Prosecutors Say Contractor Stole 50 Terabytes of NSA Data (zdnet.com)

An NSA contractor siphoned off dozens of hard drives' worth of data from government computers over two decades, prosecutors will allege on Friday. From a ZDNet report: The contractor, Harold T. Martin III, is also accused of stealing thousands of highly classified documents, computers, and other storage devices during his tenure at the agency. It's not known exactly what Martin allegedly stole, but a report from The New York Times on Wednesday suggests that the recently-leaked hacking tools used by the agency to conduct surveillance were among the stolen cache of files. Prosecutors will on Friday charge Martin with violating the Espionage Act. If convicted, he could face ten years in prison on each count. The charges, news of which was first reported by The Washington Post, outline a far deeper case than first thought, compared to the felony theft and a lesser misdemeanor charge of removal and retention of classified information revealed in an unsealed indictment last month.

Comments

Why..

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it so darn EASY to get this so called secret data?

It seems everybody who works for the NSA these days is stealing data illicitly.

The same government that wants backdoors

[ebunga]

The NSA... the agency responsible for keeping government secrets actually secret... can't keep its own systems secured. This same government wants unfettered access to all encrypted systems, and already has the ability to tap any phone anywhere in the US from the comfort of their living room sofa. Not scary at all. Nope.

Re:Oh brother

[Kierthos]

Well, he supposedly did this over the course of 20 years. However....

That actually means the problem is worse. How, over the course of 20 years, did no one notice this? I mean, let's say he had two week's vacation every year, he's still absconding with 50 Gigs of data a week for 20 years. (On average, and assuming that the 50 Terabyte estimate is accurate.)

Okay, sure you can get a cheap USB drive that has 128 or 256 Gigs of space on it, but 20 years ago? A shitload of ZIP disks? Physically removing the hard drives?

And the sad thing is, probably half the people who should have caught this have already retired.

So what are these CISSP "cyberwarriors" doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sometimes attend IT-related conferences, a few in the infosec space. And inevitably a few people from government contractors and agencies show up (on the taxpayers' dime) and rail against encryption, Apple, Snowden, or anything that makes operating the surveillance state difficult for them.

But between Snowden, the Russians, this guy, and OPM, what's left to steal? Why are we paying these assholes -- especially the ones working for contractors who've sucked on the federal tit for decades -- six-figure salaries to sit around Northern Virginia and shit on the Bill of Rights all day long?

This entire thing's a joke. They spy on us, and then can't secure the shit they uncover. Read Congress's recent report on the OPM debacle to see how fucked we are.

You are so wrong. Re:Oh brother

[waynemcdougall]

No.

FIRST was this (and who knows what else). THEN there was Snowdon. This is important.

One of the arguments in favour of Snowdon being an honourable whistleblower was this:

If he was malicious, he would have quietly stilen the data and sold it to the highest bidder. Like this guy did. And Snowdon didn't.

One of the (many) arguments in favour of Snowdon is that if he could *so easily* collect that information undetected, then other, malicious people could be doing so. And so it turns out. Snowdon alerted us to the weaknesses of the NSA security practices (amongst many other nobler services).

Vindication. Again. It tastes sweet. But not as sweet as a pardon.