This is no joke. The DoJ and the Feds will go at this man with all deliberate force. A former NSA contractor, Harold āHalā Martin III stole at least 500 million pages worth of Federal records and files marked as TS/SCI (the highest level of classified information). Assuming his culpability, this will make what Hillary did with her server look amateurish. The difference here? This guy will get punished, and he won't get away with his crimes. He will spend the rest of his natural life in a federal penitentiary. Hillary? Not so much. Even after all of the solid evidence brought against her, Hillary got away with her misdeeds.
If we go by the current precedent set by the aforementioned government institutions, however, this man should be given the same treatment Hillary was given, since mishandling or stealing classified information seems to no longer be a punishable offense. Fortunately, that won't be the case for this guy. As witnessed this past July, it appears that American justice is selective in who it punishes for the same crimes, especially ones as egregious as these. It is swift for one, and silent for the other. You be the judge of the fairness of our justice system while you also watch as this man goes down for some of the same crimes Hillary got away with. For me, this will serve to further erode the trust I have in our justice system.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we lie, cheat, and deceive.
"WASHINGTONāA former National Security Agency contractor amassed at least 500 million pages of government records, including top-secret information about military operations, by stealing documents bit by bit over two decades, the Justice Department alleged in a court filing submitted Thursday.
Prosecutors in August arrested and charged Harold āHalā Martin III, of Glen Burnie, Md., with theft of government property and unauthorized removal or retention of classified documents. The case was kept under seal until earlier this month, when some details became public.
The new filing said the Justice Department would likely charge Mr. Martin with additional crimes, including violating the Espionage Act, an offense that carries much stiffer penalties than the current charges.
Mr. Martinās attorney, Jim Wyda, declined to comment on the new filing. In the past, he has said that Mr. Martin is a patriotic American who has served his country.
A federal court has scheduled a hearing for Friday to consider whether Mr. Martin should be released while awaiting trial. The Justice Department released its 12-page document ahead of that hearing, detailing new allegations about the scope of Mr. Martinās alleged theft and suggesting he had become heavily armed, accumulating 10 weapons, and had taken sophisticated steps to cover his tracks.
Some former associates had described Mr. Martin as a harmless hoarder who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The new government filing paints a different picture, raising questions about his motives and suggesting he was capable of sharing U.S. secrets with the nationās adversaries and potentially putting American lives at risk.
The document doesnāt, however, answer one of the big questions in the case: whether Mr. Martin shared any of the stolen classified information with another person or another country. The document offers no evidence that he did but suggested Mr. Martin had the capacity to do so.
Mr. Martin, a former Naval officer, was most recently a contractor at Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., a job that placed him inside some of the governmentās most secretive programs inside the NSA and the Pentagon. The Justice Department said that a search of his home and his automobile uncovered āthousands of pages of documents and dozens of computers and other storage devices and media containing, conservatively, fifty terabytes of information.ā
Fifty terabytes is equivalent to 50,000 gigabytes. One gigabyte can contain 10,000 pages of documents, the department estimated.
By extrapolation, 50 terabytes can hold 500 million pages.
In seeking Fridayās hearing, Mr. Martinās legal team wrote that he āis neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community, and to the extent either of these factors is a concern, they can be sufficiently addressed with specific release conditions.ā
The Justice Department countered Thursday that Mr. Martin āpresents a high risk of flight, a risk to the nation, and to the physical safety of others.ā
Mr. Martin worked on highly sensitive programs, people familiar with the investigation have said, including those involving an arsenal of cybertools the government has amassed to use against other countries as well as cyberweapons that were in development.
So far, it is unknown what Mr. Martin intended and what, if any, plans he had for the pilfered information.
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Mr. Martinās home and car in August, it found much of the stolen information in plain sight. Top-secret information was stored in his car, which wasn't parked in a garage. Investigators also found an email chain printed out in that car that was marked ātop secretā and contained āhighly sensitive information.ā
They also found handwritten notes that appeared to describe the NSAās classified computer infrastructure, the Justice Department said in its filing.
āAmong the many other classified documents found in the Defendantās possession was a document marked as āTop Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Informationā (āTS/SCIā) regarding specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States and its allies,ā the court document said."
Ex-NSA Contractor Stole at Least 500 Million Pages of Records and Secrets, U.S. Says
If we go by the current precedent set by the aforementioned government institutions, however, this man should be given the same treatment Hillary was given, since mishandling or stealing classified information seems to no longer be a punishable offense. Fortunately, that won't be the case for this guy. As witnessed this past July, it appears that American justice is selective in who it punishes for the same crimes, especially ones as egregious as these. It is swift for one, and silent for the other. You be the judge of the fairness of our justice system while you also watch as this man goes down for some of the same crimes Hillary got away with. For me, this will serve to further erode the trust I have in our justice system.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we lie, cheat, and deceive.
"WASHINGTONāA former National Security Agency contractor amassed at least 500 million pages of government records, including top-secret information about military operations, by stealing documents bit by bit over two decades, the Justice Department alleged in a court filing submitted Thursday.
Prosecutors in August arrested and charged Harold āHalā Martin III, of Glen Burnie, Md., with theft of government property and unauthorized removal or retention of classified documents. The case was kept under seal until earlier this month, when some details became public.
The new filing said the Justice Department would likely charge Mr. Martin with additional crimes, including violating the Espionage Act, an offense that carries much stiffer penalties than the current charges.
Mr. Martinās attorney, Jim Wyda, declined to comment on the new filing. In the past, he has said that Mr. Martin is a patriotic American who has served his country.
A federal court has scheduled a hearing for Friday to consider whether Mr. Martin should be released while awaiting trial. The Justice Department released its 12-page document ahead of that hearing, detailing new allegations about the scope of Mr. Martinās alleged theft and suggesting he had become heavily armed, accumulating 10 weapons, and had taken sophisticated steps to cover his tracks.
Some former associates had described Mr. Martin as a harmless hoarder who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The new government filing paints a different picture, raising questions about his motives and suggesting he was capable of sharing U.S. secrets with the nationās adversaries and potentially putting American lives at risk.
The document doesnāt, however, answer one of the big questions in the case: whether Mr. Martin shared any of the stolen classified information with another person or another country. The document offers no evidence that he did but suggested Mr. Martin had the capacity to do so.
Mr. Martin, a former Naval officer, was most recently a contractor at Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., a job that placed him inside some of the governmentās most secretive programs inside the NSA and the Pentagon. The Justice Department said that a search of his home and his automobile uncovered āthousands of pages of documents and dozens of computers and other storage devices and media containing, conservatively, fifty terabytes of information.ā
Fifty terabytes is equivalent to 50,000 gigabytes. One gigabyte can contain 10,000 pages of documents, the department estimated.
By extrapolation, 50 terabytes can hold 500 million pages.
In seeking Fridayās hearing, Mr. Martinās legal team wrote that he āis neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community, and to the extent either of these factors is a concern, they can be sufficiently addressed with specific release conditions.ā
The Justice Department countered Thursday that Mr. Martin āpresents a high risk of flight, a risk to the nation, and to the physical safety of others.ā
Mr. Martin worked on highly sensitive programs, people familiar with the investigation have said, including those involving an arsenal of cybertools the government has amassed to use against other countries as well as cyberweapons that were in development.
So far, it is unknown what Mr. Martin intended and what, if any, plans he had for the pilfered information.
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Mr. Martinās home and car in August, it found much of the stolen information in plain sight. Top-secret information was stored in his car, which wasn't parked in a garage. Investigators also found an email chain printed out in that car that was marked ātop secretā and contained āhighly sensitive information.ā
They also found handwritten notes that appeared to describe the NSAās classified computer infrastructure, the Justice Department said in its filing.
āAmong the many other classified documents found in the Defendantās possession was a document marked as āTop Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Informationā (āTS/SCIā) regarding specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States and its allies,ā the court document said."
Ex-NSA Contractor Stole at Least 500 Million Pages of Records and Secrets, U.S. Says
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