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Justice Dept. charges former Minnesota FBI agent with leaking secret document to news outlet
A former Minneapolis FBI agent who sought to expose what he called "systemic biases" within the bureau has been charged after allegedly leaking secret documents to a national news reporter, according to federal criminal charges filed in Minnesota this week.
The charges, filed by prosecutors for the Justice Department's National Security Division, are the first to come in Minnesota since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a broad crackdown on government leaks last year.
A two-page felony information, a charging document that typically signals an imminent guilty plea, outlines two counts filed against Terry James Albury of unlawfully disclosing and retaining national defense information.
Albury is alleged to have unlawfully disclosed classified information between February 2016 and January 31, 2017. The Intercept published a series of stories, The FBI's Secret Rules, on January 31, 2017:
The FBI Gives Itself Lots of Rope to Pull in Informants
Over two previous presidential administrations, the FBI, enabled by complacent congressional oversight in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, has transformed itself from a criminal law enforcement organization into an intelligence-gathering operation whose methods are more similar to those of the CIA and NSA. With 35,000 employees and more than 15,000 informants, today's FBI is an intelligence agency without a historical peer in the United States.
Recruiting and managing informants, known in the FBI's parlance as "confidential human sources," is one of the most crucial ways in which the bureau gathers intelligence. Confidential FBI documents obtained exclusively by The Intercept reveal for the first time how the bureau approaches those tasks — including its use of a number of tactics that raise concerns about the civil liberties of those being targeted for recruitment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:57PM (2 children)
Which is probably why they had no proof she intended to illegally retain or distribute that information. Y'know the part that makes it a crime.
You know what can prove that intent? Emailing it to a fricken newspaper!
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:29PM (1 child)
What they'd be more likely to have is a case that she tried to illegally destroy the information in question. As in, the contents of the thousands of "personal" emails that were deleted off of the server before she turned it over to the FBI are one of those great political mysteries like the true contents of Nixon's 18 1/2 minute gap.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @12:10AM
Sorry, that's fake news. Put the Fox Bong down.