A Fort Belvoir-based analyst for a Department of Defense intelligence agency was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine for compromising a computer program being used in a joint FBI-U.S. Army terrorist investigation.
Brian Keith Montgomery, an analyst for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, used his top-secret clearance to gain access to a computer program he was not cleared to view, he admitted in his guilty plea. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency provides mapping information to the military’s intelligence community.
Montgomery’s actions “significantly compromised the federal investigation,” prosecutors said in court documents. “Numerous resources were expended attempting to identify the individual who obtained the information and undo the harm caused.” Authorities did not go into detail on the nature of the terrorist investigation.
But in letters to Judge Thomas Rawles Jones, Montgomery’s co-workers and boss painted a picture of him as a highly valued analyst who made a mistake that should not result in jail time or his being fired.
“Although I do not condone Brian’s lack of judgment and poor decision making during this incident, I am willing to accept the facts the he made a horrible mistake,” his boss J. Dale Walden wrote. “I feel he can still have a positive impact on the agency and the analytical tradecraft he holds so dear.”
Montgomery has served in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing up-to-the-minute intelligence that has saved the lives of American soldiers, one co-worker wrote in a letter to Jones.
In the letter, the co-worker recalled one instance where soldiers were about to depart for a surprise attack mission, when Montgomery came “rushing in.” The analyst had just noticed a “pattern of life” in the area the team was about to attack.
“If we did not receive this information, then the element of surprise would have surely been gone,” he wrote. “From my personal experience he possibly saved my life and the lives of my teammates.”
Walden said in his letter that he wants Montgomery to get his security clearance back and the co-worker wrote, “I can’t afford not having (Montgomery) supporting the forces whom are on target every day and night, every month, and what is now, every year.”
