"John W." <worthj1970@yahoo.com> wrote in message

> Actually that's being an employee for an intelligence gathering
> agency.

That's vocabulary nit-picking, nobody has "spy" written on their pay-sheet.

>If they aren't actively involved in the gathering of that
> intelligence, they're not spies. I got the impression that they did a
> lot of teaching and translating stuff, not actual spying. Analysts at
> best.

There may be one guy that puts the micro to tape the telephone conversations
of Koizumi, another to listen and translate into Korean, another that lists
all the conversations about a given topic to write the report and decide
whose line they'll tape next...the 3 are "spying" in team.

That's not like working for a press agency or a language school. My remark
was particularly about the case of Jenkins, if he had just been a deserter
and worked during 40 years as a translator/language teacher in Canada, US
government would probably accept more easily to let him go. It seems they
have pardoned most deserters that lived in exile in *normal* countries
and had civilian jobs. I understand their attitude.
But as US army still occupies Japan and they work together with Japanese
army and secret services, it's sad if they cannot associate to take care of
Jenkins in Japan.

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