A former National Security Agency contractor will serve nine years in prison plus three years of supervised release for stealing an enormous trove of highly classified defense and intelligence information over a span of two decades.
Harold T. Martin III, a Navy veteran who at one time worked for the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in March to a single count of willful retention of national defense information. The decision brings an end to one of the largest and more bizarre thefts of government secrets in the country’s history.
Clad in a striped prison shirt, Martin listened quietly as Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Myers underscored the seriousness of his offense and Judge Richard Bennett stressed the danger the stolen information would present if it fell into the wrong hands. After his defense team and estranged wife spoke to the role mental illness played in his behavior, Martin delivered a lengthy personal statement, offering apologies and anecdotes to dozens of friends, family members, government officials and nameless groups.
“I offer a flag of truce ... I’m very sorry for what has happened,” he said during the hearing at the Edward A. Garmatz U.S. District Courthouse in Baltimore. “My methods were wrong, illegal and highly questionable.”
On August 2016, FBI investigators uncovered multiple digital storage devices and thousands of documents scattered around Martin’s home in the Baltimore suburbs. The stash, which amounted to some 50 terabytes of sensitive national security data and six bankers boxes of physical documents, included information on the country’s offensive cyber capabilities, intelligence collection tactics and foreign cyber threats, as well as a detailed description of the NSA’s communications architecture.
According to court documents, Martin stole secret and top ..
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