October 5, 2016 | No Comments
The U.S. government confirmed a potentially wide-ranging breach of classified information Wednesday, disclosing that a federal contractor was secretly arrested in August after the FBI allegedly found highly classified information at his Maryland home.
Harold Martin III, 51, was charged with felony theft of government information and misdemeanor unauthorized retention of classified information. He appeared in federal court in Baltimore on Aug. 29 and has been in government custody since, a Justice Department statement said, although the court complaint was not released until Wednesday.
FBI agents executed search warrants at Martin’s Glen Burnie, Md. residence on Aug. 27 and found sensitive information classified up to the “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information” level, the Justice Department said. The official announcement indicated that Martin allegedly took information that could have a broad-based impact on government operations.
“These documents were produced through sensitive government sources, methods and capabilities, which are critical to a wide variety of national security issues,” the Justice Department statement said.
Speaking at a cybersecurity conference in Massachusetts, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division, John Carlin, confirmed the arrest but said little more.
““We have made an arrest of an individual who was involved in taking classified information,” Carlin said.
Martin worked at the National Security Agency for contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, according to the New York Times, which initially reported the arrest, but did not immediately identify him by name.
A Booz Allen spokesperson declined to confirm Martin’s affiliation Wednesday. “We have no comment at this time, but will update you if that changes,” the spokesperson said.
Booz Allen is the same contractor that employed Edward Snowden when he abruptly departed his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii and revealed that he had removed a massive trove of records detailing NSA surveillance operations around the world as well as some programs gathering information in the United States.
Eric Geller and Cory Bennett contributed to this report.