[tptacek]

I agree with you that NSA security appears to be a total clusterfuck and that this is an instance where Walter Peck is fully justified in coming in and shutting down the Ghost Containment Unit.

A lot of people that know more about this stuff than I do disagree pretty forcefully. Dan Guido on Twitter just reminded me that Martin was specifically read into extremely sensitive programs at NSA; he was one of just a few hundred people with this access.

The court filing is pretty damning. For instance, there's the email he had prepared to send his team in 2007, noting that "they" are "inside the perimeter" and threatening to bring his coworkers "into the light". The emails, the hoarding, the guns, the weird handwritten notes... this looks extremely bad. Keep in mind that he could have been trying to do some terribly stupid things.