![]() ![]() The executive branch generally protects national security information by “classifying” it. Recognizing the harm that unlawfully taking and keeping nonpublic national security information can cause, the legislative and executive branches have both prohibited such conduct. That kind of knowledge by an enemy could put lives and national security at risk. ![]() Imagine not knowing whether an adversary knows a secret communications code, a cutting-edge military capability, or the identities of intelligence officers or their human sources. government would not know, presents a serious problem. But even absent evidence that anyone obtained that information, the simple fact that they could have, and that the U.S. It is, of course, easier for an enemy to access information in a non-secure location. Once the government loses positive control over classified material, the government must often treat the material as compromised.” As the Government recently reiterated, simply removing national security information from its secure location thus deprives the government of that control and awareness of where the information has gone. Michael Rogers reinforced that point: “If classified information is not handled or stored according to strict rules, then the government cannot be certain that it remains secret. Then-Director of the National Security Agency Adm. But to the national security professional-and to the national security professional’s counterparts in adversarial services-such theft constitutes a profound compromise of security.Īuthorized locations for the storage of national security information are approved because they are secure and because they facilitate the government’s control over, and tracking of, individuals who access that information-for example, as then-Assistant Attorney General John Demers stated, when Nghia Hoang Pho stole highly classified information and retained it at an unauthorized location, he “placed at risk our intelligence community’s capabilities and methods, rendering some of them unusable.” To the uninitiated, taking national security information from its authorized location and keeping it in an unauthorized location may seem like a ministerial or administrative violation without much substantive consequence. This article explains how some criminal law protections for national security information interact with Executive Branch decisions to protect information based on national security concerns, and how those protections apply in cases where a defendant stole and kept national security information, even if the defendant did not disclose that information to an unauthorized recipient. ![]() The Espionage Act also prohibits taking or possessing national security-related information from the government and keeping it in an unauthorized location. The original Act, enacted as the United States entered the First World War, included the precursors to prohibitions against undisclosed foreign-government activities in the United States. ![]() The Espionage Act, however, covers a broader set of conduct that can compromise U.S. A common acronym, “MICE,” describes the common motivations for spying: money, ideology, compromise, and ego. Discussions of the Espionage Act usually focus on the public’s conception of “spying.” Spies steal information that their government seeks to keep secret and disclose that information to other governments. ![]()
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