WASHINGTON _ Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they had arrested a contractor with the National Security Agency and charged him with stealing top secret intelligence documents and digital files, the second time in three years that a contractor has been accused of taking classified documents related the agency's surveillance of computer networks.
Harold Thomas Martin III, of Glen Burnie, Md., was secretly arrested in August after an FBI search of his vehicle and residence found "hard copy documents and digital information stored on various devices, including "six classified documents obtained from sensitive intelligence" from 2014, according to the unsealed Justice Department complaint.
Although Martin, 51, was not charged with espionage, the case is potentially explosive because he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, the same firm that employed Edward Snowden, who took over a million documents in 2013 related to NSA surveillance, which he later gave to journalists.
The charging documents do not reveal the nature of the documents Martin is accused of stealing, other than to say that "critical to a wide variety of national security issues" revealing "sensitive sources, methods and capabilities" whose disclosure "could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States."
Martin was not charged with passing the documents to foreign government or anyone else, but the case was kept sealed for over a month to allow investigators time to examine whether such disclosures occurred, officials said.
During the Aug. 27 search of his residence, Martin, who had had a top secret national security clearance, at first denied to the FBI he taken any documents but later changed his story, according to an FBI affidavit in the complaint, which was unsealed Wednesday.
"During the interview Martin at first denied, and later when confronted with specific documents admitted he took documents and digital files," it said. "Martin stated that he knew what he had done was wrong and that he should not have done it because he knew it was unauthorized," the affidavit said.
"This was done intentionally and when you are a government employee you swear an oath to protect sensitive information," said Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, head of the Justice Department's national security division, in an interview on CNBC.
Martin has been in custody since a court appearance in August, when he was arrested.
The complaint charges Martin with unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, which carries a maximum one-year sentence, and theft of government property _ an offense punishable by up to 10 years behind bars.
