Footnote to the preceding

I expect - or, more properly, I hope - what my own convictions about "ordinary" as opposed to "extraordinary" rendition are came though reasonably clearly in the preceding post. But on reflection, I decided I should be more explicit and to make one other point that I did not make there.

Again and to preemptively shut down the legal nitpickers, what is at issue here is not renditions done openly with some form of judicial oversight and in accordance with established laws and treaties. It is what the word "rendition" has come to mean in public discussion, and that is the practice of kidnapping a suspect in order to deliver them into the hands of some justice system. It is illegal, a clear violation of international law.

My belief is simple: It should not be done. It should not be done, yes, because it is illegal.

It also should not be done because it justifies the same being done to you. (After all, "turnabout is fair play" and "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.")

It also should not be done because while it seems that all the "what if"s being spun revolve around Osama bin Laden, in the real world it's more likely to applied to such as, as I noted in the post, Mordechai Vanunu.

And it also should not be done because all too often, the justice system to which the person is delivered is actually a "justice" system.

All of which sums up to something else I said below: Once you cross that line, how do you lay down a new one?

Dan at Pruning Shears had a post covering much the same territory as mine in which he makes a valuable point (which I should have made myself):

Keep it illegal and have a trial if the law is broken. If your exceedingly rare situation comes to pass the jury will be kindly disposed.

The exceedingly rare situation being one in which the true advisability and necessity of a kidnapping or other illegal activity arises.

To which I say yes, absolutely. As I said in a comment there,

[i]f you think that breaking a law - in this case regarding kidnapping - is vital and necessary in a given case, then do it and take your chances in court. If you're not willing to do that, well, then, maybe it wasn't all that damned important.

I said something related not quite a year ago, in that case regarding a president taking extraordinary powers in a time of national emergency, and specifically about Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping program in the wake of 9/11.

[I]f despite all the options under the law, some situation arises that you as president are convinced requires some action beyond the law, you do it and then you 'fess up and you take the fracking consequences, which should include removal from office and even criminal or civil charges if you can't convince people what you did was necessary and proper. That is, you do it as civil disobedience, as an act which you regard as necessary but which you know is illegal, not an exemption carved out from the law on your say-so, and you accept the legal jeopardy that goes along with that. If the prospect of consequences makes you hesitate when the situation is that desperate, you never should have been president in the first place. ...

[T]here has to be a bright line between what is legal and illegal, between what government officials can and cannot do, and any government official who crosses that line needs to do it knowing there can be a price to pay, perhaps a large one. Smudging, deleting, or ignoring that line makes the difference no longer between legal and illegal, between right and wrong, between what is good for a free society and what injures it, but only between good and bad liars.

And liars - both good and bad - and the policies and practices those lies are used to cover or justify, are something of which have already had too many.

Footnote: Darren Hutchinson, a professor of law at American University, has also weighed in on this, specifically on the point that the O-ba-MA! crowd is trying to rewrite long-standing civil libertarian opposition to illegal rendition as referring only to "rendition to torture." In comments there, Hilzoy links to where she answered his comment at her own place; I found it both interesting and revealing how hard other commenters at her site worked to scrub Obama clean of any hint of continuing something done under Bush (even though it had also been done under previous presidents).

Rendering renditions

Back on January 22, O-ba-MA! issued executive orders related to the detention, interrogation, and torture of suspected terrorists. They were justly celebrated in many quarters because they would close Gitmo within a year and put an end to the worst of the excesses of the Bush administration.

More recently, a few dissenting voices have been raised as to whether or not the orders went far enough, along with lingering (and always wise) suspicion over if this really was as good as it looked at first. Some of those doubts were given form in an article in Sunday's Los Angeles Times, which said that

the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism - aside from Predator missile strikes - for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

But pushback came quickly, sparked by Scott Horton, who wrote in Harper's that

[t]he Los Angeles Times just got punked.

In Horton's wake, major members of the liberal blogosphere - including Glenn Greenwald, Digby, and Hilzoy - all came up with their own explanations as to why there was nothing to the LA Times story.

And they're all wrong. All of them.

Including Horton, who said the problem was a failure to recognize a difference between renditions - which have been going on since Bush Sr. if not before - and the Shrub gang's program of extraordinary renditions, which Obama's order was supposed to halt. ("Ordinary" rendition involves kidnapping suspects with the intention of delivering them into the hands of some justice system, here or abroad. "Extraordinary" rendition, on the other hand, disappeared people, taking them into a web of secret prisons and torture from which they might not emerge.)

But while the article did at one point apparently blur the difference between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" rendition, it did accurately report that Obama's order, while halting the latter by shutting down the CIA's secret prisons, did not touch the former.

The arguments advanced by our bloggeriffic trio against that idea varied and in some ways appeared to contradict each other, but each in their own way sought to absolve President Change of any tinge of guilt.

Digby was the best - or least bad - of the three; having originally overreacted to the LA Times story by interpreting it as describing a plan to "outsource torture," she contented herself with quoting Horton at length and saying she'd gotten punked along with the Times. However, she added an update suggesting that

this more benign definition of rendition as transferring someone to another criminal justice system, used to be called extradition. Can someone explain the difference to me?

Hilzoy took that and ran with it, rather pompously explaining that "lawyers are not most people. They use all sorts of words in peculiar ways." (Emphasis in original.) Extradition, she insisted, is simply a type of rendition and rendition is all nice and legal and anything that's illegal is "extraordinary" rendition. Which may even be technically correct in lawyer-speak - but it's entirely irrelevant because the word "rendition" does not appear in the orders at hand so it's exact legal definition is merely an interesting sidebar, not something useful in reaching any conclusions. More to the point, it distorts the discussion by defying the meanings the terms have acquired in the public mind by shoving what had been called renditions under the heading of extraordinary renditions. While that may be technically correct for the purpose of a legal brief, the only court here is the court of public opinion and the fact is, the term "rendition" has an accepted meaning in that court. And it is not - or, if I'm to be accurate and precise, not limited to - that which Hilzoy would give it.

But that's of no concern to Hilzoy, who earlier sought to absolve Obama of any hint of being involved in any illegal stuff not only by glossing over the difference between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" but by willfully ignoring it: She notes where the article quotes an Obama administration official as saying, she wrote, "The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. ... if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice." She immediately adds that

[i]t's important, here, to note that extraordinary rendition is not the same as rendition proper. Rendition is just moving people from one jurisdiction (in the cases at hand, one country) to another; includes all sorts of perfectly normal things....

But as she herself had it earlier in her piece, the full quote was this, with the omitted words in italics:

The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.

If the term was only meant to refer to "all sorts of perfectly normal things," why would it be controversial? Why would it "kick up a big storm?" Why would referring to it being done "within certain parameters" be expressed as standing in opposition to that "storm" (via the use of the word "but")? Why would it need to be "looked at?" Even Horton admits that "there are legal and policy issues with the renditions program." Issues which Hilzoy seems determined to ignore.

The notion that this official was not saying that "within certain parameters" the Obama administration would be willing to engage in illegal activities such as kidnapping suspects is bullshit, pure and simple.

So, for that matter, was her parting shot:

If you think that the difference between extradition and sending someone off to Uzbekistan to be tortured is just semantics, you probably need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

To which I replied in comments:

And if you think there is no difference between treaty-controlled extradition with court oversight and what was done to, for example, Mordechai Vanunu, you probably need to work on your morality and logic comprehension skills.

For his part, Glenn Greenwald labeled the LA Times story "wildly exaggerated and plainly inaccurate" and argued, in a chorus with the others, that the story was an attempt by elements in the intelligence services to undermine Obama's intention to end torture - as well as adding a string of others long enough to come across as paranoid rather than analytical who, he said, want to make it look like there's been no change from Shrub's policies.

But I know of no one outside of those who argue that Obama is just lying who say that there is no change. That "no one" includes the LA Times, which, again, quoted officials as saying

the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role ... because it was the main remaining mechanism - aside from Predator missile strikes - for taking suspected terrorists off the street,

a comment that makes no sense except in the context of the closing of the secret prison network and the ending of extraordinary rendition.

Worse, Greenwald openly defends rendition with

a question for those who believe that rendition, in all cases ... is inappropriate and wrong:

Suppose (for the sake of discussion) that: (a) the U.S. learns exactly where Osama bin Laden is located in Pakistan; (b) there is ample evidence that bin Laden (i) perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and (ii) is in the advanced stages of planning new imminent attacks on the U.S.; and (c) the Pakistani Government is either unwilling or unable to apprehend bin Laden in order to extradite him to the U.S. for trial. Further suppose that efforts to compel the Pakistanis to do so through the U.N. are blocked (because, say, China or Russia vetoes any actions).

What, if anything, is the U.S. (under current facts) permitted to do about Osama bin Laden...? As far as I can tell, the options would be: (a) drop a bomb on him and kill him with no due process; (b) enter Pakistan, apprehend him, and bring him to the U.S. for a trial (i.e., rendition); or (c) do nothing, and just leave him be.

Those who are arguing that rendition is illegitimate in all cases ... have the obligation to answer that question specifically....

But as I said in my answering comment,

No, we don't. And I won't answer it first because it's a ticking-time-bomb question and second because it's a slippery slope that ends up where George Bush pushed us.

Re first: A ticking-time-bomb question is one where the situation specified is exactly what it needs to be to force the "my way or let the bad guys win" choice.

Re second: Okay, assume we agree to rendition in that case. But then suppose we realize we can't try bin Laden because there's no way in hell we could find an impartial jury. What do we do then? Just let him go? Or, wait, no, maybe send him somewhere not so dainty about legal rights? And what about the information he may have about those "imminent attacks?" We can't just ask him for it, can we? Don't you want to stop potential attacks on us? After all, that bomb is still ticking.

And where are we then? Once you cross that line, how do you set down a new one?

[Note: That is a slightly expanded version of my actual comment, adding a couple of phrases but no additional arguments.]

Greenwald himself tacitly admits to being brought up short by another comment, which simply flipped his example to imagining Afghanistan pursuing charges against Bush and asking why the rules should be different. Greenwald wound up rather plaintively saying that

to ask questions about an argument - as I'm doing here with regard to the view that rendition is always wrong and illegitimate in all cases - is not to embrace or reject the argument; it's to ask questions about it.

Oh, please. I can't imagine that we're really to think that after posting his gotcha question which certain others supposedly had an "obligation" to answer "specifically" that he was thinking "Gee, I wonder what people will say" rather than "Slammer!"

As evidenced by Greenwald's reaction, that reverse argument is a potent one and points to another reason beyond basic morality to resist the temptation to engage in kidnapping as national policy, the same reason that sits among those advanced against torture: You don't do it the better to avoid it being done to you.

But underlying the defenses of rendition is the assumption that it consists of what we do to "them" and never of what "they" might do to us. It's glides on an assumption of US power and US authority, that we can act without retaliation and without regard to the judgment of others, an assumption of long standing that permeates our national culture and infects our political debate.

Back in May 1992, in the print version of Lotus, I referred to the case of Manuel Noriega, a case of "rendition" that was a little more aggressive than a kidnapping:

Nothing he was accused of doing was done within US jurisdiction. But that didn't matter. Indeed, Richard Gregorie, who supervised the framing of the indictment, said after the trial "we aren't going to be able to limit our law enforcement to within our borders.... The message is we will come get you." That "getting" Noriega meant invading Panama and killing thousands of innocent people is irrlevant: "It doesn't matter how he got back here, once here he's subject to prosecution."

But if how the accused is "gotten" doesn't matter, what then of Salman Rushdie? Iran has convicted him of an insult to Islam, a capital offense. Is it then okay that he should be hunted across the world, murdered if he's found, even though no crime was committed within Iran nor is Rushdie within its jurisdiction? If we say no, what's the difference between his case and Noriega's?

(Note that there is no answer in that Rushdie was to be killed, not tried: Remember that he had already been convicted in abstentia and the fatwa allowed any observant Muslim to carry out the sentence. It was all nice and legal under Iranian law.)

We are[, I wrote at that time,] in our foreign affairs a nation afflicted with arrogance and consumed with conceit, a nation whose musclebound commitment to its collective ego has lead it from the hope of being a light unto the world to the reality of being a blight unto the world.

Let it be said that Obama's decisions regarding the CIA's secret prisons and Gitmo are a single step toward reversing that fact. Yes, it's just one step on a journey of a thousand miles, but still it is a step and can be endorsed as such. But the fact remains that the rendition program as is relevant here, a program that is not about delivering someone up for a fair trial in accordance with established treaties and legal procedures but about the use of kidnapping and other illegal actions, has not been halted or even limited: As Digby noted, Obama has yet even to "make clear that he is not going to be sending prisoners to countries like Syria or Egypt."

Despite that simple fact, the discussion of that program has slid back and forth between the poles of "it's all legal" and "it's a necessary tool." The legal, moral, ethical, and practical issues with that program may well not rise to the level of those presented by the Shrub gang's use of extraordinary rendition, but that does not mean they do not exist and acting as if they don't and without reference to what actions we are thereby justifying by others is simply another example of that arrogant conceit, that musclebound ego, that grips too many even on the left half of our political spectrum.

Footnote: The LA Times did slip up a couple of times: Once when it said the European Parliament had condemned renditions per se when in fact, according to Horton, it had condemned extraordinary renditions. Another was when it made too much of a statement in the order, writing that

[o]ne provision in one of Obama’s orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."

However, I don't think the ability of the CIA to interrogate terrorism suspects was ever at issue; it was the techniques used in those interrogations. And I believe that the reference to "short-term, transitory" was intended to allow the agency the ability to hold suspects for transfer rather than to enable the spooks to hold people "as long as it's like, you know, not too long."

On the other hand, even though I don't believe it was intended to create a loophole in the order to close the secret prison system, I also think the possibility that some might try to turn it into just that is a real one. There need to be some follow-up orders.

Reading about that lead me to this

There may be a development in the case of Mordechai Vanunu. He was the Israeli nuclear technician and whistleblower who in 1986 confirmed to a British newspaper what all politically-sentient beings already knew: Israel had nuclear weapons. For that, Israeli agents lured him from the UK to Italy, where he was drugged, kidnapped, taken back to Israel, labeled a traitor, and charged with revealing state secrets. He was convicted and spent 18 years in prison, a dozen of them in solitary confinement. He was finally released in April 2004.

If you can call it released. He was placed under a variety of restrictions limiting his movements, his contacts, and his ability to speak with any non-Israeli. He was not allowed to leave Israel. Over the intervening years, the restrictions have been repeatedly renewed.

Vanunu, for his own part, has been defiant about the restrictions on contacts with foreigners and has been sentenced to house arrest several times and, last July, to six months in jail. A hearing to appeal an additional six month sentence is scheduled for May 13.

The breaking news involves the fact that back in 2004, Vanunu had requested asylum in Norway. Aftenposten (Norway) reported last Wednesday that

news emerged that the Norwegian government stepped in to reject an appeal for asylum from long-imprisoned Israeli physicist Mordechai Vanunu.

Newspaper Bergens Tidende reported Wednesday that Vanunu's application for asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the country's immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet) back in 2004.

UDI was overruled, however, by Norway's center-right government at the time. Political considerations, not least Norway's efforts to remain on good terms with Israel and the US, were more important than Vanunu's human rights, critics now charge.

UDI officials are supposed to be free to make decisions without political interference. But like a lot of other "spoz-ta"s, political expedience overruled both policy and justice.

In the wake of the revelation, Vanunu renewed his request for asylum. However, Reuters reported on Friday, Norwegian officals "held out no hope that he would be accepted." One reason why:

Norwegian daily Dagsavisen on Friday cited an Israeli diplomat as saying that giving Vanunu asylum would be considered interference in Israel's internal affairs and a "sign of the generally anti-Israeli sentiment in Norway."

That is, pulling out the same sort of bullying tactics that always get pulled out: Any action, any statement, anything of which the Israeli government disapproves is proof of "anti-Israel" - and by inferred and sometimes explicit extension, anti-Semitic - "sentiment."

However, and this is the real breaking news part, a group called We Are Wide Awake quotes a statement from Fredrik Heffermehl of the International Vanunu Committee, saying that on Sunday night the Socialist Left Party, one of the parties in Norway's three-party ruling coalition, decided to invite Vanunu to come to Norway in May.

That of course is not the end of his problems; first and foremost, Israel has to be willing to let him go, which it has shown no inclination to do. But the existence of a formal invitation, in essence an offer of asylum (and a standing offer of a job, removing another potential snag), does serve to increase pressure on Israel to at the very, very least, explain just what it is that this man, who has served his sentence, could possibly know and reveal after more than 20 years that justifies the continued attempts to gag him - or is it, as I suspect, a combination of simple spite at their inability to intimidate him into complete silence and a desire to send a message to other would-be whistleblowers of the consequences of disobedience?

The meaning of the phrase has changed since 2004, but its significance hasn't: Free Mordechai Vanunu!

Footnote: Haaretz (Israel) reported on Monday that

Israel and the United States signed an agreement several days ago to step up cooperation in the field of nuclear safety.

The new agreement broadens and upgrades previous accords between the two countries in this field, which were signed over the past two decades. It will enable the Israel Atomic Energy Commission to access most of the latest nuclear safety data, procedures and technology available in the U.S. ...

Even though the agreement is essentially technical in nature, it has much greater significance, as many countries, including the U.S., are inclined not to cooperate with Israel on any aspects related to the nuclear field, because Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Apparently, this is another area where Israel gets special treatment.

The ins and outs of it

Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli released in April after 18 years in solitary confinement for the heinous crime of telling the world what it already knew - that Israel, alone among the nations of the Middle East, possesses nuclear weapons - has been re-arrested, BBC reported Thursday.

He was seized by armed officers and is being held on suspicion of passing on classified information, police say. ...

The bishop of the Jerusalem church where Vanunu has lived since his release said he saw him seized by between 30 and 50 men, many armed with machine guns.

Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal told the BBC News website that Vanunu's room had been searched and his mobile phones, laptop, camera and notebooks seized. ...

"They invaded the cathedral close," he said. "Some of them climbed over the fences, others came through the main gate.

"They terrified, terrorised the guests and the pilgrims, none of whom knew why this invasion happened with machine guns." ...

There have been suggestions that Vanunu's detention, coming on the day of Yasser Arafat's death, may have been timed to avoid widescale media coverage, says the BBC's Richard Miron in Jerusalem.

Personally, I'd phrase it as more than a suggestion. And 30-50 men with machine guns? What the hell was that?

And here's something else: What the hell classified information are they talking about? What information could he have that would be of any interest or use since it would be 20 years old or more? What's really going on here? Is this actually because he's been meeting with journalists, which technically he's not supposed to be doing? If so, why not just say so, say he violated the terms of his release? Why the "passing on classified information" BS?

Free him. Now.

Trust us, we're experts

Last Wednesday, British journalist Peter Hounam was arrested in Jerusalem by the Shin Bet security services

on suspicion that he was involved in interviewing former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who was freed in April after serving 18 years for spilling Israel's nuclear secrets,

reported the Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday.

Vanunu has been banned from any contact with foreigners and any journalists, even Israeli ones, without permission from the security services. Hounam was part of the team at The Sunday Times of London that broke the story by reporting Vanunu's revelations 20 years ago and has remained his friend.

The deep seriousness of the matter was affirmed by Israeli officials.

Danny Seaman, director of the Government Press Office, said that if Hounam was arrested it was for serious offenses. ...

"This is irregular and so I assume they did not arrest him as a journalist but because they have real reasons," Seaman told the radio. "The Shin Bet is a serious organization that deals with serious issues." ...

[Yuval] Steinitz[, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,] said Thursday that "In general, the Shin Bet does not arrest people arbitrarily, but with considered judgement. I am not saying that the Shin Bet does not err at times, but it is generally a very responsible organization, and things like this are done after profound consideration."

Hounam was released without charge that same evening, one day after his arrest.

Footnote, Democracy Div.: The possible threat to Hounam arising from Israel's draconian state secrets law was real, Haaretz reports in another article.

"Israeli criminal law has clauses allowing legal action to be brought against journalists, providing that the alleged violations are in the security sphere," said legal commentator Moshe Negbi.

"This is something that is not generally an accepted norm in proper democracies, but it exists."

Hanegbi was referring to Clause 13 in Israel's criminal code, the same clause under which Vanunu was originally charged. According to the clause, "Whoever publishes a state secret in a newspaper has committed a crime punishable by 15 years imprisonment, without connection to the question of whether the information poses or is liable to pose a danger to the state," Hanegbi said.

Mere possession of the secret information - whether dangerous or not - by a journalist is punishable by seven years in jail.

It's easy to imagine a scenario for dealing with a troublesome journalist: Just feed them some meaningless "secret" - and then arrest them for possessing it. Free nations shouldn't just not do such things, they should aspire to not have the means to do such things.

Footnote, Oops! Div.: The International Herald Tribune reports that Israeli officials tried to keep the matter quiet; indeed, the Jerusalem District Court issued an order on Thursday barring release of details about Hounam's arrest. Unfortunately for officialdom, when five Shit Bet agents arrested him at his hotel, they walked him out - right past Donatella Rovera, an official of Amnesty International.

Free at last - or at least

Mordechai Vanunu, a man who spent 18 years in prison in Israel, 12 of them in solitary confinement, for the "crime" of telling London's Sunday Times what everyone already knew - that Israel has nuclear weapons - is to be released on Wednesday.

If you can call it released.

Invoking emergency legislation dating from the British Mandate in 1945, Israel is imposing what can only be described as an internal exile. Vanunu, who had been adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, is barred

from talking to foreigners, including by telephone, fax or even email, and from going within 100 metres of a foreign embassy and within 300 metres of ports, airports, or border crossing points,

according to the Independent (UK) for April 18.

He can choose where to live - but will be barred from leaving that town unless he informs local police. He also can't leave the country for at least a year. Supporters intend to challenge the "ridiculous" restrictions before Israel's High Court.

Vanunu was originally tried and convicted in 1986 after being lured from London to Rome by a female Mossad agent. There he was drugged and kidnapped back to Israel for trial.

And I will ask yet again as I have asked before: What can he know after 20 years that is so dangerous that Israel would go to such lengths to silence him?

Or is this simply intended to be a warning to other potential whistleblowers about the price of speaking the truth?

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose

Quoting the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Aljazeera says that Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu will be freed in April, but placed under tight surveillance, confirming a report in the Toronto Star a month earlier.

Israel's security services would bar Vanunu from giving press interviews, publishing a book, travelling overseas or within Israel, and planned to monitor his correspondence, the paper added.

Vanunu would also be required to regularly check in with the police.

This must be some new meaning of the word "freed" of which I'm unaware.

I'll repeat the question I asked a month ago: What can he know after 20 years that is still so vital that he has to be gagged?

You're free - now shut up!

The Toronto Star says on December 31 that

Israel is concerned that a whistleblower who spilled Israeli nuclear secrets to a newspaper two decades ago might have more to say after his imminent release from prison, and is looking for ways to silence him, officials said yesterday.

Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage after giving dozens of pictures and a description of alleged weapons from Israel's top-secret Dimona nuclear reactor to London's Sunday Times in 1986.

He is due to be released in April.

Vanunu's "crime," in a nutshell, was to provide proof of what everyone knew but Israel continued to deny: It has nuclear weapons. He was lured from England to Italy where he was kidnapped by Israeli agents, brought to Israel and thrown in prison. He has spent a good portion of the last 18 years in solitary confinement. But now, facing his inevitable release,

officials, concerned about what else Vanunu has to say, are considering options that include barring him from travelling overseas or speaking in public after he is released.

While the Shin Bet security service and Israel's justice ministry had no comment, Israeli security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the report was true but would not elaborate.

Of course, another way to effectively silence him is the good old-fashioned smear campaign designed to discredit him before he even has the chance to say anything at all. That option, it appears, is already being set up, just in case.

Yossi Katz, then a member of the Israeli parliament, visited Vanunu in prison in 2000. He said Vanunu indicated he had more to say, but then contradicted himself.

Speaking after the visit, Katz said Vanunu appeared to mix fact with fantasy. Katz said his impression is that Vanunu is "not a (mentally) healthy man."

What I wonder is what the Israelis are afraid of. After all, Israel's possession of nuclear weapons is probably the worst kept secret in all of world affairs. As the Star notes, the CIA estimates Israel has between 200 and 400 nuclear weapons, making it the world's sixth largest nuclear power. (The secret is so poorly kept, in fact, that many analysts think Israel doesn't want it to be a real secret. This way, it functions as an implied threat to surrounding Arab states while still allowing Jerusalem to deny it.) Besides, any additional information Vanunu has is now at least 20 years old. So what could he know that's so vital that the authorities want to find a way to gag him?