he is not a US problem.

[bemildred]

14. Barghouti is a political prisoner.

I've always sort of figured they'd have to let him out eventually.