10 ms·

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

267 points by SuperKlaus 10y ago

zymhan 10y ago
"Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated." So, only some of it. The rest was up to date then. And the old stuff is helpful for figuring out how they think.
kiba 10y ago
Embarrassing? You expect at some point that people will try to steal and leak secrets whether that's for money or moral conscience.
jbapple 10y ago
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?
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  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.
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    Deleted as I thought better than posting this retrospectively. Sorry.
    - micaksica 10y ago
      > Of course, from the outside it looks like he was just some Bad Man. Even the prime minister went on the news to condemn him. This is a lot of obfuscation. What happened here? How did they smear him? > From the external actions of the characters who oversee the legal professionals who are drafted into service in these secret systems, they definitely have their own, uh, interpretation of law and ethics. I am friends with some ex-IC guys; from their stories they appear closed in rank more than police, and are indoctrinated to the point that they see themselves as the paladins of American values and democracy. In reality, they are usually only upholding the interests of the powerful, where corporate interest and political value coincide, and those with real power know and reinforce this. To see this is too much cognitive dissonance for the ones that aren't secretly there just because they get off on the power. The paranoia and the power trip are good at reinforcing the "us vs. everyone" mentality that we know is pretty dangerous psychologically.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    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.
    - lettergram 10y ago
      Have you ever tried to get a group of people to protest anything? Like seriously, the black lives matter are more effective, than people regarding the NSA, privacy, or encryption. Even though some of the stuff we know about the government is WAY scarier.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        The issue is more that there's an incredible amount of people who just don't care about the Constitution. Or pretty much anything else that isn't affecting them in a really direct way right that moment in time. And so, in giving a democratic Government ridiculous amounts of power, we give it power to harm pretty much any minority it chooses, so long as it doesn't piss off too many other people.
      - bdavisx 10y ago
        Not to downplay the NSA issues -- but it's a lot scarier for a black/brown person to realize their life can be ended when they get stopped for having a tail light out.
        kbenson 10y ago
        Yes. As these things go, every day existential threats generally trump threats to our liberty. I can't fault anyone for that.
        lettergram 10y ago
        I do agree that people will think that way, but it's actually not scarier. Giving the government the power it has, implies the government can basically do what ever it want. It has secret courts, secret arrests, and secret police. That is way more horrifying than the very small risk of being shot - which the numbers don't even fully support that it's getting worse, unjustified, or even preventable. I recommend the Through the Wormhole episode: are we all bigots?). That being said, I do think we whould always be wary of police and generally question the government. It's important we keep into perspective what's actually a threat and whats just unfortunate. Both should be improved, but one (the NSA) can prevent any sort of improvement, the police shooting rate seems to be more of an over reaction and mistake that almost everyone agrees should be fixed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a... http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/are-we-all-bigots/ http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/...
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    "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 rest from scattering into hiding as soon as the news of one or more of them getting arrested breaks, this also means they won't hold down somewhere and be ready for a fight, or even go and do something worse like take hostages in order to try to get out of dodge. This also means that in some rights are withheld for the duration of the "gag order" like access to a phone or an attorney, however the police is not allowed to question or formally charge the subjects during that period either, so while there is some violation of rights it is not egregious.
    - jbapple 10y ago
      This arrest happened in late August, it seems. Has SCOTUS set limits on how long prisoners can be held secretly?
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Criminal justice gags are usually hours to days depending on the case. The longer ones are usually to protect the arrestee if they are being put into protective custody / witness protection or are released as an informant. Since this is national security related who knows, I don't even know if these cases have been brought up to the supreme court before.
      - fredgrott 10y ago
        if its a computer access break-in FED law states 90 days notice..while not directly applying it would seem if someone was caught on illegal access after 90 days FEDs would have to let both the criminal know and theri lawyer so arrest would no longer be secret at thatpoint.
      - pjlegato 10y ago
        Yes, unsurprisingly there is an enormous amount of case law on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_St...
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Then you haven't been paying attention to legal precedents set since the late 70's, and think that you can hide behind a devalued piece of paper that courts and politicians and LEO's have been shitting on for decades.
  - mtgx 10y ago
    I guess you haven't heard of this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > 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. To be fair, what if two people did that and disagreed?
- jonknee 10y ago
  According to the complaint the search happened August 29th so this has been ongoing for a while. Very curious.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  The procedure involves jailing someone under a false name, at least on the paperwork. It isn't that unusual and is normally used in organized crime cases. The arrest is done under the guise of arresting a "material witness" rather than an accused criminal. Doing this bypasses various protections (lawyers, hearings etc) for a significant period of time. The use of false names is to protect the "witness" from intimidation. The suspect is then re-arrested on criminal charges while in custody once the need to keep him secret is over. An infamous case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield
- tptacek 10y ago
  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.
  - joering2 10y ago
    good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012#cite_note-56 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization... ... under the NDAA "an American citizen can be detained forever without trial, while the allegations against you go uncontested because you have no right to see them"
    - tptacek 10y ago
      The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda. No, they don't either in principal (the application in the text is much broader than specifically al-Qaeda -- it includes al-Qaeda, the Taliban, "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners", and other who commit a belligerent act against the US or its coalition partners that is seen to be "in aid to" those organizations), nor in practice, because the specific allegations justifying the detention need not be disclosed, nor even the specific detention publicly disclosed, and detentions under the act, while they permit trial by military tribunal, do not require any juridical process or access to counsel to be provided -- that's rather the point of indefinite detention -- there's essentially no practical boundary to their application (if some sympathetic third party becomes aware of the detention, its possible they might be the subject of habeas corpus proceedings, which would require some showing that there was reason to believe that the person was within the fairly broad scope in the text of the act, but that's by no means a certainty in any particular detention.)
- elif 10y ago
  It is legally an indefinite detention pending formal charges, but due to the nature of "indefinite," those charges never have to actually exist. It performed under section 1021 of the original National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012), which has been upheld as constitutional by an appellate court, a ruling which the supreme court declined to subsequently hear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikecb 10y ago
    This is not a detention under the NDAA. This case has nothing to do with the NDAA. Further, Obama's signing statement of that law stated that his Administration believed such provision to be unnecessary and unconstitutional: "Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law." Hedges v. Obama did not affirm the constitutionality of that law, but rather that that plaintiff did not have a sufficient interest in that provision in order to ensure that they would present the best case that can be made, which is important because US Court's follow precedent. If you'd like to read more, look for the constitutional requirement of Standing.
eeZah7Ux 10y ago
"New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing. "he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments" "different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft" What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?
- idlewords 10y ago
  Stealing source code from the NSA is not whistleblowing.
  - redwards510 10y ago
    Depends on what that source code does. What if it overloads electrical systems placed in orphanages in China where they grow hackers and burns down the building with the kids inside?
    - idlewords 10y ago
      I would love to see the scrum meeting for this one.
      - SEJeff 10y ago
        I would love to see the unit tests!
- VelociRapster 10y ago
  Are you of the opinion that whistleblowing and espionage are the same thing? It's one thing to call attention to warrantless wiretapping and unconstitutional practices. It's an entirely different thing to take and distribute the source code of a tool used to access foreign government systems. The former is illegal the latter is literally the reason why the NSA was created.
  - withholding 10y ago
    The article clearly implies that Snowden's actions were "theft"
encoderer 10y ago
If the accusation is true, nothing about this is related to whistleblowing. It's closer to sabotage and espionage.
zmanian 10y ago
Wonders if this is Shadowbrokers...
- 1457389 10y ago
  >the highly classified “source code” developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Sure sounds like a plausible candidate considering what Shadow Brokers were touting.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  If I follow the news releases correctly, this arrest is not of Shadowbrokers but instead the trail from Shadowbrokers led back to a server(s) w/the NSA toolkit installed. Perhaps NSA followed those breadcrumbs back to this individual. Or: Shadowbrokers discovered actual NSA server and NSA is trying to scapegoat an individual in order to shed the appearance of operational ineptitude.
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
I ask myself what I should be more upset about: that someone walked away with government hacking tools, or that our government knew about existing exploits in critical American company technologies and kept them a secret?
- redwards510 10y ago
  Understandable complaints, but isn't the latter just standard procedure in modern cyberwarfare? I think I would be more upset if America didn't have any offensive zero-day weapons to strike with. If we only had capability against foreign companies software, everyone would just buy American and be immune.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    Would Americans be more or less secure in that world? On account of (a) unjust governments being more likely to abuse power than just ones, (b) unjust governments are more dangerous than unjust actors and (c) the belief that just governments are plausible, I would say "more". If you live under an unjust government, their curtailed power is a plus. If you live under a just government, your threat profile from unjust governments is decreased. The threat from unjust actors may increase, but that is a fair trade-off per (b).
    - ChoHag 10y ago
      This is what the USA has forgotten, and why they are such a disappointment to the rest of us. Unjust government can be as abusive as it likes. Just government gains its strength from justice alone and its acts of abuse are its first step towards its inevitable unjustice. Additional: Abuse is seductive. Abuse from power is absolutely seductive.
  - tobltobs 10y ago
    This doesn't make any sense. You will have attack cyber weapons, but at the same time you risk that your enemies can use the same weapon against the infrastructure you are there to protect. Collecting attack weapons, but letting your defense rot is a strategy which might work in computer games.
r721 10y ago
DoJ press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor-charged-removal-classified-materials-and-theft-government-property https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor-cha...
mxuribe 10y ago
At some point is there an actual employee on the NSA side (maybe an HR rep.) asking the account manager on the Booz Allen Hamilton side: please stop sending us these guys/girls, they're just not working out, ok? ;-)
acveilleux 10y ago
This is why things like mandatory escrow and encryption backdoors are an horrible idea. However much the NSA would like us to use them.
NN88 10y ago
they got him a month ago. gat'damn. the US Government is playing a different game right now. Play time is over.
dguido 10y ago
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/Martin%20Criminal%20Complaint.pdf 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.
- NN88 10y ago
  MANY have said that its possible there was another NSA patsy covering for Snowden or definitely at least another spy. http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa/ http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-julian-assange-russia.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-jul...
  - ChoHag 10y ago
    Many == Russia?
- karpodiem 10y ago
  Sounds like is being made the fall guy for this.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  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.
  - nickff 10y ago
    Yes, this is dangerous; people shouldn't be allowed to bring government secrets home with them... unless they are cabinet level officials?
NN88 10y ago
This dummy was caught red handed. Documents, hardware, etc.
engx 10y ago
Whatever happened to the other "second Snowden" where it was reported DoJ was reluctant to prosecute? http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker--for-snowden-reporters-165741571.html http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker...
awqrre 10y ago
He didn't learn much from Hillary's case.... Always claim that you didn't know that there was any classified material and always bring your attorney along, even if it's a voluntary interrogation.
- zeveb 10y ago
  And make sure your attorney gets immunity, and make sure that the FBI promises to destroy your hardware once it's done with it!
  - ww520 10y ago
    With hammers?
- kyleblarson 10y ago
  Also make sure you are one of the most politically connected people on the planet and married to an ex POTUS.
- kaonashi 10y ago
  Different set of rules.
godgod 10y ago
Obama will go after this guy like he's never done before. The deep state can't tolerate being exposed.
redthrowaway 10y ago
John Schindler (former NSA counterintelligence officer) called this back in August: http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa/ http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa... This would explain how the Russians ended up with the source code for TAO's toys.
- dopamean 10y ago
  He is one of the worst personalities on twitter. For someone who could perhaps add a lot to the discussion his contributions frequently boils down to "I know better than [you or some other person] and so I don't have to explain [some insulting thing he said about someone]."
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    Nature of the twitter beast. You can't actually educate or do much more than say, "read any of the 20 articles I've written on the subject" in 140 characters. And there are a lot of people who are very wrong about the sorts of things he talks about. He knows his stuff. And he's dismissive and rude. The former forgives the latter, for me.
- deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
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- ChoHag 10y ago
  The article seems to be suggesting that the idea that there are KGB moles inside the NSA is, in and of itself, indicitative of the NSA's ultimate failure. That's ludicrous. You'd be an idiot to ever suggest that the NSA wasn't penetrated at any given time somewhere by some foreign power's own spy agency. Design for the failure that's going to happen, not the perfection that never will.
ternbot 10y ago
Interesting - unlike the Snowden bust - which had his face everywhere - hard to figure out what this bro looks like
maerF0x0 10y ago
here's an unsubstantiated claim that gave a great laugh: > "For the N.S.A., which spent two years and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars repairing the damage done by Mr. Snowden, "
the_watcher 10y ago
For purposes of discussion, let's say he did take the data to leak. I'm honestly curious as to the response. From everything out there, nothing he took had been used for anything beyond espionage and counter-espionage in the manner that any sane person assumed was happening. Finding a motive (unless he planned to sell it, which I haven't seen any indication of, and would wildly change the story) seems tough. Was he really just taking it to leak, being a radical transparency advocate? Why just this?
cornchips 10y ago
Want to see something really scary??? Here's his house: https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,+MD+21060/@39.1612929,-76.600954,3a,75y,149h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTxLrvauce4d-rYPt3MTJAQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTxLrvauce4d-rYPt3MTJAQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D149.19705%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7fcfe81adf90b:0xfbc37b77559c0a0e!8m2!3d39.161058!4d-76.600697!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,...
- viraptor 10y ago
  Whatever the reason, makes me wonder why would anyone try to do this. I mean, I know where it is - I can drive there and take a picture if I wanted to. But bluring out one particular house on a normal street is kind of like the story (I believe from one of the Sherlock Holmes books) about a guard telling the detective about all of the town, apart from one house, where he hid the body.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - omginternets 10y ago
    You have to show yourself, and this increases the chance of people reporting a strange man taking photos of a house. Yes, it's not cryptographic-level security, but it raises the costs of an attack. In the real world, that matters. Also consider that not all attacks are spy-vs-spy. This could be a case of 'keeping honest people honest', i.e.: making it sufficiently difficult to dissuade the majority of political activists and/or protesters. This is the same reason why padlocks are a thing.
    - viraptor 10y ago
      > You have to show yourself, and this increases the chance of people reporting a strange man taking photos of a house. In the year of pokemon go players everywhere? And even then, who cares about a person with a mobile phone? We're a good decade after anyone is a "strange man" when taking photos anywhere. You don't even have to show yourself. Just order a cab and go through that street without stopping. > dissuade the majority of political activists and/or protesters I'm not convinced. The only thing the blurring did was prove that this is the interesting house, rather than a name coincidence. What is that supposed to dissuade me from if I was already going to go there and do something potentially illegal?
catscratch 10y ago
I understand curiosity of sensitive data. I think everyone wants to know more. I also understand that some people think that no one should have this power and want to stop it. I wish that, if you feel this way, you renounce your citizenship and find another country that acts as you believe they should and just leave the other country alone, unless you feel they are threatening you or those you love and you must do something about it, and even then only if can do something to help in a way that won't hurt anyone now or in the future. Yes, I know it's not always that easy. But, if you live in a country, through your taxes and your citizenship, you pay for and are recipient of the work of people whose job it is to protect us and all other citizens of your country. And if you didn't know how they defended you, you do now. It isn't always pretty, to say it lightly. I don't want people to do bad things in the name of good or defense. It'd be better if every country had a large number of grown up boy scouts to protect that country in the most honorable way possible. But, we have what we have. Sure go ahead- expose it if you want, but the more you harm it, the more you'll end up with a group of people that are even more secretive and do things even worse to try to ensure that security. I really don't want that to happen. Things need to get better instead! Many in the US say that we need to protect people from themselves, and then criticize or harm those trying to protect us. Why? I used to be much more paranoid and just group people into the "trying to hurt me" bracket. But I grew up. I realized that almost everyone in the world I meet wants to do good or at least has a motivation to try to accomplish something they believe is right.
nylsaar 10y ago
After reading this article a second time, I noticed that it's crafted to suggest the suspect had stolen software. The evidence given in the article only admits the suspect had documents, some of them classified, at his home. To suggest that many computers and code was found at a programmers home is quite ridiculous. Late in the article, the F.B.I "suspects" that he may have stolen code. What this article lacks in evidence, it makes up in sensationalism.

267 points by SuperKlaus 10y ago

"Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated." So, only some of it. The rest was up to date then. And the old stuff is helpful for figuring out how they think.

kiba 10y ago

Embarrassing? You expect at some point that people will try to steal and leak secrets whether that's for money or moral conscience.

jbapple 10y ago

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?

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
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.
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  Deleted as I thought better than posting this retrospectively. Sorry.
  - micaksica 10y ago
    > Of course, from the outside it looks like he was just some Bad Man. Even the prime minister went on the news to condemn him. This is a lot of obfuscation. What happened here? How did they smear him? > From the external actions of the characters who oversee the legal professionals who are drafted into service in these secret systems, they definitely have their own, uh, interpretation of law and ethics. I am friends with some ex-IC guys; from their stories they appear closed in rank more than police, and are indoctrinated to the point that they see themselves as the paladins of American values and democracy. In reality, they are usually only upholding the interests of the powerful, where corporate interest and political value coincide, and those with real power know and reinforce this. To see this is too much cognitive dissonance for the ones that aren't secretly there just because they get off on the power. The paranoia and the power trip are good at reinforcing the "us vs. everyone" mentality that we know is pretty dangerous psychologically.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  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.
  - lettergram 10y ago
    Have you ever tried to get a group of people to protest anything? Like seriously, the black lives matter are more effective, than people regarding the NSA, privacy, or encryption. Even though some of the stuff we know about the government is WAY scarier.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      The issue is more that there's an incredible amount of people who just don't care about the Constitution. Or pretty much anything else that isn't affecting them in a really direct way right that moment in time. And so, in giving a democratic Government ridiculous amounts of power, we give it power to harm pretty much any minority it chooses, so long as it doesn't piss off too many other people.
    - bdavisx 10y ago
      Not to downplay the NSA issues -- but it's a lot scarier for a black/brown person to realize their life can be ended when they get stopped for having a tail light out.
      - kbenson 10y ago
        Yes. As these things go, every day existential threats generally trump threats to our liberty. I can't fault anyone for that.
      - lettergram 10y ago
        I do agree that people will think that way, but it's actually not scarier. Giving the government the power it has, implies the government can basically do what ever it want. It has secret courts, secret arrests, and secret police. That is way more horrifying than the very small risk of being shot - which the numbers don't even fully support that it's getting worse, unjustified, or even preventable. I recommend the Through the Wormhole episode: are we all bigots?). That being said, I do think we whould always be wary of police and generally question the government. It's important we keep into perspective what's actually a threat and whats just unfortunate. Both should be improved, but one (the NSA) can prevent any sort of improvement, the police shooting rate seems to be more of an over reaction and mistake that almost everyone agrees should be fixed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a... http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/are-we-all-bigots/ http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/...
- dogma1138 10y ago
  "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 rest from scattering into hiding as soon as the news of one or more of them getting arrested breaks, this also means they won't hold down somewhere and be ready for a fight, or even go and do something worse like take hostages in order to try to get out of dodge. This also means that in some rights are withheld for the duration of the "gag order" like access to a phone or an attorney, however the police is not allowed to question or formally charge the subjects during that period either, so while there is some violation of rights it is not egregious.
  - jbapple 10y ago
    This arrest happened in late August, it seems. Has SCOTUS set limits on how long prisoners can be held secretly?
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Criminal justice gags are usually hours to days depending on the case. The longer ones are usually to protect the arrestee if they are being put into protective custody / witness protection or are released as an informant. Since this is national security related who knows, I don't even know if these cases have been brought up to the supreme court before.
    - fredgrott 10y ago
      if its a computer access break-in FED law states 90 days notice..while not directly applying it would seem if someone was caught on illegal access after 90 days FEDs would have to let both the criminal know and theri lawyer so arrest would no longer be secret at thatpoint.
    - pjlegato 10y ago
      Yes, unsurprisingly there is an enormous amount of case law on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_St...
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Then you haven't been paying attention to legal precedents set since the late 70's, and think that you can hide behind a devalued piece of paper that courts and politicians and LEO's have been shitting on for decades.
- mtgx 10y ago
  I guess you haven't heard of this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > 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. To be fair, what if two people did that and disagreed?
jonknee 10y ago
According to the complaint the search happened August 29th so this has been ongoing for a while. Very curious.
sandworm101 10y ago
The procedure involves jailing someone under a false name, at least on the paperwork. It isn't that unusual and is normally used in organized crime cases. The arrest is done under the guise of arresting a "material witness" rather than an accused criminal. Doing this bypasses various protections (lawyers, hearings etc) for a significant period of time. The use of false names is to protect the "witness" from intimidation. The suspect is then re-arrested on criminal charges while in custody once the need to keep him secret is over. An infamous case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield
tptacek 10y ago
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.
- joering2 10y ago
  good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012#cite_note-56 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization... ... under the NDAA "an American citizen can be detained forever without trial, while the allegations against you go uncontested because you have no right to see them"
  - tptacek 10y ago
    The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda. No, they don't either in principal (the application in the text is much broader than specifically al-Qaeda -- it includes al-Qaeda, the Taliban, "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners", and other who commit a belligerent act against the US or its coalition partners that is seen to be "in aid to" those organizations), nor in practice, because the specific allegations justifying the detention need not be disclosed, nor even the specific detention publicly disclosed, and detentions under the act, while they permit trial by military tribunal, do not require any juridical process or access to counsel to be provided -- that's rather the point of indefinite detention -- there's essentially no practical boundary to their application (if some sympathetic third party becomes aware of the detention, its possible they might be the subject of habeas corpus proceedings, which would require some showing that there was reason to believe that the person was within the fairly broad scope in the text of the act, but that's by no means a certainty in any particular detention.)
elif 10y ago
It is legally an indefinite detention pending formal charges, but due to the nature of "indefinite," those charges never have to actually exist. It performed under section 1021 of the original National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012), which has been upheld as constitutional by an appellate court, a ruling which the supreme court declined to subsequently hear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama
- deleted 10y ago
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- mikecb 10y ago
  This is not a detention under the NDAA. This case has nothing to do with the NDAA. Further, Obama's signing statement of that law stated that his Administration believed such provision to be unnecessary and unconstitutional: "Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law." Hedges v. Obama did not affirm the constitutionality of that law, but rather that that plaintiff did not have a sufficient interest in that provision in order to ensure that they would present the best case that can be made, which is important because US Court's follow precedent. If you'd like to read more, look for the constitutional requirement of Standing.

eeZah7Ux 10y ago

"New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing. "he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments" "different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft" What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?

idlewords 10y ago
Stealing source code from the NSA is not whistleblowing.
- redwards510 10y ago
  Depends on what that source code does. What if it overloads electrical systems placed in orphanages in China where they grow hackers and burns down the building with the kids inside?
  - idlewords 10y ago
    I would love to see the scrum meeting for this one.
    - SEJeff 10y ago
      I would love to see the unit tests!
VelociRapster 10y ago
Are you of the opinion that whistleblowing and espionage are the same thing? It's one thing to call attention to warrantless wiretapping and unconstitutional practices. It's an entirely different thing to take and distribute the source code of a tool used to access foreign government systems. The former is illegal the latter is literally the reason why the NSA was created.
- withholding 10y ago
  The article clearly implies that Snowden's actions were "theft"

encoderer 10y ago

If the accusation is true, nothing about this is related to whistleblowing. It's closer to sabotage and espionage.

zmanian 10y ago

Wonders if this is Shadowbrokers...

1457389 10y ago
>the highly classified “source code” developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Sure sounds like a plausible candidate considering what Shadow Brokers were touting.
wyldfire 10y ago
If I follow the news releases correctly, this arrest is not of Shadowbrokers but instead the trail from Shadowbrokers led back to a server(s) w/the NSA toolkit installed. Perhaps NSA followed those breadcrumbs back to this individual. Or: Shadowbrokers discovered actual NSA server and NSA is trying to scapegoat an individual in order to shed the appearance of operational ineptitude.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

I ask myself what I should be more upset about: that someone walked away with government hacking tools, or that our government knew about existing exploits in critical American company technologies and kept them a secret?

redwards510 10y ago
Understandable complaints, but isn't the latter just standard procedure in modern cyberwarfare? I think I would be more upset if America didn't have any offensive zero-day weapons to strike with. If we only had capability against foreign companies software, everyone would just buy American and be immune.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  Would Americans be more or less secure in that world? On account of (a) unjust governments being more likely to abuse power than just ones, (b) unjust governments are more dangerous than unjust actors and (c) the belief that just governments are plausible, I would say "more". If you live under an unjust government, their curtailed power is a plus. If you live under a just government, your threat profile from unjust governments is decreased. The threat from unjust actors may increase, but that is a fair trade-off per (b).
  - ChoHag 10y ago
    This is what the USA has forgotten, and why they are such a disappointment to the rest of us. Unjust government can be as abusive as it likes. Just government gains its strength from justice alone and its acts of abuse are its first step towards its inevitable unjustice. Additional: Abuse is seductive. Abuse from power is absolutely seductive.
- tobltobs 10y ago
  This doesn't make any sense. You will have attack cyber weapons, but at the same time you risk that your enemies can use the same weapon against the infrastructure you are there to protect. Collecting attack weapons, but letting your defense rot is a strategy which might work in computer games.

r721 10y ago

DoJ press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor-charged-removal-classified-materials-and-theft-government-property https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor-cha...

mxuribe 10y ago

At some point is there an actual employee on the NSA side (maybe an HR rep.) asking the account manager on the Booz Allen Hamilton side: please stop sending us these guys/girls, they're just not working out, ok? ;-)

acveilleux 10y ago

This is why things like mandatory escrow and encryption backdoors are an horrible idea. However much the NSA would like us to use them.

NN88 10y ago

they got him a month ago. gat'damn. the US Government is playing a different game right now. Play time is over.

dguido 10y ago

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/Martin%20Criminal%20Complaint.pdf 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.

NN88 10y ago
MANY have said that its possible there was another NSA patsy covering for Snowden or definitely at least another spy. http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa/ http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-julian-assange-russia.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-jul...
- ChoHag 10y ago
  Many == Russia?
karpodiem 10y ago
Sounds like is being made the fall guy for this.
SEJeff 10y ago
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.
- nickff 10y ago
  Yes, this is dangerous; people shouldn't be allowed to bring government secrets home with them... unless they are cabinet level officials?

NN88 10y ago

This dummy was caught red handed. Documents, hardware, etc.

engx 10y ago

Whatever happened to the other "second Snowden" where it was reported DoJ was reluctant to prosecute? http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker--for-snowden-reporters-165741571.html http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker...

awqrre 10y ago

He didn't learn much from Hillary's case.... Always claim that you didn't know that there was any classified material and always bring your attorney along, even if it's a voluntary interrogation.

zeveb 10y ago
And make sure your attorney gets immunity, and make sure that the FBI promises to destroy your hardware once it's done with it!
- ww520 10y ago
  With hammers?
kyleblarson 10y ago
Also make sure you are one of the most politically connected people on the planet and married to an ex POTUS.
kaonashi 10y ago
Different set of rules.

godgod 10y ago

Obama will go after this guy like he's never done before. The deep state can't tolerate being exposed.

redthrowaway 10y ago

John Schindler (former NSA counterintelligence officer) called this back in August: http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa/ http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa... This would explain how the Russians ended up with the source code for TAO's toys.

dopamean 10y ago
He is one of the worst personalities on twitter. For someone who could perhaps add a lot to the discussion his contributions frequently boils down to "I know better than [you or some other person] and so I don't have to explain [some insulting thing he said about someone]."
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  Nature of the twitter beast. You can't actually educate or do much more than say, "read any of the 20 articles I've written on the subject" in 140 characters. And there are a lot of people who are very wrong about the sorts of things he talks about. He knows his stuff. And he's dismissive and rude. The former forgives the latter, for me.
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ChoHag 10y ago
The article seems to be suggesting that the idea that there are KGB moles inside the NSA is, in and of itself, indicitative of the NSA's ultimate failure. That's ludicrous. You'd be an idiot to ever suggest that the NSA wasn't penetrated at any given time somewhere by some foreign power's own spy agency. Design for the failure that's going to happen, not the perfection that never will.

ternbot 10y ago

Interesting - unlike the Snowden bust - which had his face everywhere - hard to figure out what this bro looks like

maerF0x0 10y ago

here's an unsubstantiated claim that gave a great laugh: > "For the N.S.A., which spent two years and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars repairing the damage done by Mr. Snowden, "

the_watcher 10y ago

For purposes of discussion, let's say he did take the data to leak. I'm honestly curious as to the response. From everything out there, nothing he took had been used for anything beyond espionage and counter-espionage in the manner that any sane person assumed was happening. Finding a motive (unless he planned to sell it, which I haven't seen any indication of, and would wildly change the story) seems tough. Was he really just taking it to leak, being a radical transparency advocate? Why just this?

cornchips 10y ago

Want to see something really scary??? Here's his house: https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,+MD+21060/@39.1612929,-76.600954,3a,75y,149h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTxLrvauce4d-rYPt3MTJAQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTxLrvauce4d-rYPt3MTJAQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D149.19705%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7fcfe81adf90b:0xfbc37b77559c0a0e!8m2!3d39.161058!4d-76.600697!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,...

viraptor 10y ago
Whatever the reason, makes me wonder why would anyone try to do this. I mean, I know where it is - I can drive there and take a picture if I wanted to. But bluring out one particular house on a normal street is kind of like the story (I believe from one of the Sherlock Holmes books) about a guard telling the detective about all of the town, apart from one house, where he hid the body.
- deleted 10y ago
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- omginternets 10y ago
  You have to show yourself, and this increases the chance of people reporting a strange man taking photos of a house. Yes, it's not cryptographic-level security, but it raises the costs of an attack. In the real world, that matters. Also consider that not all attacks are spy-vs-spy. This could be a case of 'keeping honest people honest', i.e.: making it sufficiently difficult to dissuade the majority of political activists and/or protesters. This is the same reason why padlocks are a thing.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    > You have to show yourself, and this increases the chance of people reporting a strange man taking photos of a house. In the year of pokemon go players everywhere? And even then, who cares about a person with a mobile phone? We're a good decade after anyone is a "strange man" when taking photos anywhere. You don't even have to show yourself. Just order a cab and go through that street without stopping. > dissuade the majority of political activists and/or protesters I'm not convinced. The only thing the blurring did was prove that this is the interesting house, rather than a name coincidence. What is that supposed to dissuade me from if I was already going to go there and do something potentially illegal?

catscratch 10y ago

I understand curiosity of sensitive data. I think everyone wants to know more. I also understand that some people think that no one should have this power and want to stop it. I wish that, if you feel this way, you renounce your citizenship and find another country that acts as you believe they should and just leave the other country alone, unless you feel they are threatening you or those you love and you must do something about it, and even then only if can do something to help in a way that won't hurt anyone now or in the future. Yes, I know it's not always that easy. But, if you live in a country, through your taxes and your citizenship, you pay for and are recipient of the work of people whose job it is to protect us and all other citizens of your country. And if you didn't know how they defended you, you do now. It isn't always pretty, to say it lightly. I don't want people to do bad things in the name of good or defense. It'd be better if every country had a large number of grown up boy scouts to protect that country in the most honorable way possible. But, we have what we have. Sure go ahead- expose it if you want, but the more you harm it, the more you'll end up with a group of people that are even more secretive and do things even worse to try to ensure that security. I really don't want that to happen. Things need to get better instead! Many in the US say that we need to protect people from themselves, and then criticize or harm those trying to protect us. Why? I used to be much more paranoid and just group people into the "trying to hurt me" bracket. But I grew up. I realized that almost everyone in the world I meet wants to do good or at least has a motivation to try to accomplish something they believe is right.

nylsaar 10y ago

After reading this article a second time, I noticed that it's crafted to suggest the suspect had stolen software. The evidence given in the article only admits the suspect had documents, some of them classified, at his home. To suggest that many computers and code was found at a programmers home is quite ridiculous. Late in the article, the F.B.I "suspects" that he may have stolen code. What this article lacks in evidence, it makes up in sensationalism.