Minneapolis FBI agent charged with leaking classified information to reporter

[steven36]

A Minneapolis FBI agent who started his career with the agency as an intern in 2000 has been charged with leaking classified information to the news website the Intercept. 

 

 

Updated: 5:40 p.m. | Posted: 4:57 p.m.

A Minneapolis FBI agent who started his career with the agency as an intern in 2000 has been charged with leaking classified information to the news website The Intercept.

 

Terry James Albury's attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, said in a statement that their client, the only African-American FBI field agent in Minnesota, was "driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI."

 

"Terry Albury served the U.S. with distinction both here at home and abroad in Iraq," the statement read. "He accepts full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information."

 

Albury, who was assigned as Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport liaison working on counterterrorism matters, was charged this week by the Justice Department's National Security Division with one count of "knowingly and willfully" transmitting documents and information relating to national defense to a reporter for a national news organization. Albury was also charged with a second count of refusing to hand over documents to the government.

 

Albury is the second person charged with leaking secret documents to The Intercept. In June 2017, an intelligence contractor was charged with leaking a classified report about Russia's interference in the 2016 election to The Intercept, the first criminal leak under President Trump.

 

The Intercept does not discuss anonymous sources, editor-in-chief Betsy Reed said in a statement posted on their website.

 

The Justice Department has vowed to crack down on leaks that it contends undermine national security.

 

A request for a search warrant filed in Minneapolis federal court against Albury did not identify the news outlet, but a review by MPR News found the documents described in the search warrant that Albury leaked exactly match the trove of FBI documents posted by The Intercept.

In January 2017, The Intercept published a series titled "The FBI's Secret Rules," based on Albury's leaked documents, which show the depth and broad powers of the FBI expansion since 9/11 and its recruitment efforts.

 

The Intercept made two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FBI in late March 2016. The requests contained specific information identifying the names of documents that were not available to the public. In addition, the FBI identified about 27 secret documents published by The Intercept between April 2016 and February 2017.

 

"The FBI believes that the classified and/or controlled nature of the documents indicates the News Outlet obtained these documents from someone with direct access to them," according to the warrant.

"Furthermore, reviews of the FBI internal records indicate ALBURY has electronically accessed over two thirds of the approximately 27 documents via trusted access granted to him on FBI information systems."

 

One of The Intercept's FOIA requests, dated March 29, 2016, asked for copies of a specific document classified as secret. The document, titled Confidential Human Source Assessing, gives tips for agents on how to cultivate informants.

 

Ten months later, the news outlet posted the same document it requested to its website and to DocumentCloud, a repository of public documents.

 

The FBI said it believes that The Intercept had a copy of the document and others before making the FOIA request. The Intercept then "used its knowledge of such documents to create the FOIA requests," according to the warrant.

 

According to a review done by the FBI, Albury and 15 other individuals had also accessed the same document from an FBI classified network between August 2011 and March 29, 2016, the date of The Intercept's FOIA request.

 

The search warrant said Albury took 11 screenshots of the document on Feb. 19, 2016, one month and 10 days before The Intercept's FOIA request.

 

"To date, a review of FBI records has revealed no indication that any individual other than ALBURY both accessed this document and conducted cut and paste action," the warrant said.

An FBI audit found that Albury had accessed several documents from FBI systems classified as secret that were published by The Intercept, according to the warrant.

 

On three occasions in the summer of 2017, video surveillance captured Albury at his office at the airport, holding a digital camera and inserting what appears to be a memory card into the camera, according to the warrant. He then took photos of his computer screen which contained documents classified as secret.

 

Albury, who was hired by the FBI in 2001, a year after finishing his internship there, to conduct surveillance operations, became an agent in 2005 and was assigned to the FBI Minneapolis Field Office. The Justice

 

Department has not yet responded to MPR News' request for Albury's employment history at the FBI.

 

Source

 

[rasbridge]

I want to follow this story and hope that federal prosecutors make an example of this person for intentionally releasing "classified" information to the public.  After all, a Navy submariner is languishing in prison for taking a picture to show his family his work space because the military said his actions  intended the unauthorized release of "classified" information.

[rasbridge]

Former sailor jailed for taking classified photo speaks out

KRISTIAN SAUCIER, FORMER NAVY MACHINIST: Thank you for having me on, Sandra.

SMITH: What was that like this morning to see your story brought up in that tweet by the president again?

SAUCIER: Well, I mean, it's good because I think he's pointing out some serious issues that the FBI and the DOJ under Comey and Andrew McCabe. You know, I mean, these are the same guys who are investigating me, at the same time they were supposedly investigating Hillary Clinton and her cronies. You know, they couldn't wait to exonerate them before they'd even conducted interviews, whereas they've jumped me, were chomping at the bit to destroy my life, which is exactly what they did.

SMITH: To be clear, Kristian, and I think this is important to get this out here, you took responsibility for your actions. You owned it. You pled guilty. And then you served time.

SAUCIER: That's absolutely correct.

SMITH: So, it's a double standard that you say you believe exists.

SAUCIER: Oh, yes. I mean, these politicians -- Hillary Clinton a prime example. She denied and denied and denied it until finally she got caught red-handed and said, OK, I did it, what's the big deal, basically? Well, the big deal is she did exactly what they accused me of doing, and what I pled guilty and took responsibility too. I didn't go to trial. Basically, I took secured information, pictures of my submarine, and put it on an unsecured device, my cell phone. That's what I got charged with, unlawful retention of national defense -- which, by the way, is exactly what she did.

SMITH: And also to point out, you're still under house arrest, right? I mean, you still got an ankle bracelet on.

SAUCIER: That's correct. I did a year in federal prison, I got six months of house arrest, and three years of federal probation. Plus, I'm a felon, and I have another dishonorable discharge. So, I lost all my V.A. disability benefits, you know, my veteran status, everything -- after 11 years in the service and, you know, two deployments to the Middle East. I have nothing. You know, it's very difficult for me watching as, you know, this very same FBI that was supposed, you know, protecting us from people that mishandled classified information, while that's what they said was my case, they need to set an example. But why aren't they setting an example of this egregious violation that Hillary Clinton, and Huma Abedin, and Sheryl Mills did?

They have top-secret FBI, which is the highest level. I had confidential pictures. You know, which -- you know, I'm not trying to minimize what I did, I made a mistake, and that's why I took responsibility. But I've been contacted by numerous people in the military after this happened and they said from Vietnam up to current day, and said, oh gosh I took pictures of where I worked, you know, and it was probably top-secret or something but I wanted to have mementos of my time in service. And I said, well, you know, that's -- honestly, that's what a lot of people do and that's what I did. You know, but it just so happened that my case was gratuitous for them to prosecute so that they could take the heat off Hillary Clinton.

SMITH: Now, what happens, what happens next with the president bringing you and your situation up in this tweet this morning? I know you had had hopes that President Trump what possibly pardon you or relook at your case; he hasn't done that. Do you still have hopes that he may?

SAUCIER: Well, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that he'll look at this case and say, look, this sailor, you know, me, I feed my family and I've been put through the ringer. We've been punished enough. You know, we've lost everything. Our house is in for closure. You know, we got bill collectors from all the legal debts calling all the time. You know, what more can they do to us? I think he needs to send a clear message to the DOJ under the Obama administration that what they did to us was far to the extreme. And he needs to send the same message to Hillary Clinton and them, and say, look, you need to get prosecuted, and this guy here, he shouldn't be a felon anymore. You know, it's difficult. It's such an uphill battle being a felon in trying to get a job and trying to assimilate back into society.

SMITH: Based on what we just learned with Huma Abedin and this latest e- mail release, what do you think should happen to her? Should she see jail time?

SAUCIER: I think she should be prosecuted. You know, it's neither here nor there whether she should see jail time. That's what a, you know, grand jury and what jury of her peers say, but she should be prosecuted, she should be put through the same legal system that went after me. And unfortunately, I didn't have near the legal resources that she does or Hillary Clinton does, so they'll be able to mount a much better defense than I could. But even still, they should still be charged the same as me.

SMITH: I know it and as you just detail to us here that this has been extremely painful to your family. I know you have a young daughter at home as well. We'll continue to follow your story, Kristian.

SAUCIER: Thank you so much and thank you for following it.

 

Source:  http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2018/01/02/former-sailor-jailed-for-taking-classified-photos-speaks-out.html

 

[Atasas]

AFAIK

A- Only time IT becomes crime, when money is made out of it

B- when actual physical crime happens due to such leaks

 

Neither A or B cases, lawmakers got it wrong again (as usual)

[knowledge-Spammer]