Longtime Balloon Juice readers know that I am adamantly opposed to the death penalty for a variety of reasons (I would be for the death oenalty if I got to choose who received it, because I am always right, you know), but cases like this test my beliefs:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it had expanded a New Jersey espionage investigation in an effort to determine whether one of its own agents, charged last month with spying for the Philippines, might have also had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office several years ago.
The F.B.I. agent, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., an American citizen who was born in the Philippines, was charged Sept. 12 with passing classified information to government officials in Manila.
The charges filed against Mr. Aragoncillo relate only to classified information that officials say he took from F.B.I. computers after joining the agency in July 2004.
But the investigation is widening, officials said, in light of the fact that he had worked for several years prior to joining the agency as a marine in the vice president’s office under both Al Gore and Mr. Cheney. Military aides usually hold security clearances.
ABC News reported Wednesday night that Mr. Aragoncillo was accused of stealing classified material from White House computers at the vice president’s office, including information damaging to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
On Wednesday, government officials said they had no corroboration that any material had been taken from the vice president’s office, but they acknowledged that investigators had been focusing on Mr. Aragoncillo’s work at the White House.
The White House refused Wednesday to comment on the case. “It is an ongoing investigation and, as such, all questions should be directed to the F.B.I.,” said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. Richard Kolko, an F.B.I. special agent, said, “We’re going to do a full investigation of the entire time he had access to any classified or sensitive information, and in the course of the investigation, we will do all due diligence to determine if any other improper activity occurred.”
If this Marine and later FBI agent was spying, and spying from the White House, I am hard pressed to argue against those who would want to line him up against a wall and shoot him dead. While I oppose the death penalty, when it comes to treason, my general attitude is try them, and if found guilty, let them hang by the neck until dead.
Marcus Wellby
I think life without parole in a federal “pound me in the ass prison” — to quote Office Space — is ample punishment. I’d take the chair over getting sold for a pack of smokes any time.
Vladi G
I gotta go with Gavin on this one. We can no longer trust Filipinos and Filipinas. Time to round them up into internment camps.
You first, Michelle.
Hippie Doug J
What about the fact that the White House Chef is Filipina????
demimondian
I’d kind of like to understand this whole story, frankly. I want to know why he was passing on information, what information he was passing on, to whom he was passing it, and what they did with it. Was this human intelligence which revealed the identity of a source? Was it reconnaisance info that we could have gotten from any of several kinds of well-known sensors? Was it financial data?
I’ve got to be candid: ever since Anne Coulter announced that I was a traitor — a fact of which I had previously been unaware — I’ve been reluctant to lengthen the necks of traitors. There seems to be a certain unreliability about our identification process.
Steve
Is this the start of a Daily Plame Thread? Or is there some classified information that warrants the death penalty if you disclose it and other classified information that, you know, isn’t “really” classified.
Zifnab
Yes. Spying getting spied on is bad. Yes. A traitor to the US should be dealt with harshly. Yes. It would feel good to see the bastard get the chair.
But I don’t think it sets a very good precedent. If a CIA agent was caught in the Philipines gathering incriminating evidence against President Arroyo, I wouldn’t want to see him get the chair for doing his job. American soldiers and servicemen hold a position of international priviledge in many areas because America doesn’t play dirty (or at least never used to play dirty) with prisoners. We didn’t axe the Chinese spy stealing from Los Alamos. I really don’t see the need to spill blood over a new security leak. Killing him won’t make anything more secret again.
slightlybad
I get what your saying John, but what Zifnab says is also correct. In practice, we rarely executed Soviet spies during the Cold War because we frequently needed to trade them for our guys when they got caught.
In some of the more egregious cases (like someone passing actionable military intelligence that resulted in some of our guys getting hurt) I do think that execution is the way to go.
srv
I agree with you 100%. As long as he goes right after those guys who sold arms to the Ayatollahs.
demimondian
I don’t know if this is the daily Plame Flame thread (although I think that the newer story about Clinton and Freeh is a better shot, particularly since it repeats the sure-to-be-incendiary rumor of 22 indictments in l’affair Plame.) However, the truth is, yes, there’s classified information and there’s classified information.
In one (unclassified) instance, during US v. _The Progressive_, the government tried to classify the statement “The speed of light in approx. 300,000 kilometers per second.” Now *that’s* information which poses a *grave* risk if it’s released, don’t you think?
Steve
The other reason we didn’t execute the Los Alamos spy was that he was innocent.
Rusty Shackleford
Vladi G Says:
I gotta go with Gavin on this one. We can no longer trust Filipinos and Filipinas. Time to round them up into internment camps.
You first, Michelle.
October 6th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Damn – beat me to it.
Rick
Baloney; Michelle Malkin herself beat you to it: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003676.htm
Cordially…
Gratefulcub
A link isn’t good enough, I bring you Ms. Malkin
Steve
Right. “I don’t mind profiling, so long as it’s narrowly tailored profiling that doesn’t affect me personally.”
Shygetz
Or “I like internment so long as it’s only those filthy Japs.”
Rick
Considering we aren’t at war with the P.I., nor have Filipinos partaken in lethal attacks against American citizens, the preceeding comments are at a level of obtuseness stunning even for this blog’s commentariat.
That’s saying something.
Cordially…
Stormy70
I’m a fan of the death penalty. It’s in the genes. Scots with an earlier Viking strain. It is natural selection, not my fault.
pleonastic piranha
i’m not so quick to put people against a wall — and if i did, i’d start with those who sent thousands to their deaths in iraq based on lies (that’s what i consider real treason).
in any case, i’d decide whether death is warranted by what sort of information was handed on. of course if i were to dole out death for certain acts of treason, i better be prepared to see my own agents die as well. and if i am not, then i might prefer to not put anyone to death, but to exchange them. sort of like it’s done now. there’s a surprise.
in that vein, what about larry franklin? up against the wall with him as well?
scs
I say use the standard for spies as you do for other criminals. If a spy engages in some action where they knowingly puts American lives in physical danger, resulting in their injury, then they should be executed for murder. If they are just stealing the specs on our latest photocopier, then an appropriate jail term would be in order.
StupidityRules
Since I’m totally opposed to capital punishment then I’m obviously opposed to this guy being executed. Put him in a jailcell for the rest of his life. And for some realpolitik, I thought the Philippines was an ally in the GWOT. So it might not be a good idea to kill him, same goes for British or Israeli spies being caught.
(Finally while I oppose the death penalty, there are times when it’s justified to kill other people for instance; war or when you or someone else are threatend with lethal force. But if you were threatened with lethal force and then managed to subdue the attacker and then decided to kill him, then it’s wrong. And that’s also my view on the death penalty, it’s killing someone who doesn’t pose an imminent threat.)
AG in Houston
So.
How do you think Israel was involved?
Pb
Why bother with having a trial or gathering evidence? He’s an American and a spy–that should easily be enough to make him a ‘suspected terrorist’ too–so why don’t you just hold him indefinitely? Jose Padilla hasn’t gotten a trial, so why should this guy? Just hold him for a few years, and if he gets the crap beaten out of him, well, who cares, right, he’s *probably* a terrorist…
Tim F
Zifnab,
That is already standard practice. A NOC engaging in espionage against a foreign country can expect to be disowned by the mother country and tortured and/or killed by the captors if he or she is caught. Foreign nationals spying on their home country for a foreign power are routinely put to death. That doesn’t mean that it always happens, but the threat is there.
Tim F
For example, if this guy led to the death of anybody that America cares about then he could well face a capital trial. I don’t think that is the case here; from what I can tell his offense isn’t much worse than that of Jonathan Pollard or the AIPAC indictees. I could be wrong, if it turns out that his actions led to the death of anybody America cares about then god help him.
Steve
Talk about a 9/10 mentality! Rick apparently thinks that we must wait for Americans to die in an attack before we can act on information that foreign agents are infiltrating the highest levels of our government.
You would have found a happy home in the John Kerry campaign, my friend.
carpeicthus
I actually have less objection for the death penalty for treason that causes real harm or direct terrorist attacks than any other crime, since these are crimes against the state as a whole, so the state has more of a right to say “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to kill you for that.”
tzs
Um, may I remind everyone that what considers “treason” is defined very precisely in the U.S. Constitution? Does this case meet the criterion?
Reason is, the Founding Fathers saw what a MESS accusations of treason caused in Europe and decided they’d better be very sure what it was restricted to.
(I can bore everyone nuts with Roman treason law and its application in the Italian city-states. And yes, what havoc it wrecked….)