Feds Claim Ex-NSA Analyst Had Top-Secret-Plus Info on Home Computers
January 20th, 2012Via: Politico:
Computers seized from a retired National Security Agency analyst’s home in 2007 contained information that is classified at a level beyond “top secret,” officials said in court filings Tuesday.
A prosecutor and a senior NSA official made the claim to a federal court in Baltimore in response to a motion ex-NSA analyst Kirk Wiebe filed in November, demanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation return items seized from Wiebe’s Westminster, Md. home four-and-a-half years ago.
“Documents [found on hard drives in Wiebe’s home] contain information that is currently and properly classified TOP SECRET//SI/REL to USA, FVEY,” the deputy chief of staff for signals intelligence policy and corporate issues in NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate wrote in a declaration. The NSA official who signed the declaration (posted here) gave his name solely as “Steven E. T.,” in keeping with an NSA policy of not publicly identifying most of its employees.
“Steven E. T.” did not detail the nature of the ostensibly classified documents, but explained that “SI is an SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) compartment used to protect especially sensitive communications intelligence information.” FVEY stands for “five eyes,” a restriction limiting disclosure of information to officials of the U.S. and four key allies who cooperate closely with NSA: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
According to sources familiar with the case, Wiebe’s home was searched pursuant to a search warrant issued in 2007 as he, several other NSA veterans and a former House Intelligence Committee staffer were investigated in connection with leaks related to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and claims of mismanagement of NSA programs. Wiebe was never charged with a crime. Justice Department officials say the probes are now closed.
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Wiebe said Tuesday that he was troubled by the government’s claim that his computers had critical secrets on them.
“I am dismayed to hear the government thinks there is classified information on either or both of my two computers. Frankly, I wouldn’t put classified information on my computers. After 32 plus years in the business, you don’t do that sort of thing, and – again frankly speaking – I could not conceive of a need to ever do so,” Wiebe told POLITICO via e-mail. “I have no idea what documents the government is referring to and I am more than a little surprised to hear the government thinks I have ‘150 pages of NSA information’ on one of the computers.”
“Secondly, the government does not say I put classified information on my computers, just that there is some there, in the government’s opinion,” Wiebe said. He said it’s possible the government concluded that information not considered classified previously or that was never removed from NSA is now classified.
Isn’t it interesting exactly HOW the NSA staffer in the article above refers to “the government” when describing the FBI and federal prosecutors.
Is it just me, or doesn’t this imply that he does not consider himself a member of a governmental organization?
If the NSA isn’t a government organization, then what is it? Rather like its cousins the FED and CIA, one suspects they might actually be answering to an entirely different “board of directors” than is advertised…
…but what do I know. I’m just a conspiracy theorist.