Nsa contractor to be charged with espionage

WASHINGTON — Government lawyers on Thursday said they would prosecute a former National Security Agency contractor accused of stealing classified information under an espionage law, a move carrying far more severe penalties than previously announced charges.

Harold Martin spent more than two decades pilfering classified information from multiple government agencies, federal prosecutors said in a U.S. District Court filing in Baltimore. They expected to bring charges that included violations of the Espionage Act, the filing said.

The amount of stolen data is estimated to be at least 50 terabytes, enough to fill dozens of hard drives, prosecutors said, adding the alleged criminal conduct “is breathtaking in its longevity and scale.”

Some officials have said the trove may amount to the largest heist of classified government information in history.

An attorney representing Martin was not available for comment.

U.S. officials announced in a criminal complaint earlier this month that Martin, 51, was taken into custody in Maryland in August and charged with felony theft of classified government material. It did not allege a motive.

The FBI is investigating possible links between Martin and the leak online this summer of secret NSA hacking tools used to break into the computers of adversaries such as Russia and China, U.S. officials said.

Martin was employed with Booz Allen Hamilton, the same consulting firm that employed Edward Snowden.