Apr 5, 2016 4 min read

WASHINGTON – FBI agents investigating a potential data leak at Boeing obtained a secret warrant to search the home computers of a company manager in California for evidence they thought would connect him to Chinese economic espionage.

Instead, they said, they found something else entirely: graphic child pornography.

With that discovery two years ago, an investigation of sensational but ultimately unproven allegations of espionage veered into an unrelated child pornography prosecution that won Keith Gartenlaub’s conviction in December.

Now, the Los Angeles case is testing a defendant’s ability to access information about himself presented to the nation’s secretive intelligence court, which issued the warrant that let agents scour his computers.

At issue is how the government uses evidence derived through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and under what circumstances information should be seen by defendants, particularly when it’s repurposed for a routine criminal prosecution that has nothing to do with national security.

Gartenlaub and his lawyers said they have a right to know the government’s arguments that were used to obtain the warrant, and fight them. “You can’t base a search on lies,” the 47-year-old said in an interview with the Associated Press.

He’s seeking a new trial as he awaits his April 18 sentencing, saying there’s no evidence he was aware of the child pornography or ever accessed the images. If that’s denied, he’s likely to appeal on grounds the warrant to inspect his computers was based on mistaken assumptions and allegations of a crime – espionage – for which he’s never been charged.

It won’t be easy. His request to suppress pornography evidence he said was improperly obtained was denied before the trial. He’s tried to review the sealed FISA court records in hopes of attacking the FBI search, but the government refused and a judge backed that up.

“I don’t want the FISA warrant for my own personal edification. I need to know whether they provided probable cause to a judge to search a man’s computers and home,” said his attorney, Mark Werksman.

The FBI interviewed Gartenlaub in 2013 after a Wired.com article revealed a resemblance between a new Chinese aircraft, the Xian Y-20, and the Boeing C-17, a military cargo plane, and suggested someone within Boeing may have been responsible.

An FBI affidavit described Gartenlaub as the “one engineer” who had access to C-17 data, intimate knowledge of Boeing’s computer systems and family ties to China. His wife is from China with a family described as “well connected.” He traveled regularly to the country and expressed frustration Boeing sought to limit his excursions there over security concerns, the affidavit says. The FBI also focused on dozens of deposits to the couple’s bank account it deemed suspicious – transactions Gartenlaub said were legitimate.

A recent court filing obliquely suggested a connection to the prosecution of Su Bin, a Chinese businessman who pleaded guilty last month for his role in a Boeing hack that led to the theft of C-17 secrets.

Gartenlaub, for his part, maintains he wasn’t working on the C-17 program when the Su Bin theft is thought to have occurred and didn’t have access to the data in the first place — though, he says, thousands of other Boeing employees did.

The FBI accessed his computers in 2014 after obtaining a FISA warrant. Gartenlaub acknowledges the information presented to the court likely mirrors the FBI affidavit, but says there’s no way to know for sure without seeing the warrant application.

In its search the FBI says it found videos of prepubescent girls on multiple hard drives, and evidence that Gartenlaub maintained a “carefully curated and organized collection” that was copied multiple times.

But Jeff Fischbach, a forensic examiner who reviewed the evidence for the defense, said the images were intermingled in extensive folders with files from other computer users, raising the possibility someone else was responsible for the pornography. Defense lawyers say there was no proof the images were ever opened or accessed in the years since they’d been downloaded to an unknown source and placed onto his computer.

“Either I’m this spy-slash-child pornographer, or I’m one of them, or I’m none of them,” Gartenlaub said. “I’m telling you, I’m none of them.”

Prosecutors have recommended a 10-year prison term. “Defendant,” they wrote in a recent filing, “continues to deny any personal responsibility for his crimes of conviction.”