It was last October when Twitchy reported on the late August arrest of Harold Thomas Martin, III, a former NSA contractor and lieutenant in the United States Navy. From reports, Martin’s arrest sounded like a very serious undertaking; a neighbor witnessed agents tossing a stun grenade in Martin’s house and leaving 11 hours later with the suspect in handcuffs.
Feds told the press at the time that Martin, who was charged with stealing government property and unauthorized removal of classified materials, had committed “breathtaking” crimes.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Martin might be indicted this week in connection with “the biggest theft of classified information in U.S. history.” Martin is accused of taking thousands of pages of classified info as well as 50 terabytes of digital files over the course of two decades. Most troubling to some, though, is the theft of hacking tools from the NSA’s elite hacker unit, Tailored Access Operations.
Woah. Harold Martin (arrested NSA contractor) allegedly stole 75 percent of the NSA's elite hacking unit tools https://t.co/PBeOjn1boc pic.twitter.com/LSzxepIJ8e
— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) February 6, 2017
Wow. Former NSA contractor Harold Martin allegedly stole 75% of elite unit TAO's entire hacking arsenal. https://t.co/7VAzKH0LeX pic.twitter.com/MBdE0LdqXC
— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) February 6, 2017
@ericgeller That's been the rumor for a while, that someone got the NSA's toolkit in the wild @BTRTSR
— miika (@MoonWolf95) February 6, 2017
@ericgeller Jesus H. Christ, how the hell does this happen?
— BeforetheRain (@BTRTSR) February 6, 2017
@ericgeller This is precisely why the govt should not employ contractors. Snowden,Shooter at Navy Yard in DC that shot 12 people.and Martin
— PJ (@solace1952) February 6, 2017
@solace1952 @ericgeller I TOTALLY agree with you. Civil Servants rarely want to risk losing their government pension by misbehaving.
— (((Str8Grandmother)) (@Str8Grandmother) February 7, 2017
.@ericgeller this shouldn't be surprising. at the highest levels, eg: NSC, the US hires the wrong people, ex-military who can't hack!
— Shana Carp (@shanacarp) February 7, 2017
@ericgeller @SwiftOnSecurity are they proprietary tools designed by the unit? Wow. Unbelievable.
— Jacob Calbillo (@jakecalbillo116) February 7, 2017
@ericgeller @SwiftOnSecurity literally shocked this would even be possible. There are more controls & checking processes for a 7-11 employ
— C (@dubyone1) February 7, 2017
I knew #NSA security was slipshod….but this is insane.https://t.co/rCtlG8UPtK
— John Schindler (@20committee) February 7, 2017
A defense attorney argued during a detention hearing that Martin took home the materials to improve at his job and exhibited the behavior of “a compulsive hoarder who could not stop gathering and possessing the documents he treasured.”
@ericgeller His lawyers better think of a better defense than hard worker that became obsessed.
— GinJen (@GinJen0) February 6, 2017
