Posted on 10/07/2007 2:15:27 AM PDT by tlb
Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz said patriotism motivated him to join a spy ring, smuggle secret files from Camp Pendleton and give them to law enforcement officers for anti-terrorism work in Southern California.
He knew his group was violating national security laws. But he said bureaucratic walls erected by the military and civilian agencies were hampering intelligence sharing and coordination, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorists.
Details of Maziarz's case emerged after he pleaded guilty to mishandling more than 100 classified documents from 2004 to last year. The overall breach could be far larger: Investigators believe that as far back as the early 1990s, the intelligence-filching ring began taking hundreds of secret files from Camp Pendleton and the U.S. Northern Command, which tracks terrorist activity in the United States.
In a plea agreement, he received a 26-month jail sentence in exchange for detailing the spy ring. He also agreed to testify against his alleged accomplices if they are charged.
The case is an intelligence nightmare, said defense analysts briefed on it.
They also said it unmasks the military's growing role in post-Sept. 11 domestic security and confirms that U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda is active in the United States.
“It gives operational security people brain cooties to think about an incident like this,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank that focuses on emerging security concerns.
In the big picture, defense experts said, the Maziarz case isn't just about patriotism. They worry that foreign agents might find it easier to steal secret documents from law enforcement groups, which generally have fewer measures for protecting classified information than federal intelligence agencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
“Spy ring” is a bit of a misnomer here. Correct but inaccurate in its connotation.
First, what they did is definitely wrong, and a crime, and they should be thoroughly prosecuted for it. There is no excuse whatsoever for a Master Gunney, two colonels, and a Navy commander to not understand the exact and profound breach of security in which they were engaged.
One wonders whether any of these guys ever followed their chain of command and classified materials guidelines and approached G2 Pendleton or C2 NORTHCOM to explore the idea of sharing information with LAPD. Maybe, maybe not. No matter. Even if everytone agreed in principle that operationally it would be a good thing to do, it still would have been very difficult to move TS materials out of the military classification system and into the civilian world, because of the ***inherent procedural, mechanical, and organizational controls*** that are in place for the ***precise purpose*** of securing those materials.
If you read between the lines its likely that all of these guys held clearance at the TS level, and one can assume that they tried to keep the materials secure within their own circle (best of itentions). But then you see what happens when liberties are taken and security controls and classified material guidelines are “overlooked”. Whoops. Master Gunney apparently had one or more classified documents in his storage locker. And who knows where else? The trunk of his car? The outbox on his AOL account? Does he know that Junior is sharing his entire home office hard disk to the world with bitTorrent?
This is the inevitable consequence of “just this once”. Classified materials start showing up on public printers; graphs and charts clearly marked “Classified” appear in documents intended for the public; Cpt. Schmoe’s car is stolen, along with that laptop that had been connected to a classified system for 6 months (and those 900 profiles on domestic terrorists become fairly valuable).
Every day, every schmoe with a clearance sees a way to end-run the system with the best of intentions. “Hmmmm.... it sure would be easier to print this document from my home PC, why don’t I just copy it onto my [unsecured, unencrypted, unapproved, unclassified] memory stick?” And later Maj. Schmoe leaves that memory stick and dozens of classified documents on his table at Applebees. “Just this one time”. Yeah, sure.
Classification controls are ultimately social controls. No matter what technical measures one applies, the classification system really depends upon the integrity of the users, and note that this is the reason for intensive background checks and clearances. Clearance is not so much about what you did and when you did it, it’s about your honesty and integrity and your absolute fidelity to the classification system. When you cross the line “just this one time”, and just barely, you have broken your fidelity to the classification system forever. You are no longer trustworthy ***even to yourself*** as a handler of classified materials.
Prison time and demotion is the minimum these guys should get, despite their good intentions. The classification system may be unwieldy, inconvenient, a PITA and complicated. Good. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be.
There was a clear route toward doing what they wanted to do (info sharing with LAPD), and that was through the chain of command. Not through violating security and classification procedures. If they’d already tried the proper route and been denied, so be it. Swallow your pride and do your duty. Follow orders. And if they hadn’t tried the proper route, they might have great service to their command and to the nation by so doing.
Bad choices. Stupid choices. I’m sorry to say that the system is 100 times - 10,000 times - more important than these officers. There’s no excuse for what they did. None.
Sorry, there’s no valor in this act, for the reasons I state in #21.
Agree with you 100 percent Chief. Do you agree with my points in post #21? Just curious.
Yeah, right...and Bill Clinton doesn't have offshore accounts too! </sarcasm>
Perhaps. Maybe, maybe not.
But the military does not and did not ever give them the right to define their own, personal mission.
I don't know what drove them, you don't know what drove them, and maybe even they aren't sure.
People do often go to great lengths once they decide that their own personal mission is more important than that of their command. And in the military that is a problem. For the classification system it is a disaster.
On the personal and individual level, when one is granted clearance there is an implied commitment that "I will keep this information secure, no matter what, no matter how inconvenient, no matter how much I disagree." If one deviates even a single millimeter from that commitment, it is broken forever. One is no longer trustworthy to handle the responsibility inherent in classified information.
Because you have elevated yourself above the system.
...nasty things that tickle but they won't kill you.
I don't quite grasp what you're getting at here. Are you saying the Gunny did nothing wrong, and is being railroaded because, um, the US Attorney was having a slow day and had already finished the crossword?
With all deference, maybe they were authorized to have it. That's an unknown. But most certainly the "improper handling" charge seems inarguable. Unless Denny's now has a SCIF (SCI Facility).
In any case the breach is very very serious.
I haven’t heard anyone mention the fact that the ol’ Master Gunny is gonna testify against his partners in crime.
I would say that’s almost as bad as the act itself.
An E-9 outta know better. Officers, I can see. But a freakin’ Master Gunny? Semper Fi, huh?
Actually, all matters pertaining to classification literally derive from the direct authority of the President. At this moment in time, George W. Bush is the ultimate classification authority in the United States, and he literally can classify and declassify information at the snap of his fingers.
Seems pretty plain and common sense to me, not to mention the legal aspects of it.
That's why he got only 26 months in jail. The others won't get much more than that.
There are only two kinds of cases with regard to classification breaches, and military prosecutors know this. There is malicious, and non-malicious.
Both deserve significant punishment (whether it's a formal reprimand, demotion, jailtime, or something in between).
Breaches "with the best of intentions" or simple boneheaded mistakes in judgement will get the lower end of the scale, while malicious breaches should and do get the maximums up to life imprisonment or the death sentence.IMO the military has a pretty good handle on which kind or breach demands which type of approach.
Bad analogy, showing that you don't understand the gravity of the problem.
I’m pretty sure Denny’s is a SCIF. Do you really think they’d leave the secrets of Moons Over My Hammy in the hands of just anyone?
Normally I'd agree but this Master Gunney seems like a slightly bad apple.
Even before he was implicated in the LAPD "ring", they'd discovered that he "misappropriated" automatic weapons from Iraq, body armor (a big no no), and other booty (what, a toilet from al Faw palace at Camp Victory?).
And then the briefcases, record books, and other documents which sound as of they were classified, but maybe not.
So he was facing some serious trouble even before the LAPD classified materials came into the picture.
Looks to me like he gave up his pals so as to avoid prosecution on his less noble and less valorous hobbies.
And note that he's portrayed as a kind of tool rather than a principal in the LAPD case.
Agreed. It reminds me a bit of a recent thread about a guy who was convicted of drug-dealing for possessing hundreds of pain pills -- which he was not actually selling, but using to treat severe chronic pain. He did not receive the harsh sentence he was given, and he was pardoned (or his sentence commuted, I forget which).
But he did break the law, and deserved some punishment. The laws on controlled substances, like those on control of classified information, exist for good reason -- and, as you pointed out a few posts back, excusing a "just this once" violation erodes the system.
IMO the military has a pretty good handle on which kind or breach demands which type of approach.
I agree with that, too. I believe the punishment in this case is fair and proportionate, given that the gunny is flipping on his co-conspirators.
Agreed. But this could be an indicator of something that I’ve been predicting for a few years now.(Me and the stones in the street, at any rate)
People on the right are by no means quick to go into the sort of, for lack of a better term, activist mode, that self centered liberals actually LIVE in (since they are self centered and the Right, as a rule, serves an Author of right and wrong)but they can only be pushed so far and then will be pushed no more. This Marine is either off in his own world or is possessed of an immense set of balls. I’m not gonna’ be too surprised if the truth turns out to be the latter.
Leadership paves it’s own way (that’s why it’s called leadership). To steer America away from the disastrous heading she seems to be on will take a move, when it comes, that looks a lot like what this Marine did.
I think the one near NSA has a "cone of silence" in the back corner.
At the McLean Denny's you can hardly hear yourself think over the nonstop calls of "Red badge! Red badge!"
Two words: Sandy Berger.
Then let’s look at equal protection clauses and statutes... while acknowledging the acts of these Marines were intentionally wrong yet the acts of Berger were intentionally heinous.
Good point. And if recall, Berger also was convicted of improper handling of classified materials.
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