Ex-NSA Official Indicted For Leaks To Newspaper 115
Hugh Pickens writes "The Baltimore Sun reports that in a rare legal action against a government employee accused of leaking secrets, a grand jury has indicted Thomas A. Drake, a former senior National Security Agency official, on charges of providing classified information to a newspaper reporter in hundreds of e-mail messages in 2006 and 2007. Federal law prohibits government employees from disclosing classified information which could be 'expected to cause damage to national security.' The indictment (PDF) does not name either the reporter or the newspaper that received the information, but the description applies to articles written by Siobhan Gorman, then a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, that examined in detail the failings of several major NSA programs, costing billions of dollars, that were plagued with technical flaws and cost overruns. Gorman's stories did not focus on the substance of the electronic intelligence information the agency gathers and analyzes but exposed management and programmatic troubles within the agency."
Adds reader metrometro: "Of note: the government says the alleged NSA mole uses Hushmail, which is all the endorsement I need for a security system." Perhaps Mr. Drake was unaware of Hushmail's past cooperation with the US government?
Re:The real problem (Score:5, Funny)
By making all kinds of crap classified that shouldn't be they clog the system and reduce the efficiency. It's impossible to run a security system when you flood it with tons of info that is only classified because it's embarrassing to the morons in management.
Au contraire! My friend.
Imagine being a spy trying to find some interesting piece of information. You spend a couple of days seducing the secretary, a week finding a geek to crack the codes, another week to go to Italy to replace the suit you just ruined while chasing, on motorboat, the guy who had the passkeys, etc...
Two months later, the information you just got is random useless crap about a lowly manager fucking up his job in various ways and you just lost your best opportunity of novelizing your adventures.