On this day, April 24, in 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suspends high-ranking officials after a laptop computer containing top secret documents vanishes. A deputy later was convicted for an unrelated security breach. The laptop, which vanished in January from a conference room, contained thousands of classified documents about arms proliferation issues, including highly sensitive information about the sources and methods of U.S. intelligence collection.
Albright suspended several high-ranking officials, including China expert Donald W. Keyser. In 2004, Keyser was charged in a separate case with passing secrets to a Taiwanese intelligence agent. He was sentenced to a year in prison for keeping 3,500 documents at his Fairfax home and concealing his “personal relationship” with a female agent.
Scott McCabe
