Contract, What Contract? One of the most glaring areas of hypocrisy for our government is the topic of spies. The entire world knows that all governments want to spy on each other, yet if we catch one of our "citizens" passing information to another country, we are outraged and willing to put this person to death for his or her transgression.

The hypocrisy was pointed out in a recent Supreme Court ruling. According to an article in the New York Times, "A contractual agreement between the government and one of its spies is unenforceable in federal court because of the 'absolute secrecy' the government needs for its espionage activities, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday."

Let this be a lesson to all those freedom loving, democracy seeking foreigners that yearn to live a better life either by working their own way into our country or to help free their country by feeding critical information to us about their country.

The argument the government used in court to block the unnamed couple from seeking the court's power to enforce a contract that was suppose to provide lifetime financial support, was that "even the need to respond to the allegations of such a lawsuit posed a threat to national security be requiring an acknowledgment that an espionage agreement existed." What say it aint so, the great United States of America has spies. Boy would the rest of the world be shocked.

To add further insult to injury, in my opinion, the court cited as a precedent for this denial a post Civil War case, decided in 1876. According to the Times, "...the heirs of a spy who had entered into a contract with President Abraham Lincoln to infiltrate the Confederate lines for $200 a month filed a lawsuit contending he had not received full payment. The Supreme Court ordered that suit dismissed."

If I remember my Business Law 101 class, in order for a contract to even be considered a contract, each party must give some type of consideration (something of value) to the other party. It would seem that if you are a spy working on behalf of the great United States, you, the spy deliver you part of the contract and then the government has the option of not delivering on its part of the contract_

Guess if one wants to spy for the US, they should demand cash up front!

Maybe this was really all a ruse to shakedown the government; we do not use spies do we?  ¶ 6:49 PM