The phrasing in the press release makes it sound like this is some sort of intrinsically grave offense, but it's quite possibly an innocent mistake. It sounds like this guy's colleague switched companies from one where they were cleared to one where they were not, but they continued to communicate about classified stuff.
Maybe that meant Unkenholz emailed a PDF marked TOP SECRET to his colleague in order to help some foreign entity harm US interests (obviously a terrible thing to do and worth being outraged about). But it could have also been him sending an email along the lines of "What SD cards did you order for [classified widget]? We're making more of them and I want to be sure I get all the same parts that you did for the prototype?"
Both cases violate the letter of the law, but locking a human being in a cage for a decade or more over the second one seems like a horrific misinterpretation of the concept of justice. Wish the press release was clearer on what side of the line this case falls on.
Maybe that meant Unkenholz emailed a PDF marked TOP SECRET to his colleague in order to help some foreign entity harm US interests (obviously a terrible thing to do and worth being outraged about). But it could have also been him sending an email along the lines of "What SD cards did you order for [classified widget]? We're making more of them and I want to be sure I get all the same parts that you did for the prototype?"
Both cases violate the letter of the law, but locking a human being in a cage for a decade or more over the second one seems like a horrific misinterpretation of the concept of justice. Wish the press release was clearer on what side of the line this case falls on.