[BreachExchange] Former NSA contractor sentenced to 9 years for stealing secret documents

[Destry Winant]

https://siliconangle.com/2019/07/21/former-nsa-contractor-sentenced-9-years-stealing-top-secret-documents/

A former U.S. National Security Agency contractor has been sentenced
to nine years in prison as part of a plea agreement after pleading
guilty to one charge of stealing a classified document in March.

Harold T. Martin III was arrested in August 2016 and was found in
possession of 50 terabytes of government data, including documents
marked “Secret” and “Top Secret.” Initially charged with 20 separate
offenses, each with a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison,
prosecutors dropped the other charges in return for the plea
agreement.

It’s not the first case where an NSA contractor has stolen data, but
Martin’s case was notable because he was charged not with sharing the
documents with third parties but with willful retention of national
defense information. Martin was, however, at one stage the prime
suspect in leaks of NSA documents and spy tools that were obtained and
published by The Shadow Brokers.

Martin, in effect, did nothing more than hoard secret NSA documents on
his own computer, with his lawyers arguing that his motivation was to
“improve his computer expertise.” That hoarding took place from the
late 1990s through to his arrest in 2016 and involved 300 times the
data stolen by Edward Snowden, CBS Baltimore reported Friday.

“My methods were wrong, illegal and highly questionable,” Martin told
the court at the sentencing hearing.

“For nearly 20 years, Harold Martin betrayed the trust placed in him
by stealing and retaining a vast quantity of highly classified
national defense information entrusted to him,” U.S. Attorney Robert
K. Hur said in a statement.  “This sentence, which is one of the
longest ever imposed in this type of case, should serve as a warning
that we will find and prosecute government employees and contractors
who flagrantly violate their duty to protect classified materials.”

Martin’s story is a reminder to all companies of potential insider
threats. Sai Chavali, security strategist at ObserveIT Ltd.,
previously told SiliconANGLE that “given the right motivations and
circumstances, professionals, like Mr. Martin, can cause greater harm
by exfiltrating and leaking data.”