Investigators originally feared that the contractor, Harold T. Martin III, might have passed or sold secrets to a foreign power or to a still-mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, which released dangerous NSA hacking tools online in 2016 and 2017. But they appear to have concluded that his amassing of secrets was a symptom of a quirky, disturbed mind, not evidence that Martin, a 54-year-old Navy veteran, wanted to betray his country.
In March, Martin pleaded guilty to a single count of willful retention of national defense information. Prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed on the sentence, which was approved by U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett.
Martin’s lawyer, James Wyda, said his client had an “autism spectrum disorder” and had experienced difficulty forming and keeping relationships since childhood. As a result, the lawyer said, he had sought meaning and validation in his work as a contractor at the NSA and other agencies, bringing home documents to work on at night.
But as the documents piled up, the lawyer said, they became “a tangible representation of Martin’s worth,” as he was “desperately trying to fill the voids in his life.” His hoarding of both papers and electronic media went out of control, Wyda said.
One of the prosecutors, Zachary Myers, an assistant U.S. attorney, cast doubt on the notion that Martin was a mere victim of his mental disorders. He noted that Martin collected only government documents and kept them in a “logical” order.
“The defendant knew what he was doing was wrong, illegal and highly dangerous,” Myers said.
When FBI agents arrived at Martin’s modest house in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in 2016, they recovered an estimated 50 terabytes of material, much of it stamped top secret, including the closely guarded software he had taken from his job at NSA’s hacking unit, then called Tailored Access Operations. That made it among the largest thefts of classified documents in history.
His arrest came shortly after the Shadow Brokers had begun trying to auction stolen NSA hacking tools online, and investigators were initially convinced that Martin must have somehow supplied the tools. But the Shadow Brokers continued to operate after Martin’s arrest, and prosecutors on Friday gave no indication that they thought he was connected to their wholesale release of NSA cyberweapons, an unprecedented loss for the agency.
According to court records and interviews, Martin contacted employees at a Russian-owned cybersecurity company, Kaspersky Lab, via Twitter in 2016, sending cryptic messages that appeared to indicate he had information to share. “Shelf life, three weeks,” he wrote, in one message first reported by Politico.
But he quickly cut off contact and never delivered anything. Bennett made reference to the episode Friday but noted that the government had not accused Martin of “transmission” of classified secrets.
Martin, who was obese at the time of his arrest three years ago, has lost more than 100 pounds in jail, his lawyer said. He stood in a striped jersey labeled “Inmate” and read for nearly 30 minutes a rambling statement apologizing to family, friends and his former colleagues at the NSA.
“I have been called a walking encyclopedia,” he said, describing himself at another point as “an intellectually curious adventurer.” His words were often cryptic, at one point addressed to “that cool dude in a loose mood” and at another citing the NSA motto, “They serve in silence.”
Bennett repeatedly said he found Martin’s actions disturbing. “This case is very troubling,” he said. “Very sensitive material was taken home. I’ve grappled with the fact that people’s lives were potentially in danger,” he said, referring to intelligence sources overseas.
The judge said he agreed to the nine-year sentence, which will be counted from Martin’s arrest in August 2016, only after deciding it would be enough of a deterrent to other government employees with security clearances who might consider mishandling secrets.
The case is only one of several recent prosecutions of NSA employees, including Nghia Pho, who was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in September for taking home classified documents, and Reality Winner, who got five years and three months in August for sending a secret document about Russian hacking to the online publication The Intercept.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.