Slashdot Mirror
Man Caught Trying To Sell Plans For New Aircraft Carrier
New submitter cyberjock1980 tips news that an engineer has been caught trying to deliver schematics for an aircraft carrier to the Egyptian government. The 35-year-old civilian received security clearance four months ago after working for the U.S. Navy since February. FBI agents made contact with him, pretending to be with the Egyptian government. They struck a deal to buy documents about the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the first in a new line of improved, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The man sold four CAD drawings for the carrier, and was later seen photographing another set of schematics. A bond hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
I mean, what?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Plans sold to the Middle East?
The naval architects are now really going to regret putting in that big funnel that leads directly to the main reactor of the carrier.
So, the moron gets access to classified documents and tries to sell them to the Egyptians?
What was the thought process behind that brilliant idea?
"Hmm, no, the Russians or the Chinese wouldn't want these schematics... The Ehyptians, on the other hand... They're *totally* planning on building some aircraft carriers!"
The chances of a foreign government contacting a random security cleared employee and asking to buy information is likely to be incredibly low per lifetime of each employee. Also consider that the Egyptians are both not in the market for an aircraft carrier and have enough relations with the US that they would never endanger them by doing something so obvious as building a copy of a US aircraft carrier. This "sting" is just a case of going looking for someone guilty of being stupid and greedy instead of the more difficult operation of trying to catch a real criminal.
It's just some dangerously ambitious prick deciding to shoot fish in a barrel to get a list of achievements - that's the one with the "thought process behind that brilliant idea" - present a stupid get rich quick scheme to catch the stupid.
Not the sort of hearing you want to attend. The spectre of something bad will be hanging over you.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
... caught trying to deliver schematics for an aircraft carrier to the Egyptian government.
No, he was caught trying to deliver schematics for an aircraft carrier to the FBI. Since he thought he was trying to deliver them to the Egyptian government, that makes him a scumbag, but let's not pretend an actual crime that would have occurred without the FBI's action has been thwarted here. They didn't step in and stop something bad from happening, they just found some guy who likes money more than ethics and made a good headline out of him. Arguably doing so maybe has some deterrent effect, but don't misrepresent what happened or blow it out of proportion.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
| 0 | days without an accident.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Stolen carrier plans + 3D printer = death
Yeah, death to the 3D printer. Or perhaps the FedEx guy trying to deliver 10 billion spools of plastic to your door.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
And contacting any of those countries in his position would trigger a lot of alarms. But contacting a third party who's not an arch-enemy might, but would be VERY interested in selling this info to bigger people might not, or so this idiot may have thought.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Hey idiot, it was not about recreating the ship, but finding how to sink it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Two differences from standard criminal charge of entrapment. First, counter intelligence personnel (CIA, FBI, DOD--whatever) are allowed to set up operations like this when government issued security clearances are involved. Second, entrapment is specifically when the entrapper targets a person and convinces that person to do something he would not normally have done. If there were suspicions about this person, I'm guessing he had raised flags already, thus negating that aspect of entrapment.
I'm a big support of Snowden. Much less so of Manning. This guy deserves whatever he gets.
Egypt has the largest navy in the Middle East and Africa, and is the seventh largest in the world. They were the first to successfully deploy missiles against other ships.
I'd have you over for dinner, and you'd be welcome to bring your friend from China.
Also, I regularly deal with cyber attacks from China. I know the Chinese government is attacking us and seeking new and better ways to attack us. I know they have. Chinese students and businessmen working for them do intelligence, so while they're welcome to come to dinner, there's no reason to show top secret stuff to anyone from China. The risk each time may be small, just as the risk of not wearing a seatbelt once is small, but if you get in the habit of risking disaster you'll eventually have a disaster. There's no need to; there are plenty of Americans to handle the classified stuff, and that's lower risk. Sorry. Please do stay for tea.
Except this wasn't some random citizen. This was a guy who signed agreements basically acknowledging his responsibilities to protect that data, and acknowledging that he understood the various conditions of holding a security clearance. When you sign those papers you (knowingly) give up certain rights.
I'm all for railing against the government using terrorism to get it's way, but this particular application makes sense. The fucker should fry.
"He also described a detailed plan to circumvent Navy computer security by installing a "bug" on his restricted computer that would allow him to copy documents without drawing attention.
According to the affidavit, Awwad provided the undercover agent four computer-aided design drawings of the Ford and told him where to strike the vessel with a missile to sink it.
The two men later arranged for Awwad to make a drop on Oct. 23 in Hampton. The affidavit said Awwad removed $3,000 in cash from a camouflaged hole and put in its place a 1-terabyte external hard drive and two passport photos he thought the Egyptians would use to make a fraudulent passport. Agents found six more drawings of the Ford on the hard drive.
10 drawings and a plan to get a lot more data.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Entrapment is a really tricky defense. The Founding Father's didn't actually recognize it as a defense at all. The first case where it was used Federally did not happen until Prohibition hit. In pop culture it's usefulness is greatly exaggerated. Most people start thinking "entrapment" when a government agent says "hey let's do a crime" and somebody goes along with it, but entire categories of case simply could not be filed if that was all that mattered. For example, pretty much the only way to arrest Johns is to have a cop dress up as a hooker and offer to sell sex.
Entrapment only happens legally if there's some reason to believe the entrapee would not have even considered the possibility of committing the crime absent the government's actions. In the hooker stings they generally happen in areas where people troll for hookers, so the Courts rule that either a) this particular defendant clearly had a predisposition to commit the crime or he wouldn't have been driving through that neighborhood slowly at that time of night, or b) the governments actions were not likely to entice law-abiding citizens to stop and give a hooker money because law-abiding citizens don't drive through that neighborhood slow at that time; depending on whether that particular court system uses the "subjective" or objective" tests.
In this case the defendant can't really use the defense very effectively because in the Federal system they use method a), which means he'd have to prove he was highly unlikely to take money to sell plans in the absence of a government dude offering money. He was very hands-on once they offered the money, doing numerous things that one would do if one really really wanted to sell national security information to a foreign government (such as creating "an elaborate cyber security system which included several one-time use electronic mail boxes with phantom names").
A plastic battleship would be unstoppable.
Four red pegs should do it.
Yes, the guy had a security clearance, so I suppose entrapping him can be considered part of the quality control process, but it's still ridiculous; Egypt would get much more effective military use from a dirt airstrip in the Sinai than an aircraft carrier. But hey, the FBI gets to put out a press release claiming they caught a spy! And it's less ridiculous than the time they entrapped half a dozen drunken bums in Chicago into a "plot to bomb the Sears tower", and less dangerous than the time they helped half a dozen Al-Qaeda plotters mix fertilizer explosive for the first World Trade Center bombing.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
How the fuck did you get modded up?
Do you have ANY fucking idea what is takes to get your clearance in the US, and nearly any other nation?
You have to give permission for them to look into your background. In the paperwork that you sign, you typically agree that you will keep things to yourself, AND that the gov has the RIGHT to follow up on any issues that present itself. I doubt that the FBI contacted this asshole. It is a NEAR CERTAINTY that he contacted somebody and said that he wanted to sell information. Then and only then, did FBI become involved. They may have intercepted initial messages. They may have an insider that told them about this guy. Regardless, once they heard that he was wanting to sell out, they have the FULL RIGHT to go after him.
Once that man agreed to allow this in writing, the FBI only did what it was legally allowed (and possibly bound ) to do. And if he was opposed to these actions, then he should never have signed a document allowing just this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Thank you. It's not like the FBI stood out on the street like a stripper next to a secured facility going, "hey big spy man, wanna sell me secrets?" It's even more ridiculous to suggest they'd just up and call some random dude to see if he was willing to sell secrets.
Such an excuse would have been in the press release if it existed to prevent accusations of entrapment such as the ones on this page. The FBI likes to get good press so would not have left it out.
Disclaimer... I am hugely drunk to an unreasonable degree which nobody my age should be.
I am all about personal liberties, and feel that our government has no business at all looking into the life of any citizen without great reason to do so. I do see a very large difference between inciting crime in a normal citizen and inciting someone with a security clearance.
Pushing a citizen into selling or manufacturing narcotics for instance is hugely different from getting someone to publish engineering details which are classified. I stand by my assessment that inciting this kind of thing in someone with a clearance is prudent and reasonable.
Knowing people who do this kind of thing for a living, they pay enough that financial troubles can be nothing other than greed or such horrifically bad life choices that it is ok to come down upon it.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Since I haven't seen anyone point this out:
1. According to the article, the Awwad idiot actually went through with delivering classified info at the 2nd "meeting." That means he successfully stole classified from the secure facility in which it was kept.
Now, just because he sold N files to the agents, doesn't mean he only removed N files from the secure facility. Furthermore, he delivered them to agents at a hotel. Which means "out there" in the wild! So before he was arrested he could have actually had >N files copied onto an indeterminate number of his personal net connected computing gadgets, where the info could have wound up stolen by real enemies by malware bots looking for just this sort of thing, or perhaps he sent backup copies to some place where we will never know but someone else does.
In other words, the FBI agents instigated an ACTUAL breach of classified info into the wild, which is a REAL threat to national security. The info could very well already be in the hands of the Russia, China, etc.
It is the FBI fuckers who should be sent up the river!
It is the purpose of counterintelligence to protect ACTUAL national security above all else, which means not allowing classified out into the wild. They could have simply revoked Awwad's security clearance and fired him when they found him willing to commit an act of espionage, but before he actually went through with it. This would have actually protected national security, by preventing the disclosure of classified which is the whole point.
Instead they risked and caused an uncontrollable leak of classified, just to bag some idiot so he'd go to prison and the agents would get good performance reviews. These people are unethical sociopaths. It is immoral to not seek to PREVENT someone from committing a crime if you know they are willing and considering it. A sting like this should be a felony. Not to mention that now each one of us is going to have to pay a share of our life's work just to imprison the Awwad dimwit for a very long time.
2. There is something very wrong with the Navy's handling of classified, if Awwad was able to get it out at all.
In my experience, fortunately not with actual classified which I want nothing to do with since I have ADHD-like forgetfullness and work "outside the fence", but I've been trained about its handling at a national lab, it would be or should have been exceedingly difficult to steal classified in the first place.
Awwad should have never been alone with classified. It should have been on computers which, if they are networked at all, are connected to only a fully air-gapped restricted network. Even the fucking fibers can't be within like 6 feet of those from another network! The USB and other ports should be sealed off with epoxy. Swapping of classified containing hard drives to/from vault and workstation is done under direct supervision by some classified accountant. It might even be that the workers must be at least in a team of 2 or more, I'm not certain though. Workstations which process classified live in a "vault-like room." Stealing this stuff is not easy! Unless their security is very broken, it should be nearly impossible without getting caught.
Look at it this way: If the guy was stupid enough to try to sell the info yet smart enough to actually succeed at stealing some, then the Navy's security is a joke. How many have stolen information that didn't get caught?
Allowing classified to get out of it's secure facility was a collosal fuckup!
If this type of sting, resulting in the actual removal of classified from secure facilities is common practice, then the people guarding our nation are at a minimum incompetent, and at worst they are the actual traitors for being willing to risk causing actual harm to national security for the sake of their personal careers.
There is little doubt that the enemy we should truly fear is within.
Which raises the question of whether the crime would have happened at all without the carefully tailored fantasy of selling to a friendly party. If we were worried about the Egyptians bombing our carriers we wouldn't have given them F16 fighter-bombers this year.
This sting stinks on multiple levels. Such pointless games in the Soviet Union provided fodder for many show trials to show the strength of the State. Why are we doing it?
Moridineas: "I'm a big support of Snowden. Much less so of Manning. This guy deserves whatever he gets."
I think this is the big telling point. Snowden is very controversial. Manning, the controversy is mostly about the magnitude of the punishment. But no one is seriously in favor of people just handing out secrets to foreign governments. Wherever you stand on the Snowdometer, this is just not that.
All the guy had to do was say "no".
Failure to report the contact would also get him in trouble.
This base canard again? To anyone paying attention, the only civilians on scene were the guys in the van. Which the guys in the chopper had no way of knowing they weren't connected to the guys carrying AKs and RPGs towards the marine component several blocks away.
I can't speak to the FBI but JAG did a sting on my base a couple years ago. They planted a guy in the barracks, convinced a submariner (enlisted) to give them information. I forgot his rate but he had one of the Top Secret clearances. Close friend of his told me the details and the long and short of it is it was random. Fishing for anyone in that barracks willing to talk. They caught one.
if he has been issued special clearance for military intelligence, then he is subject to the uniform code of military justice, not the US civil code. Hence, he will NOT get a jury, he will NOT see a civilian judge, and the only lawyer he will see will be attached to the JAG. He be fucked.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
In countries under the rule of law, rights can not be given up. Just like a law cannot override the constitution, any piece of paper you might sign or be forced to sign cannot override the law. Not even in the case of the most obvious scum of mankind. That's because once you set up the principle that the government can selectively take away your rights, then the citizens can by the same principle selectively ignore the laws they don't like. Including those that define and give authority to the government.
Very good points.
I can't speak to how well protected those plans were. But it's usually painfully obvious to anyone working in those secure facilities just how unsecure they are. Worst of all you probably wouldn't even need to be secretive. Just getting people to challenge an individual doing something slightly out of the norm is difficult.
I'm not suggesting it as a defence, I'm suggesting that it's very lazy policing to fabricate a false crime and charge for that in the first place instead of going after a real crime. Would the guy have done it otherwise? How the hell would we ever know? Going after real crime is harder, but the objective is not supposed to be to fill prisons, it's supposed to be to prevent or solve crimes instead of adding to the list with faked up ones.
If he wasn't giving the info to a Federal informant he would not have been caught until he started taking pictures of the schematics. Even then he may not have actually gotten caught, if he could think of a good story. At which point our equivalent of the Death Star plans, with their one weak spot (he told this guy precisely where to hit the ship to sink it and kill everyone aboard), are already in the hands of some dude who knew Arabic, said he was Egyptian government, and had $3k.
Which is why we have an aggressive counter-intelligence service that has managed to convince almost all people with a) security clearance and b) common sense that c) the dude claiming to be a Finnish intelligence agent offering them money for information is actually FBI, and therefore d) they should immediately report him to their superiors. Which results in e) the one time those tricky Finns actually try some shit like this they get caught.
If this guy was some idiot who'd just converted to Islam, talked tough, and then went along with a government sting because the informant guilt-tripped him; I'd be more sympathetic to your argument. Native-grown Islamist terrorist-plots in the US are almost always some mentally unstable dude going on a rampage, and the operation I just described can't prevent those. OTOH, we do have plenty of foreign governments willing to pay our people for information. And we do need to deter that as much as possible.
Police can even pose as a passer-by, encouraging someone to steal the car, or as a chop-shop owner offering no-questions-asked cash for cars.
In these cases, the legal system is punishing people for their antisocial behavior, just as with crimes that don't involve stings. Even if the crime actually occurred in a controlled situation, the perpetrator still fulfilled the legal requirements for culpability: They were aware that what they were doing was against the law, and they did it anyway of their own free will.
Being offered a large sum of money or a convenient opportunity doesn't magically dissolve the perpetrator's free will, despite what dbill seems to think.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.