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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Federal prosecutors have charged former NSA contractor Harold T. Martin III [npr.org] under the Espionage Act [wikipedia.org]:

Harold T. Martin III [npr.org] is expected to appear at a federal courthouse in Baltimore on Friday for a hearing to consider whether he should remain in U.S. custody, as prosecutors announced in a court filing that they plan to file Espionage Act charges against him.

The FBI is investigating whether Martin may have transferred six bankers boxes' worth of paper documents and 50,000 gigabytes of electronic materials to anyone else, according to documents filed Thursday. So far, investigators said they have not found any connection to a foreign power. Martin's public defenders, James Wyda and Deborah Boardman, have said that he presents no flight risk and that "there's no evidence he intended to betray his country."

Martin, a former Navy reservist, has been in federal custody since late August. That's when FBI agents executed search warrants at his suburban Maryland home, uncovering what they describe as "overwhelming" proof he mishandled classified information. Among the materials they found: the personal information of government employees and a top-secret document "regarding specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States and its allies," according to the court filing.

The trove of information reportedly includes hacking tools [nytimes.com] that were recently offered for sale by a group that calls itself The Shadow Brokers.

12-page court filing: United States of America v. Harold T. Martin, III [scribd.com]

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