Terry J. Albury, a 17-year veteran FBI agent, leaked classified documents to The Intercept that became the publication’s “The FBI’s Secret Rules” series. The materials described secret guidance governing informants and surveillance involving journalists, religious communities, ethnic minorities, and immigrants. Albury said he acted after witnessing what he viewed as systematic racist and xenophobic practices, including while working in the Minneapolis field office as its only Black agent and handling surveillance of Muslim and immigrant communities.
The U.S. government charged Albury under the Espionage Act of 1917, and he pleaded guilty in 2018. He received a four-year prison sentence and was incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution Englewood until his release in November 2020. His case was the second leak prosecution brought under the Espionage Act during Donald Trump’s presidency. Civil-liberties and press-freedom advocates criticized using the espionage statute against a source who, they argued, had acted in good faith to expose alleged government misconduct.
