by Anatoly O. 03.17.2001
Robert P. Hanssen, the veteran FBI agent, was accused
of spying for Moscow. Will sufficient evidence be ever found to prove that beyond a
reasonable doubt? There is not a single, solitary shred of evidence that he did
commit espionage. There certainly is no evidence that he took any money. It will
never be proven.
But the real question is: did Hanssen provide the KGB documentary material for money? Nothing that we've got right now points
directly to that. And it's very hard to prove without having wire transfers or
somebody's personal statement or having a lot of circumstantial evidence. As I
understand the law, if you want to prove espionage, you're going to have to have
a telephone conversation or an e-mail or something like that. You can throw out
all the innuendo you want, but we have laws in place to protect citizens. You
can chatter away all you want, but in the end you've got to prove something.
A former CIA officer Aldrich Hazen Ames
was arrested in 1994. To save his wife, he pled guilty to having committed
espionage as an agent of the KGB and SVR. Nine months after he was branded a threat to national
security and put in solitary confinement, Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho
Lee was set free with an apology from a judge. Officer King consistently
contradicted claims of espionage while being subject to long periods of
interrogation (up to 15 hours), denial of counsel, and extremely abusive conduct
by military investigators. The only clear violations in this case were committed
by over-zealous investigators, who wildly misconstrued the case from the outset
and then struggled to create evidence to fit an unfounded and implausible
theory. Former Director of Central Intelligence
Deutch stored sensitive information on his unclassified computers. In fact,
Deutch, King, Lee have all
been accused of espionage, not a one thing was ever proven. And now Hanssen is
accused. They grew up into the corrupt
world. They made mistakes. They learned from their mistakes.
The bottom line here is, the Cold War is over. President Bush has said, “let's move forward.” Let's move forward with an agenda to fight drugs, with an agenda to protect Americans from terrorist's threats. We really should be looking forward rather than backwards. Hanssen just wants to be left alone.
Is anyone going to really think that anybody is capable of finding the facts here? Come on. Get on with your life.