Jonathan Pollard israel spy
Jonathan Pollard served 30 years for passing U.S. secrets to Israel.
Senior United States intelligence officials have filed parole documents arguing that an American Navy analyst, who was recently released from prison after serving a 30-year sentence for spying for Israel, continues to pose a threat to national security. Jonathan Jay Pollard is a former intelligence analyst for the United States Navy, who has was jailed in 1985 for selling American government secrets to Israel. During his trial, the US government successfully argued that Pollard was one of the most damaging spies in American history, having stolen a high volume of classified documents in a relatively short period of time.

But Pollard was recently released from prison, having served his full 30-year sentence. However, as part of the conditions of his release, Pollard must consent to the US government having constant access to the hard drive of his personal computer and internet browsing history. He is also obligated to wear a GPS device at all times, which tracks his daily movements in New York, where Pollard has been living since his release from prison. Some intelligence observers, including Newsweek correspondent Jeff Stein, have voiced concerns that Pollard may be tempted to travel abroad in order to collect funds that his Israeli spy handlers may have deposited for him in offshore bank accounts as payment for his past acts of espionage.

Now Pollard's lawyers have filed a legal brief arguing that his parole conditions are unnecessary and excessive, and that the US government should ease them considerably. However, documents filed late last week with the US Parole Commission by senior intelligence officers acting on behalf of the US Intelligence Community, make the case that Pollard's parole conditions should continue unchanged. In a report published on Tuesday, the Daily Beast's Shane Harris says the intelligence officers argue "forcefully" in the documents that Pollard "still poses a risk to national security". One of the documents (.pdf), filed by Jennifer Hudson, Director of the Information Management Division at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, uses particularly stark language in support of maintaining Pollard's parole conditions. Hudson argues that "some of the sources and methods used to develop some of the intelligence exposed by Mr. Pollard not only remain classified but are still in use by the Intelligence Community today".

Harris quotes an unnamed "former senior US intelligence official familiar with Pollard's case", who argues that the spy may have known which "up-and-coming" Israeli or other Middle Eastern leaders US intelligence had recruited or was trying to recruit as agents in the early 1980s. These individuals may today be in positions of prominence, and Pollard may be able to harm them. In her declaration filed with the Parole Commission, the ODNI's Hudson argues that Pollard could also compromise information gathered from US agents in Israel and elsewhere, which could potentially reveal their identities. "Even in cases where [these agents are] no longer alive, such disclosure can place in jeopardy the lives of individuals with whom the source had contact", she writes.

There is, of course, another reason too, says Harris, for the resistance put up by the US Intelligence Community against easing Pollard's restrictions: "US spies don't easily forgive, and they don't forget", he says. Pollard's former colleagues are still angry about his monumental betrayal. The Daily Beast says it contacted one of Pollard's lawyers for a comment, but there was no response.