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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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?
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.
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."
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.
What specific political party did Snowden "target"?
The intelligence apparatus he confirmed has broad bipartizan support at the highest levels.