In a stunning turnaround, after days of wrangling, the Justice Department and Thomas Drake, a former National Security Agency employee, have reached a plea bargain agreement in which Drake will plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge of intentionally exceeding the authorized use of his government computer, in order to share its contents with unauthorized persons. The Justice Department originally charged Drake with ten felonies, including violating the Espionage Act. The single misdemeanor charge carries the potential for a one-year prison term, but the government has agreed that Drake will serve no time in jail.
The agreement represents the collapse of the government’s original case, which I wrote about in The New Yorker last month. (I also discussed some of the reasons it fell apart in a post Thursday morning.) The prosecution has been seen as a test of the government’s use of the Espionage Act to crack down on alleged leakers of national-security secrets. The withdrawal of all felony charges, and acceptance of no jail time for Drake, will likely be seen as evidence that the government overreached in using the Espionage Act against news sources rather than spies.
Steven Aftergood, an analyst of classified-information policy for the Federation of American Scientists, told Politico, “The mountain of allegations has brought forth a mouse in conviction.” He added, “The outcome pales in comparison to the opening thunder of the indictment and that shows that the government miscalculated both the severity of the offense and the quality of its own evidence.”
According to papers filed by the prosecution, Drake exceeded the authorized use of his N.S.A. computer in 2006 and 2007. During that period, he has agreed, he took information off of the N.S.A.’s internal network, and shared it with unauthorized persons. Previously, he was charged with leaking classified information to a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, but the misdemeanor charge does not describe the information on the computer as classified, nor does it accuse him of distributing it to the press.
Drake is expected to enter the plea in the federal district court in Baltimore Friday morning. He was to stand trial next Monday, June 13th.
Photograph of Thomas Drake by Martin Schoeller.
