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N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

nytimes.com

61–70 of 148 posts

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#61
post #43
post #17

Here's the criminal complaint. Check Paragraph 12, sounds like he just liked to take work home with him. I'm leaning on the side that this IS NOT ShadowBrokers. https://lawfare.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2016/Mart... EDIT: Yeah, Martin is not even being charged with unauthorized disclosure. Not ShadowBrokers, sorry to burst everyone's bubble.

What's to say $FOREIGN_INFOSEC_ACTORS don't try to target employees like him? Maybe he did "take his work home" and a FSB operative stole it from his home or hacked his home computer? I'm saying this as if this was Russia and he was a Russian infosec guy, I wouldn't put it past the NSA TAO to go do just that.

[deleted]

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#62
post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

I guess you haven't heard of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst trying to remain as politically neutral as possible, isn't this basically what Clinton did?

Nobody has managed to find any documents that passed through Clinton's email server that were labeled as classified, let alone Top Secret. (One or two documents had classified sections, which were labeled with small (c) marks. The document should have had big CLASSIFIED marks, but since it didn't, missing a (c) next to a paragraph is not an arrestable offense)

Stop pushing this myth.

I want Hillary to win as much as the next reasonable person, but that doesn't mean she didn't mess up.

There were dozens of classified emails that were in fact classified at the time they were sent. Some of which were Top Secret. Some of which were even Special Access Programs.

Whether something is marked or not is actually irrelevant. Part of her responsibility and this contractor's responsibility under the clearance agreement is to identify classified content regardless of markings.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

The Constitution is a piece of paper, and might influence certain parts of Government to some degree, the same as any other piece of paper. But the beliefs of the people are what really matters. And if the people don't actually entirely agree with the Constitution to the point that they're willing to fight for it and drag their representatives out of Government over it, it's as useless as any other piece of paper.

I think you'll enjoy: The Myth of the Rule of Law...

http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst trying to remain as politically neutral as possible, isn't this basically what Clinton did?

Nobody has managed to find any documents that passed through Clinton's email server that were labeled as classified, let alone Top Secret. (One or two documents had classified sections, which were labeled with small (c) marks. The document should have had big CLASSIFIED marks, but since it didn't, missing a (c) next to a paragraph is not an arrestable offense)

The existence of the email server to begin with blocked journalists attempts to investigate on State Department activities in Libya, and violated the FOIA Federal Law (a felony).

Partisan political actors are quick to redefine the problem as 'labeled as classified' and make claims about intentions, etc.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#67
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution is a piece of paper, and might influence certain parts of Government to some degree, the same as any other piece of paper. But the beliefs of the people are what really matters. And if the people don't actually entirely agree with the Constitution to the point that they're willing to fight for it and drag their representatives out of Government over it, it's as useless as any other piece of paper.

I think you'll enjoy: The Myth of the Rule of Law... http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

While it's great to harp on the inconsistency of the body of law, the importance of rule of law is how powerful people equally get prosecuted and sentenced and cases are not determined by who can pay a bigger bribe to the judge. Both happen in the negative in, say, Hungary.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#68
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article clearly implies that Snowden's actions were "theft"

Which they were. Also, espionage. Also, treason. And — also — not whistleblowing, because nothing he has alleged is illegal .

> nothing ... is illegal

A federal court disagreed to that in 2015 [PDF]:

http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/NSA_ca2_20150507.pdf

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#69
post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

I'm guessing it just means the indictment is sealed, and maybe (but probably not) that the accused and their counsel are under some kind of gag order.

There's no statute or authority or even articles at ACLU or in law journals I can find that suggest that federal law enforcement can detain US citizens without counsel in "secret arrests", or, for that matter, suspend habeas.

Obviously: they can do that. But it's a very big deal when they do. They had to back off charges from Jose Padilla because of how they mishandled that case.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

"Secret" arrests are fairly common, they are often used daily when you need to arrest a large group of people without them scattering. Say you have 5 arrests warrants for members of a gang, you often can't arrest them all the once so here is where the "secret" comes into play when they are arrested and the arrest is maintained confidential for 24-48 hours depending on the jurisdiction. This is done to prevent the res…

I guess, then, the real question is, what is a "non-secret" arrest? Do the police/FBI routinely release public information in the case of every arrest?
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