Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ex-NSA Employee Gets 5 Years In Prison For Taking Home Top Secret Files (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the overachiever-turned-criminal dept.

Former NSA employee Nghia Hoang Pho, 64, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for taking top secret U.S. defense files to his home. Pho pleaded guilty in December to willful retention of national defense information, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement. The maximum sentence for this crime is 10 years, but prosecutors were recommending a sentence of eight years. CNET reports: Pho, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Vietnam, worked in the NSA's Tailored Access Group, the agency's team that focuses on tools that can directly hack surveillance targets. Between 2010 and March 2015, Pho took home paper and digital copies of U.S. government documents and writings that contained national defense information on them, the Justice Department said. Pho reportedly had antivirus software from Kaspersky Lab on his home computer network and the software scooped up the top secret information as part of its virus scanning process. Kaspersky has acknowledged that its software lifted hacking tools from a home computer in 2014 but said it wasn't part of an intentional effort to steal information from the NSA. Pho said in court he took the materials home so he could put in more work to earn a promotion, according to CBS Baltimore.

9 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Extra work by datavirtue · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In this case it looks like bringing work home did in fact affect his work life balance.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  2. One rule for the rank and file... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...another rule for Hilary.

    1. Re:One rule for the rank and file... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The ignorance defense wasn't worth shit, as the documents found had the classification markings still on them. There's no chance you become Secretary of State without being able to recognize a classification marking, and receive training on the proper care and handling of documents with those markings.

      This is completely a double standard.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    2. Re:One rule for the rank and file... by BlueStrat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      [One rule for the rank and file... ] ...another rule for Hilary.

      History will judge Hillary and Bill and those who conspired with them, and it will not be kind.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re:One rule for the rank and file... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Even ignoring that, she should have been brought up on obstruction of justice charges for "losing" all those files that would be needed to assess the situation. She also likely violated the law with regards to public records as those records should have been screen to verify that there weren't any public records involved. While many of those emails were classified at the time, there were others that won't and classified documents frequently get declassified in the future when they're no longer deemed sensitive.

      Of all the promises that Trump has broken, the failure to put Hillary in prison is probably the one that bothers me the most. If somebody as reckless as her is completely let off the hook, how can you credibly claim that any of these cases should be prosecuted?

  3. Don't work at home. Sleep at work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yah. Perverse work morale.

    I do feel sorry for this guy. OTOH, I hope he learns the lesson: If you kill yourself at work, your boss won't give a shit. If you don't kill yourself at work, (s)he won't, eiter. What to do?

    Kill your boss, of course.

  4. Re: Lesson learned by c6gunner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Europeans who colonized the Americas by ship were no more "naturalized immigrants" than the Asians who colonized it by walking over the Bering Strait. Don't let your racist tendencies cloud your view of history.

  5. Re:Too bad his name wasn't Clinton by stealth_finger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The UN? Isn't that the place that puts countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan on its "Human Rights Council"?

    Getting laughed at by such a clown gathering is a badge of honor.

    How to justify all the world's leaders laughing at your leader. If it's such a clown gathering why would he even show up? I guess I just answered my own question.

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  6. Re:Comey said as much by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm glad someone mentioned Hillary. She did the same thing as this convicted felon, but faced no consequences. (Even a trial that ended "not guilty" would have been better than nothing.)

    Two justices exist in this world: Us and them. Us get punished and Them rarely do, even when they break the same laws.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall