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: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @12:25PM (11 children)
Given all the self-righteous rhetoric spewed out by FBI employees, it must be the case that they are the most corrupt agency of them all.
In society, take whatever is message is repeated again and again; the opposite of that message is what's True.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday March 29 2018, @12:35PM (5 children)
There were several stories to choose from in that Secret Rules series, but I saw that informant-related one first and it's pretty relevant in light of stuff like this:
FBI Groomed Pulse Nightclub Shooter to Be Informant; Father Was One [soylentnews.org]
FBI: Catching fake terrorists, creating real ones.
FBI: The only "responsible encryption" is broken encryption.
FBI: Domestic election interference.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday March 29 2018, @04:52PM (4 children)
In the category of "catching fake terrorists": Back when Occupy Wall Street was a thing, an FBI informant convinced some idiots who had been hanging around Occupy Cleveland to blow up a nearby bridge. The informant picked the target, supplied the target and fake explosives, set up the "bomb", and then arrested the morons in question for their minimal involvement in the plot. Their lawyers argued entrapment, with more than a little justification, but their clients were convicted and the narrative quickly became "OMG, Occupy Wall Street are TERRORISTS!"
And that narrative was important for getting most people to look the other way when the cops, in a coordinated nationwide effort, "cleared" the protest by busting heads and seizing private property without any kind of legal justification whatsoever.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 29 2018, @06:20PM (3 children)
Exactly. It was a textbook example of how government and the uniparty that controls it subverts and suppresses legitimate democratic protest. Personally, I think that is going to be quite counterproductive.
It does make an ironclad argument for the Second Amendment, though. If those Occupy protesters had all been carrying assault rifles I suspect the police would have behaved much differently. I recall when the Tea Party guys did that many of us scoffed and decried it, but nobody did mess with them the way they messed with Occupy later.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:18PM (2 children)
This is one reason you'll never see me doing the usual left-wing anti-gun stuff. I hate the fucking things, but I'm bright enough to understand why they're needed. All the "you wouldn't stand a chance against an M1 Abrams" types are forgetting something: asymmetrical warfare is a bitch, it's arguably the US military's weak point, and there ain't no insurgency like a homegrown insurgency. At the very worst, if the .gov and .mil turn against we the people, we the people can make it so they'll have virtually nothing worth ruling left.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:41PM (1 child)
Back in my grassroots political days my best friend and I started Shooting Liberally. We'd go to the West Side Gun Range in Manhattan. We got a sizeable group of 30 people. The best shot was a woman who had lived on a kibbutz in Israel and had been trained by the Israel Defense Force.
I don't fetishize guns. I would never run around saying, "Molon labe!", but I enjoy shooting and strongly believe citizens must have the right to keep and bear arms. Every other right ultimately depends on the citizenry's ability to physically defend them.
And I completely agree with you about insurgency. Government shills do like to say how pitiful an AR-15 is against an Apache helicopter, and they're right on a toe-to-toe basis. But they'd quickly find out how counterproductive it is to drop napalm on suburban Seattle, or to roll tanks through Philadelphia. It's one thing to ask a grunt to wipe out a village in some place he's never heard of, but another thing entirely to order him to wipe out his friends and family on the ground.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @11:33PM
Resupply bases, maintenance depots, and forward operating bases are all relatively squishy targets. If you can get close enough to shoot at them, or deliver some explosives by land, projectile, or air, you can severely hamper their abilities in any operating area, since all the heavy equipment requires constant resupply of fuel and ammunition to remain combat ready. Otherwise those 'insects' can just roll right over you and bite you to death.
Autonomous vehicles may tip that balance if the opposition has sufficient manufacturing/control in politically solid regions to begin rooting the others out while remaining secure themselves. This is where the real concern should lie, especially for Americans, since this polarization by party helps make it clearer which groups are 'true believers' for a particular cause and paves the way to hand picking the holdouts necessary to perform the sort of domestic attacks or purges certain groups feel is necessary to the America they believe in.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:01PM (4 children)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:39PM (2 children)
Of course, in your case, you've managed to be both at the same time.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:06PM (1 child)
Thanks AC!
You prove my point for me.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:46PM
That goes without saying.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @03:24AM
Shut yer banana hole monkey man
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 29 2018, @02:36PM (9 children)
It's obscene that AG Sessions can find the time to prosecute this agent for exposing government wrong-doing, while being completely unwilling to prosecute Hillary Clinton for violating so many laws regarding the handling of classified material.
This is another in a long line of recent cases where the elites are rubbing citizens' noses in how powerless they are. The EPA trying to suppress its mid-level official who was trying to expose the Flint water crisis, anyone? (and in case anyone wants to play the "but, but, but that was the [Republicans' | Democrats'] fault! game," that was Obama's EPA)
The only stance that citizens should now take is that official crime rates have only dropped because the criminals have all gone into government and corporate board rooms, and have given their crimes the color of authority.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @03:22PM (2 children)
I came here to say the same thing. Hillary Clinton's offense is one of the most egregious in recent years and yet they refuse to prosecute her or even seek an indictment.
Intention was never a requirement for being brought up on charges related to mishandling classified materials.
I'm personally rather disappointed, because I thought locking her up was the only thing that Trump would actually follow through on.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by messymerry on Thursday March 29 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)
Donald Trump is a pragmatic fellow. Somebody put a literal or figurative gun (it doesn't matter which) to his head. Thus the 180 degree turn around. He likes his skin intact. The titanic ship of state in the Republic of the United States of America has already hit the iceberg. I suggest you get and keep your affairs in order...
Only fools equate a PhD with a Swiss Army Knife...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:49PM
That's sound advice, but for everyone. When a ship that big goes down in a small pond, most everything else gets sucked down, too.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @03:40PM (5 children)
The real crime in the Hillary email thing is the technical security staff at the State Department. They failed to make sure she attended security training. They should have a check-list that they fully monitor. Hillary is not a technician, it wasn't her job to micromanage training and other IT monitoring. That's unrealistic; she's there to be a diplomatic, not a doctor, Jim. Jail the techies, or at least put them on trial.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday March 29 2018, @04:58PM (4 children)
My understanding is that the conversation with the technical security staff went something along the lines of:
Techies: "Welcome to the State Department, Madame Secretary. We have your official email all set up. Here are your instructions for getting into it. We can send someone to your office if you'd like help."
Clinton: "Well, I don't want to use that, it doesn't work with my smartphone and all my diplomatic contacts know to reach me at hillaryclinton.com."
Techies: "But there are important security reasons to use the department email."
Clinton: "Look, I'm in charge here. We're going to do this my way, or this will not look good on your next performance report."
Anyone who's had to deal with a non-technical boss knows these kinds of root causes for security problems are extremely common.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(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.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @12:21AM
Colin Powell also used an outside email service for work. I didn't hear anybody chanting "lock him up!". Further, the "regular" State Dept. email system was breached. It wasn't a safe system. They are ALL crap: State Dept's regular email server, AOL (Colin), and H's home server.
Further, an outside service was NOT absolutely forbidden at SD, H just didn't get full/formal approval for it.
Now some argue that material with classified markers did pass H's way, but she claims she didn't recognize the marks as security marks. Since she never had the full training and the marks resemble legal document marks, it's a reasonable explanation. (It's possible she was lying about not recognizing them, but no direct evidence of that, and innocent-until-proven-guilty is the default.)
Further, many knew she was using an outside service and didn't blow any whistles. Why? Probably because it's only a policy manual, not Federal law.