NSA Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets (nytimes.com)

The New York Times, citing senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, reports today that the FBI secretly arrested a National Security Agency contractor in recent weeks (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). The newspaper adds that the FBI is currently investigating whether the contractor (identified as male) stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to "hack into the networks of foreign governments." From the report: The theft raises the embarrassing prospect that for the second time in three years an insider has managed to steal highly damaging secret information from the N.S.A. In 2013, Edward J. Snowden, who was also a contractor for the agency, took a vast trove of documents that were later passed to journalists, exposing N.S.A. surveillance programs in the United States and abroad. The information believed stolen by this contractor -- who like Mr. Snowden worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which is responsible for building and operating many of the agency's most sensitive cyberoperations -- appears to be different in nature from Mr. Snowden's theft.

Comments

So... here's the thing

[vux984]

Assuming this is a genuine crook -- stealing secrets and selling them or disclosing them to private parties... foreign/domestic/whatever. Then arresting him is pretty much the expected course of action.

The interesting angle to me at least, is that it really skewers the idea that Snowden put us at risk. For me, the biggest counter argument to that has always been 'if Snowden could do it so could others'. The fact that Snowden did it altruistically and gave the information to the public means we know about it; how many others have been doing it, that haven't been caught, that have been disclosing it to foreign governments, selling it, etc.

Now we have some real proof of what really should have been obvious -- that yeah, other people have been doing it too. All the "secrets" Snodwn revealed to the public, and in the process our 'adversaries' ...so what?? They probably already had it from their own pet NSA employees & contractors. It would be foolish to assume they didn't.

Not much bias in this article

[Anonymous Coward]

"Theft."

"Stole."

I can't get out of my mind the fact that these words are being (mis)used in exactly the same way as when the RIAA and its kind lie about lost profits and bribe legislators. A story told with such heavy bias makes it difficult to take it or its authors seriously.