[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida [official website] on Monday sentenced Christopher R. Glenn 120 months in jail and three years of supervised release for willful retention of classified national defense information [DOJ press release] under the Espionage Act [text]. Glenn was a military contractor and civilian systems administrator and in 2012 he stole emails from a computer at a military base in Honduras that contained classified information belonging to the Department of Defense [official website] and the Soto Cano airbase in Honduras [official website]. Glenn also retained copies of the stolen information for himself.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin stated that Glenn “exploited” his position and

In doing so, he violated the unique trust placed in him by the Department of Defense. Insider threats by trusted employees who exploit computer access are a significant danger to U.S. national security and this sentencing shows it will not be tolerated.

Glenn’s prosecution is the latest in a long line of prosecutions for the prevention of national security leaks. In May former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] officer Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to 42 months in prison after being convicted of telling New York Times journalist James Risen [NY Times profile] about classified plans to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In April General David Petraeus [JURIST news archive] was sentenced [CNN report] to serve two years on probation and pay a $100,000 fine for leaking classified information to his biographer and lover Paula Broadwell. In August 2013 Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his disclosure [JURIST reports] of classified information to the anti-secrecy organization Wikileaks. In June 2013 Edward Snowden, a former government employee and contractor, was charged [JURIST report] with disclosing to newspaper reporters information about US intelligence activities that he obtained during the course of his work, raising significant First Amendment concerns [JURIST op-ed] over the Espionage Act. In January of that year, John Kiriakou was sentenced [JURIST report] to two and a half years in prison for leaking an undercover officer’s name to the media and for exposing parts of the CIA’s torture strategies.