Plea Deal in U.S. Espionage Case

Former National Security Agency exec Thomas Drake has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of exceeding authorized use of a computer. Drake had been facing trial on Espionage Act charges, though he is not accused of spying, but of the unauthorized retention of classified material. He had previously turned down a deal to plead guilty to that charge, a more serious offense. The fact that the prosecutors allowed Drake to plead to a misdemeanor shows the weakness of their case against him. Drake was under fire to allegedly passing along classified documents to a newspaper reporter about an ill-fated NSA program.