When Harry met celly: NSA hoarder thrown in the clink for 9 years – after taking classified work home for decades An ex-NSA contractor who admitted stashing some 50TB of secret US government documents and exploit code at his home was today sentenced to nine years behind bars. Harold Martin, 54, was given the nine-year term along with an additional three years of supervised release by Judge Richard Bennett in a US federal district court in …
My thoughts as well. I worked in the US on a contract with a vision insurance provider and only certain employees had access to multi-function office machines due to HIPA regulations. How does the NSA maintain security if people can print/scan/copy and take documents out of the office for years? I imagine that almost every file in the NSA is classified.
I found this article about him and it states that he was a naval officer with access to classified data. So the fact that he got access is clear now, but it would have been nice to put that in the article.
And, as he was an officer, decorated no less, I guess it would be pretty standard for him to come and leave with a briefcase or something, making it look official. So there might be an explanation.
Now someone please explain how is it that the NSA, an organization devoted to the security of the nation, apparently has security procedures that rival that of the Flintstones.
I'm a consultant as well, and I regularly walk into the IT departments of banks, insurance companies and other large organizations. I can swear that, not only am I not walking out with any document whatsoever, I am certainly not plugging in USB keys. So banks and such are more secure than the NSA. My mind is boggled.
One of the most challenging aspects of security architecture work is to both make an environment secure and *usable*.
You can plug holes as much as you like, but authorised access also needs to be monitored. The trick isn't to prevent data ex-filtration, but to slow it down so you can spot it and stop it before too much damage is done.
I can swear that, not only am I not walking out with any document whatsoever, I am certainly not plugging in USB keys.
Sure, you aren't, because you're ethical. But could you? I've worked as an IT grunt for banks and casinos and none of them disabled USB ports or searched my bag when I left.
Hillary was guilty of being stupid, but she lacked intent...
It looks like “stupid” is contagious...
NY Times
“It is not the first time that questions have been raised about how Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner have used private communications in their government roles. Both have used personal email accounts to communicate with other White House officials and cabinet secretaries about official business. But the irony of the new accusations was savored by Mrs. Clinton’s former aides.”
If you want to say Hillary should be disqualified from public office (w/ top secret clearance) I’m on board. But, if we enforce this we’ll probably depopulate the capital. President Trump used a non secured private phone (for example) for government business (likely top secret) for quite a while....
A president, using powers granted by the Constitution, is able to declassify essentially anything. You could (and he would) claim that his action of choosing a non secured device was a presidentially approved declassification of the information involved.
People hoard things. It's regrettably common when a person changes jobs for them to take a copy of "interesting" data in the expectation it will help them with their next job, even though they normally don't ever use it. The smarter ones take the data a long time before they leave as the chance of being caught in the act is so much lower.
This does beg the question of who he though his next employer might be.
"Yeah, but....50TB????" These are paper documents and government scanners are extremely inefficient. So it could possibly have been only 5 sheets with "SECRET" at the top and bottom and "THIS PAGE WAS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK" printed in the middle, which he reused to scribble a shopping list on the back: "milk, bread, eggs". We'll never know the truth.
This post has been deleted by its author
I'd assume he started off as a direct employee, got trained and got his security clearance, and then left and became a contractor (and the contracting firm was probably set up by another ex-employee, who still plays golf with his old workmates, and entirely coincidentally gets contracts from them).
I remember hearing this many times at my old company I worked for -
"Well John the contractor has finished managing that big project for us and gone onto another contract abroad!"
"Oh cool, where is the project work and data from that?"
"Erm ahhh...I guess it's on John's company issued laptop!"
"Where is his company issued laptop?"
"Erm I guess with John...in Germany!"
"FFS AGAIN??!!??"
We were a fantastic source of new free Dell Latitude laptops for freelance contractors.
NSA comes out of this looking incompetent and vindictive. Sure, it was the judge who said nine, but any lesser number could have been sought by the NSA. Maybe they're warming up for Assange and Snowden (if they can get mitts on him). Maybe they're stretching their wings on the dubious practice of loading up the charges followed by a plea agreement. It prevents a fair trial. Who knows, he might have got off with treatment and community service if a trial had found that hoarding is a mental illness. So, also not a good day for US jurisprudence. IANAW - I am not a whatever.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
