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Harold Thomas Martin, a 51-year-old US National Security Agency contractor from Maryland, may be remembered as the second Edward Snowden, although there are many differences between the two cases. Martin, a former US Navy officer with top secret national security clearance, was arrested on Aug. 27 by the FBI and charged with the unauthorized removal and retention for many years of highly-sensitive classified documents. The purloined materials found in raids of his home and his car, which were described by as capable of causing “exceptionally grave damage” to US national security. Like Snowden, Martin worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, which...

For years Americans' right to privacy, as granted by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, has come under threat as the country's surveillance systems have grown. After intelligence leaks by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, however, the NSA's domestic dragnet is finally getting the attention that many people feel it deserves.

By now, almost everyone knows what Edward Snowden did. He leaked top-secret documents revealing that the National Security Agency was spying on hundreds of millions of people across the world, collecting the phone calls and emails of virtually everyone on Earth who used a mobile phone or the internet. When this newspaper began publishing the NSA documents in June 2013, it ignited a fierce political debate that continues to this day – about government surveillance, but also about the morality, legality and civic value of whistleblowing. Sign up to the long read email Read more But if you want to...

The Talk Shows December 29th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Democratic former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Gen. Michael Hayden, Former National Security Agency Director; NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake.THIS WEEK (ABC): A look at game changers in 2013 (I can’t help thinking it’s Auburn running back Chris Davis).STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Secretary of State John Kerry. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Neera Tanden, president and CEO of...

In a major blow to the Justice Department, one of its biggest leak prosecutions in years all but collapsed late Thursday when federal prosecutors withdrew all their felony charges against a former National Security Agency official accused of providing classified information to a journalist. Instead, under a plea deal reached with prosecutors, former NSA official Thomas Drake has agreed to plead guilty in federal court on Friday to a single misdemeanor count of "exceeding authorized use of a computer" -- a minor charge for which he will receive no jail time, a senior administration official told NBC. “This is close...

decora writes "Crypto-mathematician Bill Binney worked in the Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center at the NSA. There, he worked on NSA's ThinThread program; a way to monitor the flood of internet data from outside the US while protecting the privacy of US citizens. In a new interview with Jane Mayer, he says his program 'got twisted. ... I should apologize to the American people. It's violated everyone's rights. It can be used to eavesdrop on the whole world. ... my people were brought in, and they told me, "Can you believe they're doing this? They're getting billing records on US...

The Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a blogger. The sentence for Shamai Leibowitz is likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media. His case represents only the third known conviction in U.S. history for a government official or contractor providing classified information to the press. And it reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper. Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.</p>