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Former FBI Agent Pleads Guilty To Leaking Secrets to the Associated Press
McGruber writes "Today, Former FBI agent Donald John Sachtleben has agreed to plead guilty to leaking secret government information about a bomb plot to the Associated Press. In May, Sachtleben agreed to plead guilty to unrelated charges of possessing and distributing child pornography, and to pay restitution to an identified victim portrayed in the images and videos he allegedly possessed."
The deal includes a prison sentence of three years and seven months, and "If accepted by a judge, the prison sentence would be the longest ever handed down in a civilian court for a leak of classified information to a reporter."
Way to go on that transparency and leaker protection thing you so loved.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9GSBT_-JoQ
What ever happened to the whistleblower act? He should have immunity over this. Clearly the government has lost their mind and have gone completely tyrannical. Did you know that just last week the feds now told the police that anyone that there may be more to 9/11 than what meets the eye, like believing in WTC7 means that they're probably a terrorist? Using VPN, proxies, encryption, storing food for more than 5-days are other reasons as well. Every month new possibilities come up and anything we say online, on the phone, or over the radio can and will be used against us if we're deemed a threat to the government. In other words, the government doesn't give a shit about us, it's all about THEIR better interest. Whether you believe in any whistleblower or not of the past decade isn't what matters, what matters is the result of calling out your government for doing something illegal and then getting arrested that matters. This is a BIG problem and why people should be concerned. Next, your visitation to the therapist or doctor could be a reason for you to not bare arms or even be arrested as a suspected terrorist because quite frankly EVERYONE is a suspect at this point. But you know what they say, if everyone else is a suspect, there's a possibility that you're the one who's the real suspect, and quite frankly I think we can all agree that the government is the real terrorist, trying to scare the living crap out of people and telling them what to do "or else". /rant
They're pissed about the press leaks and out for blood, so he gets the longest ever sentence for leaking classified information.
But the kiddie porn charges? Nah, just pay a fine.
Wow.
The idea behind restitution is to make whole someone who has been injured or caused some loss by another's actions. Unless this is a copyright issue, I don't see how possessing or distributing child pornography could be associated with any kind of monetary restitution. Creation of child pornography perhaps - the child could claim some trauma or, maybe at the outside, damage to their reputation. This doesn't make any sense though.
Maybe this is a more common tactic than I thought.
I'm growing more and more horrified to be a citizen of the USSA.
It does seem that way. Before you leak, destroy all your storage media lest you find unexpected photos appearing on them.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I'm growing more and more horrified to be a citizen of the USSA.
You're welcome to leave and find out what an actual repressive state looks like, kid.
Did he leak info that uncovered government wrong doing? No. Did he leak info that showed corruption? No. Did he leak info to protect innocent victims from harm? No. Those would all be excellent and justifiable reasons to break his oath and provide information to outside sources. He was just being a moron.
Not everyone who leaks information deserves protection or is a whistle blower.
It's become a standard responce by the state security apparatus to smear whistleblowers with kiddie porn charges.
Who can blame them? It works. Anyone who disagrees with these procedures is a pedo/terrorist that's soft on drugs/crime. As long as we reelect the trash we put into office, I will continue to insist that this is the government we want... This is how majority rule works..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Holy shit, the FBI killed David Carradine?
Respect can be lost, but fear sticks around.
And that is exactly what the sons of bitches who are behind the
curtain ( the ones who pull the strings that make Obama move )
are interested in : making sure Americans are terrified to speak
out.
I'm growing more and more horrified to be a citizen of the USSA.
You're welcome to leave and find out what an actual repressive state looks like, kid.
said the anonymous coward.
NSA already has them from when you originally downloaded them. And NSA has no problem giving evidence to other agencies for criminal prosecution:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering
Or they're legit charges. I've spent a lot of years in the "state security apparatus" as an outlier. I have been deployed far, far forward, worked 'back office', cross assigned, etc. I will say that my experience with the FBI (never having worked for them, only with them) is that they are consummate professionals. I know they have politics like the rest of the community, but somehow they seemed to rise above it, even to their own detriment. This guy was likely really into his flavor of porn. The community at large, like it or not, is a microcosm of society. There is every flavor of criminal that slips past the interview process (and the pathetic 'box' (polygraph)). While it may seem en vogue to support any whistle blower that comes along, they are often doing what they do to cover for something else. I know that's not popular, but it is reality. Anyway, the FBI is by an large a good group of folks. Their leadership may suck at times and they may have some cosmic proportion failures to their credit, but I don't believe they're wrong on the prosecution of this fellow.
It does seem that way. Before you leak, destroy all your storage media lest you find unexpected photos appearing on them.
If you do not have incriminating media or devices, one will be provided for you by the state.
Yes, anonymous free speech. A necessary right spoken of in the Federalist Papers. Why is his point less valid because he used a different pseudonym than you? If not hiding behind pseudo-anonymity makes your point more valid please provide all your personally identifying info.
This will get you started.
Why is it that stupid people like you always assume the US must be compared to the USSR
when there are questions about the US ?
Maybe it's because your stupid ass has never traveled outside the US and because your
daddy who bought the old double-wide trailer you live in was a member of the John Birch Society ?
There are many other countries in the world which are far less repressive than
the US or Russia.
Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and France are good examples.
The US is far from the best country in the world. One of the best strategies for choosing
a country is to avoid any countries which are attempting or even pretending to be a serious
power in the geopolitical sense. That means Russia, China, and the US are out. For an
intelligent person there are metrics which show the US is not even close to the top of the
list of best countries to live in. One example is the number of prisoners per capita. The US
is either at the top of that list or near the top, which is not what anyone with decent intelligence
would expect from a country which was supposed to be so wonderful.
So fuck you and your ignorant redneck brain-dead bullshit.
Just because they are toads doesn't mean other people aren't too. It is difficult to judge either behavior if it is done in secret. If the NSA records everything then they must be storing child porn on their computers and if there is one in their midst who is " wrong minded" then their computers should be confiscated and we need to search and see who had what access to information and how they used it. Think of the children.
If possession is the only measure, they are guilty and they need to prove that they were not having bad thoughts.
But then I read the barn this morning and it said "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" and now I feel better. All is well that ends Orwell.
I'm growing more and more horrified to be a citizen of the USA.
Why? It seems like a fair sentence to me. There was no "whistleblowing" here that I can see. His disclosure compromised field agents, and could have done real harm. He was apparently just leaking classified info for his own benefit. This guy was not a Snowden, or even a Manning.
ok, what was his own benefit here? was he paid? or what?
when you can't step on the neck of the free press, just stomp on everybody who dares to talk to them.
It seems likely that something else was really going on, the FBI agent was feeding information to the reporter for money but they couldn't prove it, hence they searched for anything and everything they could charge the agent with instead. So likely there were a whole series of leaks they couldn't pin to the agent but they where fairly certain the agent was the problem.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
A very long post about nothing. Yes, we know that US is nowhere near USSR, it is the slow enroachment on our freedoms that is getting us close. We already have secret courts and secret police, and political dissidents are detained at airports as we speak. According to Naomi Wolf we are like Germany in the 30's - not a Nazi state but getting there.
And so the Anonymous Cowards protested. They rose up with their masks to protect their identity, and with picket signs of void pointers: Not even in white, for that could be misunderstood as flags of surrender, but unvoiced as transparencies instead. In silence they marched, unseen, all around us, always and forever. Not the heroes we need, but quantum superpositions of both the heroes we deserve and the ones that don't exist... The potential for great change -- A waveform never destined to collapse.
rule of law is exactly the same as rule of man, just a couple more inconvenient steps.
New Economic Perspectives
And the prototype is kept in Kremlin.
Curiously yours, crip.
Fueled by doobie?
+1 finally somebody said it (where are my mod points!!!!)
False! I could have sworn I've seen it in Hollywood... at least, like, five times!
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
The possession as single ground for prosecution is a dangerous can of worms. Originally with VCR tapes and paper pictures this law made some sense, but now you can embed a 0x0 sized picture into a website and boom instant dissident conviction machine. Although I don't know about the details of this case, this sounds somewhat similar... Oh, you leaked some secret documents, ey?
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
I am an American, early-mid 30's, and this statement I have known to be true (somewhere in a repressed part of my brain) for nearly two decades.
I am human. I have seen the photos that also humanize the folks in Syria. It's terrible the things that happen.
How about, instead, we simply discuss the merits of CodeIgniter vs. Laraval... or something... ???
The future of web development rides on us figuring out how to make PHP not completely suck. Enough with the ideological crusades. Lets start fixing problems that impact the world we love... the world we intend to leave for our sons and daughters (after giving them a link to php.net...)
Some things are truly worth it. Gather 'round boys. We've got work to do...
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
US never executed millions and millions of people for a long collection of random, bullshit reasons.
Are you sure? A couple of million here, a half a million there, it adds up.
I will say that my experience with the FBI (never having worked for them, only with them) is that they are consummate professionals.
Your comment may be sincere but I have news for you, there are things you have missed.
The FBI lies on a regular basis on Form 302s, the FBI practices witness intimidation and this is a technique
which is TAUGHT at the FBI Academy.
The FBI complied files on people like John Lennon because politicians in power at the time viewed Lennon
as a threat. Ask yourself this : what threat could John Lennon possibly have been, unless you wanted to
have a war and you knew that war might not have popular approval ?
The FBI is a tool of the state and it exists to ensure that the FBI and the state retain the power they have
and gain more power as is desired. The FBI does not serve the average citizen any more than the Queen of
England helps people get seated at Wembley Stadium.
Like I said, your comment might be sincere and you might actually just be ignorant of how things really
are, but there are too many examples to list here of conduct on the part of the FBI that is not ethical or honest
or morally right. But as a mercenary you know that none of that matters when you're the one holding the gun,
don't you ?
Hmm, now I see a use for the NSA backdoors in systems. Offend your masters and hey presto, you're paedophile and here's [uploading .... ] the evidence to prove it.
The US doesn't have secret police arresting people purely for opposing the government like the KGB, Stasi, or Gestapo.
The US has 16 different secret agencies and many of them have police authorities. And Yes, they have arrested people purely for opposing the government, though certainly not on the same scale as the KGB.
Exactly. If some AC claims that 1 + 1 = 2, that must be false; after all, why else would they be trying to hide their identity? They just want to spew forth falsehoods! It's not as if I can read their entire arguments and attempt to determine whether they're valid or not without taking into account irrelevancies; that's just impossible.
Da derp dee derp da teedly derpee derpee dum. Rated PG-13.
Says the person posting anonymously...
All part of the new government "transparency" initiative; "No Whistle-Blower Left Un-Smeared".
I don't know why anyone should be surprised. If Vince Foster, Andrew Breitbart, Michael Hastings, etc etc, hasn't clued everyone in that the US government is amoral, corrupt, power-hungry, arrogant, and is more than willing to destroy or kill it's political opponents or anyone that threatens the continued growth of their power & control, I don't know what would.
Do we need to see a US version of a "Final Solution"-type extermination/genocide program before people will finally allow themselves to wake up? (But, on the "plus" side, I did hear that the cattle-cars for those who go along and stay quiet now will be much nicer.)
It may already be too late to halt the US' slide into a full-on police state. Neither major political party will halt it as they agree on about 99% of major issues with the exception of a few "hot-button" publicly-divisive issues for political cover and to keep people distracted, and the only other people out there actually protesting in a serious, sustained, and credible manner and attempting to do something about the destruction of civil rights are mocked by those in the MSM and here on /. as racists and nut-cases that want the US to become Somalia, buying the government propaganda hook, line, and sinker.
God forbid the wrong lizard gets in, eh?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
so fbi as an agency works like in gta V? screw justice if you can pin something on someone..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
From the article:
one count of unauthorized possession and retention of national defense information.
What exactly does that mean? It's now a thought crime to know anything about national defense?
I'm just surprised how whistleblowers and IMF chiefs who question the value of the U.S. dollar always turn out to be peodophiles and rapists. I would almost suspect that someone is setting them up on those charges in an attempt to discredit them in the public eye (and erode any support they may have for their whistleblowing). But that's just silly. Besides, the only one capable of pulling that off is our fine, noble, honest government. And they would surely never do anything like that.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
He's no more a pedophile than Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn are rapists. That's just something they set you up on when they want to discredit you in the public eye, force you out of public office, and/or get you to talk.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
And did you bother to read her reasons? Snowden's "evidence" was VERY targeted at certain political parties and groups (one can't normally grab ONLY a slice that precise) and he was VERY organized and stayed focus on message (compare to Manning and pretty much every other whistleblower, not organized at all because they are in serious danger so not as focused) and his "interview" was not only professionally shot but he comes off NOT like an IT guy who is facing his first time under the spotlight but like an announcer that has done this a million times, no stammers, no stutters, no mistakes or flubbing his lines.
I'm sorry but she is right to call attention to that as it wouldn't be the first time we've had the government use disinformation and you can't have a chilling effect upon a populace if they don't know they are being watched. Is she right? Who knows but considering we have had the government start wars with disinformation and false flags (Vietnam) it is certainly something that at least should be discussed.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Why? It seems like a fair sentence to me. There was no "whistleblowing" here that I can see. His disclosure compromised field agents, and could have done real harm. He was apparently just leaking classified info for his own benefit. This guy was not a Snowden, or even a Manning.
whaa? what idea leads you to believe that the associated press was bribing an FBI agent for classified information? there's no hint of suggestion for this anywhere. I find it much more believable that agency xyz railroaded him than there was an AP bribery thing. If there were, they would have shut down that entire office.
It seems likely that something else was really going on, the FBI agent was feeding information to the reporter for money but they couldn't prove it, hence they searched for anything and everything they could charge the agent with instead. So likely there were a whole series of leaks they couldn't pin to the agent but they where fairly certain the agent was the problem.
whaa? what idea leads you to believe that the associated press was bribing an FBI agent for classified information? there's no hint of suggestion for this anywhere. I find it much more believable that agency xyz railroaded him than there was an AP bribery thing. If there were, they would have shut down that entire office.
Have you noticed that anyone the government doesn't like gets either a kiddie porn charge or a rape charge thrown against them? Meanwhile actual government contractors get away with rape, human trafficking and actual kiddie-porn & pedophilia with no consequences (DynCorp, Haliburton).
The US government is very, very corrupt and run by some nasty-ass evil fucks. And I don't mean the "elected" officials, I mean the lobbyists who really run things.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Well said. Thanks for saving me the time of responding to the AC above.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
so fbi as an agency works like in gta V? screw justice if you can pin something on someone..
Law enforcement does that all the time. You can't prove the guy did what you think he did, so you get him on something else. It was never proven in court that Al Capone was a gangster, only that he was a tax cheat.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
What specific political party did Snowden "target"?
The intelligence apparatus he confirmed has broad bipartizan support at the highest levels.
The entire indigenous people of the Americas would like to have a word with you.
Well, yea but, how can we make this Obama's fault? ... oh wait.
nice. can't wait to play it. I only play one or two games a year, so what I typically do is buy a system from target, play the game hardcore for a couple weeks, then return the system. scratches my video game itch at low cost! also this way it's the best use of my time to play blockbuster games, and I don't fill the time with lesser games. on my list right now are gta V and bioshock infinite. will also consider the new assassin's creed with the pirate theme. I was a little disappointed in AC III, but AC II was prolly the best video game I ever played.
While it may seem en vogue to support any whistle blower that comes along, they are often doing what they do to cover for something else.
Leak documents in order to cover up your involvement in kiddie pron? That doesn't seem like a good strategy.
the FBI is by an large a good group of folks
Nothing in the suspicion that he's being smeared says otherwise. Most of the FBI is not involved in this case.
Their leadership may suck at times
That's the point. Nobody thinks this is a grass roots campaign from the FBI rank and file.
Um if your a poor black kid in the french slum areas you would not see much difference apart from American cops being a lot less violent and in the US their is at least some relisation that racist stop and search is a bad thing in mainland europe much less so.
What sentence do you think the courts in france would have handed down for leaking state secrets probably a lot more than 3 years.
Wow, this is a trip. On a current project (don't click my sig if you are not interested in it) the prosecutor of the bomber I am researching suggested this very FBI agent as a source for more information on the case. It was one year after the child porn charges were filed, but he was unaware of that wrinkle. The prosecutor, now in private practice and will go unnamed, thought I would be viewed as "fringe" for my criticism of the Justice Department and the FBI for their budget fluffing over a bomber who stayed on the loose for 14 years. Wonders never cease.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
Your point is a good one. Tumblr will *give* you 100 small images, most of which you never look at or are even aware of . Yet the internet being what it is, they are somehow "on"your computer. What if one of them is illegal ? Is everyone who stumbles on that Tumblr somehow guilty of something? Ditto Pinterest and all of the other photo-blog sites. That can't possibly be the criteria because then everyone who lands one those sites is insta-guilty. Given the internet and the content and linked in-ness of Tumblr that could come to include a high percentage of males under age 60. Porn is the single biggest driver of web traffic and it's not just the current "corrupted" generation with porn on it's mind - porn absolutely and overwhelmingly drove the uptake of the earliest photography.
They didn't release the details but one *assumes* that these are hard core nasty images of clearly underage individuals in what is clearly a sexual act and that these images were specifically sought after by the guy and consciously transmitted by the guy to another party who knew what they were also. People doing that should expect what they get.
Here's another thing. This is the second case in memory where a national security case was linked to a child porn case, the first one being the case of Scott Ridder. You would think that people involved in national security would understand that you're never anonymous online in any real sense ever if you try to disguise your IP or use a pseudonym or Tor or whatever. Most people you see arrested on TV for this crime appear to be low life ignoramuses. So how can these sophisticates possibly involve themselves with something they know they are definitely going to get caught doing ? In this case this guy got more time for the child porn than the leak.
I have to agree. he did it because he could do it and for no other reason. This is not about whistle blowing. It's about making yourself the center of attention, making yourself *somebody* and possibly, we don't know, getting back at your employer.
There was no "whistleblowing" here that I can see. His disclosure compromised field agents, and could have done real harm. He was apparently just leaking classified info for his own benefit. This guy was not a Snowden, or even a Manning.
my horror comes from the fact that an fbi agent who leaks classified data that compromises specific field agents, and does so for his own gain, with no whistleblowing cover (a la Snowden & Manning) gets 3.75ish years, when Manning, an actual whistleblower get 9 million times the punishment.
Now, in true /. style, I have not R-the-Fing-A, but it sounds to me like the major difference in this case is that the leaked info wasn't damaging to the administration's public/international persona. Are you telling me that's not something to be horrified about??
Also, why would anyone think that you would hear about political dissidents being jailed arbitrarily? The media ain't too fond of dissidents either. But believe me, if you're part of the wrong ideology they'll get a warrant to raid your house for books and put you in front of a secret tribunal...
Most of the high level posts are lifetime posts placed there during Bush Sr and Jr, and that was just MY interpretation, she believes it may be a purposeful leak to create a chilling effect...which if it is one has to give them credit as I know I have spoken to many customers who are now afraid to even say a political leader sucks online for fear of being on a list. Remember the STASI had less than 10% of the population under their watch but had near total obedience thanks to the chilling effect.
I do however find it ironic that I was modded down for merely saying this topic should be discussed, considering how many blatant shills we've had here of late I find it ironic that on the subject of whether we should discuss even the possibility that the government MIGHT be involved somebody is trying to make sure the post isn't seen.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That may be true, but to offer a counterpoint, the STASI couldn't stop the illegal drug trade within its borders any better than we could. The problem then is the same as now. You can gather all the data you want, but faster computers can't tell you what's important. You need analysts to process the possible matches and the more noise you add to the system the less effective they are as they chase down dead ends.
What REALLY kept the population in line was keeping their citizens by and large ignorant of what things were like in the west. Glasnost sped up the demise of the Soviet Union as knowledge of Western living standards made the population increasingly intolerant of the shortages the Soviet system produced.
People in the US today don't really care much because the welfare state is still more-or-less functioning. Once the government is forced to default on Social Security and the rest of the welfare state once the world stops propping up the US economy people will again become intolerant of the governments actions.
FreedomHosting was targeted and attacked by the FBI within weeks of other secure email providers like LavaBit and Silent Circle, both of which chose to close shop rather than cooperate with the government in selling out their users. The FBI hacked FreedomHosting and planted malware on every one of its sites (regardless of legality) meant to snare those sites unknowing visitors with a javascript vulnerabilitry that targets a firefox TOR bundle. .
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/14/0122218/fbi-admits-it-controlled-tor-servers-behind-mass-malware-attack
You'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb to think this is about child porn, the legislator and executor's ultimate go-to excuse for any vindictive purpose. The NSA's OWN LEAKED DOCUMENT show child porn as a go-to excuse for cracking down on TOR.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document
If that doesn't bother you, then congratulations! You are a king of sheep. You know what the government does when it needs a justification to go after terrorists? It creates terrorists by enabling them entirely, providing resources and motivation, and bringing them to the last step, only to then halt them and claim in the media a massive victory against the forces of terror. You should feel anger at the FBI--they targeted unknowing, innocent webgoers. Instead you side with the establishment. Why am I not surprised?
Cold fjord, is that you?
And why exactly would the FBI have needed to hack his network twice beforehand if they had a solid case on the guy? They could have just as well planted the child porn and then encouraged the guy to bargain in public. Nothing new there.
yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/14/0122218/fbi-admits-it-controlled-tor-servers-behind-mass-malware-attack