“I am appalled that yet another whistleblower in touch with The Intercept has been outed and arrested. … [P]erhaps The Intercept should walk away from national security reporting before its lack of journalistic professionalism ruins any more lives.” — CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou
MINNEAPOLIS – On Wednesday, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reported that former Minneapolis-based FBI agent Terry James Albury had been charged with leaking classified government information to the online publication The Intercept. Albury’s legal defense, led by Jane Anne Murray and Joshua Dratel, identified him as a whistleblower, stating that his decision to leak the documents was “driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI.”
Albury’s defense also noted that he has accepted “full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information,” referencing the fact that the document charging Albury was a two-page felony information. As noted by the Star Tribune, such a document usually signals an imminent guilty plea.
Albury had previously worked as a liaison on counter-terrorism matters at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He has been charged with one count of “knowingly and willfully” transmitting documents and information related to national defense to a news organization and one count of refusing to hand over documents in his possession to the government upon request.
While the FBI warrant filed against Albury does not explicitly name The Intercept, MPR revealed that the documents described in the search warrant exactly match a cache of FBI documents used in The Intercept’s article series titled “The FBI’s Secret Rules,” published in January 2017. Albury is alleged to have possessed and shared the documents with a news outlet between February 2016 and January 2017. The documents examine the expansion of, as well as the questionable tactics used by, the FBI since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Intercept’s current editor, Betsy Reed, stated that the publication does not discuss anonymous sources.
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Former FBI special agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley — who retired after 24 years after having opposed the invasion of Iraq and exposed the agency’s mishandling of information — told MintPress that she was “kind of surprised that FBI informant guidelines,” such as those allegedly leaked by Albury, “are now considered secret as, if I remember right, most of the informant guidelines were not classified when I worked there [up to and including 2004]. But after 9-11, things began to rapidly change, so I am guessing they have overly/improperly classified them [these types of documents].”
Rowley, who like Albury worked in Minneapolis during her time at the FBI, continued that “the informant program was replete with problems because there was no oversight” during her years at the FBI and that “Albury was probably trying to bring systemic problems [in the FBI] to the public. That makes him a true whistleblower.”
The Intercept fails to protect its source
Other information contained in the complaint against Albury has led some to suggest that The Intercept was responsible for outing or “burning” Albury as a confidential source. According to the FBI, The Intercept made two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in March 2016. Both of those requests contained specific information identifying the names of the documents that were not publicly available.
Previously sealed FBI search warrants show that these FOIA requests led the FBI to link references contained in the requests to Albury’s activity on FBI information systems. This led the FBI to conclude that “the classified and/or controlled nature of the documents indicates the News Outlet obtained these documents from someone with direct access to them” and that The Intercept had the documents prior to making the FOIA requests and then “used its knowledge of such documents to create the FOIA requests.”
An FBI review conducted at a later date found that Albury had taken 11 screenshots of one of the documents specifically named in the FOIA requests by The Intercept and was one of only 16 individuals to access the document between August 2011 and March 29, 2016 – when the FOIA request was filed. The warrant also added that “to date, a review of FBI records has revealed no indication that any individual other than ALBURY both accessed this document and conducted cut and paste action.”
The FBI has asserted that Albury was found to have accessed more than two-thirds of the leaked documents published by The Intercept and had been caught taking photos of other secret documents months later in the summer of 2017.
Interestingly, The Intercept report referencing Albury’s arrest does not make any mention of the FOIA requests mentioned in the FBI’s case against Albury. A statement regarding Albury’s arrest from First Look Media, The Intercept’s parent company, mentions neither the FOIA requests nor the involvement of The Intercept.
Second whistleblower burned in less than a year
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