A National Security Agency (NSA) employee who is willing to betray the United States to a hostile foreign nation is fired and arrested. According to court documents released on Thursday, a former NSA employee from Colorado is charged with trying to sell sensitive information to a hostile foreign government. This is in an effort to “settle debts” and “help balance” the global scales.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, thought he was speaking to a representative of a nation “with various interests that are antagonistic to the United States.” However, in reality, he was conversing with an undercover FBI agent. This is according to what is stated in the arrest affidavit.
Dalke was detained on Wednesday after he allegedly agreed to send further information. He does this by using a secure link investigators had set up at Denver’s railway station. He had previously shared portions of sensitive documents and one whole document this summer.
Dalke appeared in federal court in Denver on Thursday. He is accused of three Espionage Act crimes. His legal counsel comes from the federal public defender’s office, which refrains from discussing its clients’ cases in the media.
Dalke tried to confirm that the undercover agent was actually working for the foreign government rather than “Americans (sic) trying to stifle a patriot,” by using a website for the Russian government’s external intelligence agency, according to the arrest affidavit, which noted that he speaks some basic Spanish and Russian.
The arrest complaint stated that Dalke further asked the agent to confirm their affiliation. That is, with the foreign government by publishing on an official website. Also, publishing a report in one of the media services affiliated with its government.
NSA recruited Jareh Sebastian Dalke as an information systems security designer
NSA, is a U.S. intelligence agency that gathers and examines signals from domestic and international sources. This is for the purposes of intelligence and counterintelligence. They employed Dalke, an Army veteran who resides in Colorado Springs. He served as an information systems security designer for less than a month this summer.
Dalke, who holds a degree in cybersecurity, allegedly started speaking with the undercover agent. He does this through encrypted email in late July. This was after the agent wrote to him to indicate that the agent had been told they should chat about “things of mutual advantage.”
Dalke allegedly told the agent at one point that his ancestry “links back to your country.” This is why he claimed to have “come to you as opposed to others,” according to the arrest report.
According to the arrest affidavit, the documents he shared prior to his arrest included a threat assessment of the foreign government he thought he was aiding. It also included a plan to update a federal agency’s cryptographic program, a threat assessment of sensitive U.S. defense capabilities, some of which are related to the foreign government in question, and a document referring to an unnamed “foreign government leader.”
Jareh Sebastian Dalke’s Reasons
Dalke allegedly informed the undercover agent that he owed $237,000 in debt. He declared bankruptcy in 2017 as a result of credit card and student loan debt, according to the document. He told the undercover agent that giving the government access to the sensitive material in exchange for money was “a chance to help balance the scales of the world while simultaneously caring for my own needs.”
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Dalke also stated that he did not believe that the US was as great as many believed it to be today. He claimed that “it is all about the businesses and their money. Also, not anything for the people or those who serve them, including the military.”
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