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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.

3 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.

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    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  2. 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.

  3. 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.

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