Ex-Navy linguist fails in challenge to federal law

[alp227]

Source: McClatchy

Ex-Navy linguist James Hitselberger has failed in his constitutional challenge to the federal law under which he's charged with taking national security documents.

In an 11-page decision, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras kept the charges against Hitselberger intact. The judge has previously rejected other defense efforts to dismiss or narrow the case.

Hitselberger is fluent in Arabic, Farsi, and Russian. In June 2011, he was hired by Global Linguist Solutions, which assigned him to work for the United States Navy at a base in Bahrain.

Navy investigators subsequently reported finding secret documents in Hitselberger's quarters and, in one of several unusual touches to this case, in a Hoover Institution collection that Hitselberger made available to the think tank at Stanford University.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/03/210412/ex-navy-linguist-fails-in-challenge.html

[struggle4progress]

1. So he stole documents and handed them over to a rightwing think-tank

An large number of people seem to have forgotten that just stealing documents and handing them out really doesn't, by itself, make one a principled whistleblower

[msanthrope]

3. I blame Obama. nt

[Pterodactyl]

2. People who handle secret material need to follow the rules.