Opinion ID: 2575291
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant's Work at ESL

Text: Defendant began working at ESL in approximately November 1977, and received a top-secret security clearance from the Department of Defense in March 1978. No background investigation was performed, because defendant had left the Navy so recently, and no subsequent investigation occurred because of funding shortages. Richard Rose, a Department of Defense contracting officer, testified regarding defendant's work at ESL. ESL specialized in building direction-finding equipment and signal-processing systems for the United States government. Defendant worked in three areastesting, repair, and preventative and corrective maintenance. From November 1977 through June 1979, defendant was involved in a project concerning the research and development of direction-finding equipment and its installation on ground vehicles and aircraft. The equipment enabled a military commander to determine the location of enemy communication or radar transmitters, and thereby learn the location and strength of enemy forces. From June 1979 through June 1984, defendant was assigned to the Joint Defense Space Research Facility in Australia. Rose testified that this facility, which was shared by the United States and Australian governments, provided valuable contributions to the verification of arms control and disarmament agreements. Defendant and others provided round-the-clock maintenance of the electronic equipment, including diagnostic and repair functions. According to Rose, defendant's contribution could be considered essential in that he was maintaining equipment that was of a significant value to the defense of the United States, Rose also testified that according to the Secretary of Defense, all of the projects on which defendant worked were vital to the national defense, and disclosure of any of this classified information could, according to the Secretary, result in `exceptionally grave harm to the national defense and public relations of the United States.' Defendant's four ESL performance evaluations for this work were 99 percent, 96 percent, 96.5 percent, and 98 percent. From June 1984 until his termination by ESL in May 1986, defendant's work involved feasibility studies for the United States National Security Agency. This project analyzed equipment that might be developed, and how it would function.