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In Massive Breach, Ex-NSA Contractor Pleads Guilty to Hoarding Highly Classified Secrets (usatoday.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the insecure-facilities dept.

"A former National Security Agency contractor on Thursday pleaded guilty to stealing secret defense information over two decades in what legal experts have described as the biggest breach of classified information in U.S. history."

Long-time Slashdot reader mencik quotes USA Today: In his plea deal in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Harold Thomas Martin III admitted to removing highly classified digital and hard copy documents, then storing them in his home and car from the late 1990s through 2016. Prosecutors say there is no indication Martin ever shared the stolen secrets. His defense attorneys say he simply hoarded the information... One of his lawyers previously described Martin as a "compulsive hoarder" who took home work documents...

Martin, who held multiple security clearances while working at government agencies as a private contractor, said he knew stealing the documents risked the country's security. He pleaded guilty on Thursday to one felony count of willful retention of national defense information. He could be sentenced to nine years in prison.
Martin also told a federal judge that he'd been diagnosed with ADHD. "His actions were the product of mental illness," his federal defenders' statement said. "Not treason."

23 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. We need FBI back on clearance duty by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, we need to drop all of these idiotic private companies doing clearance duty. We are getting far too many ppl that do not belong.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:We need FBI back on clearance duty by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Funny

      Seriously, we need to drop all of these idiotic private companies doing clearance duty. We are getting far too many ppl that do not belong.

      Absolutely! The next thing you know, they'll be letting in idiots that won't even type out entire words! -_-

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:We need FBI back on clearance duty by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Clearance is basically worthless. Anybody planted will get a clearance

      The basic purpose of a clearance is to ensure the individual is not any easy mark for another country to exploit.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    3. Re: We need FBI back on clearance duty by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Nope. Private business does most of it now.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    4. Re:We need FBI back on clearance duty by Nivag064 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seriously, we need to drop all of these idiotic private companies doing clearance duty. We are getting far too many ppl that do not belong.

      Absolutely! The next thing you know, they'll be letting in idiots that won't even type out entire words! -_-

      Far worse, they may even elect a president, who has extreme difficulty typing a coherent sentence, and are proud of their ignorance!

    5. Re:We need FBI back on clearance duty by Entrope · · Score: 1

      That's old information. The National Background Investigations Bureau has done most of the background investigations for a while, but NBIB is now moving that entire function to be part of the DoD.

    6. Re: We need FBI back on clearance duty by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Also make that they do not have loyality/tendancies to another nation, or at least understand how far it will go.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    7. Re:We need FBI back on clearance duty by mi · · Score: 1

      Hillary Clinton was a government employee (as she's always been, as a matter of fact), when she did her part. Being a government official is no guarantee — you are just much harder to fire over it...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  2. Not a crime by tomhath · · Score: 4, Funny

    He was just extremely careless. His record should be fully expunged.

    1. Re:Not a crime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Taking home over 50TB of classified information is not careless. That's criminal.

    2. Re:Not a crime by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Taking home over 50TB of classified information is not careless. That's criminal.

      He was extremely careless but there was no ill intent, no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

      Oh wait, he's not a corrupt and wealthy dynastic politician?

      Throw him under the toughest PMITA prison!

      After all, some animals are more equal than others.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re:Not a crime by gweihir · · Score: 1

      It is actually hilarious. Shows nicely what kind of people work for the TLAs and that they do not deserve any level of trust.

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      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:Not a crime by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't know if I'd go along with the defense reasoning that his actions are the result of a mental illness, but if they can't prove that he intended to share any of the information at any point, then charges of treason shouldn't stick either.

      However I can well imagine that willfully mishandling classified information (taking it home when you have no authority to do so) constitutes a crime under US law. Merely having classified info in your possession when you shouldn't certainly is a crime in my own country.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    5. Re:Not a crime by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Not careless at all but all preplanned, it was employment insurance. With the US rabid dog eat rabid dog (healthy dogs do not eat each other) economy, anything goes. So simply stick piling core proprietary designs and engineering to take to their new company, should they ever be let go from the current company, so inter company espionage and not foreign espionage. It's the sort of thing you would expect in an extremely corrupt system, everyone is hedging their bets, ready to turn on each other, at the drop of a dime. I'll bet there is a whole bunch of extortion going on in the US war industrial complex, as the corrupt and incompetent seek to keep their positions. Building up extortion material to keep their job, to gain promotions, to shift corporations for a bigger piece of the pie. The whole war industrial complex is being run on corruption and this is the kind of behaviour you should expect and it will get much worse.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  3. What about OUR data? by oic0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't this the same thing they tell us they do with our data? they just collect it all, but outside of official work against terrorists and stuff, they are just holding it and doing nothing with it right?

  4. Mental illness vs domestic spying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why is mental illness an excuse but revealing a wholesale federal domestic spying operation isn't.

  5. Being negligent (not careful) with it is a crime by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In the US, it is a crime to negligently allow it to leave the proper secured systems. Negligent means "not being careful". One recent example of someone who was prosecuted is a Navy sailor who sent home a selfie - aboard ship. The interior of US Navy ships are classified.

    A manager who carries papers around in a briefcase could be prosecuted for accidentally leaving a classified document in their briefcase and taking it home. With the security clearance comes a legal duty to be careful - to check that all of the classified documents are removed before taking a briefcase home.

  6. Re:Hillary Clinton begs to differ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sorry, you're wrong. She had a few emails within terabytes of data that had a few minor nits.

    James Comey disagrees. Hundreds of classified and top secret e-mails, not "a few" and not "minor nits". Even then, Mr. Comey stated:

    To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

    The ONLY reason Hillary was excused was because she was politically connected. People with the same level of violations would have faced security and administrative sanctions, at a minimum. Per James Comey.

    But there are two sets of rules - one for the common people, and one for the politically connected...

  7. Re:Being negligent (not careful) with it is a crim by fafalone · · Score: 1

    Well you can't blame people for being confused when 'negligent' and 'extremely careless' mean different things. Of course then again Comey did basically say anyone else would be prosecuted for the same thing.

  8. ADHD, really? by Archangel_Azazel · · Score: 1

    Mother fucker *I* have ADHD too. I've never tried to use it as a goddamn excuse in court though. Wtf people. Grow the hell up.

    --
    Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.
    1. Re:ADHD, really? by fieldstone · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I have ADHD also, and I study psychology. A learning disability is technically "mental illness", but no it didn't make anyone steal anything.

  9. Ah, that all-too-common "highly" classified by gtvr · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see what the actual classification level was. It certainly wasn't "highly."

  10. Re: Attention Deficit Disorder a Myth by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    so it's still not a disease then