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NSA Thief Worked With Elite Hacker SquadHe was billed as a ‘Second Snowden’ and worked with the NSA’s most skilled hackers. But Hal Martin may have taken classified information just to help him get through school.Shane HarrisKatie ZavadskiNancy A. Youssef10.05.16 5:25 PM ETDaily BeastThe retired Navy officer arrested for allegedly removing highly classified information from the National Security Agency worked with the organization's elite computer hackers, who specialize in using computer code to penetrate the systems of foreign nations, according to a former colleague and the man’s online resume.Harold Thomas Martin, III, who goes by Hal, was also enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. The university has a partnership with the NSA, in which the agency helps develop curriculum for the school and agency employees can take classes there.Martin worked with NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit, sources with knowledge of his background told The Daily Beast. In his LinkedIn resume, Martin says he worked as a “cyber engineering advisor” supporting “various cyber related initiatives” in the Defense Department and intelligence community. ...Former intelligence officials, who said they aren’t familiar with Martin’s case, suggested he may have brought the material home to use as research for his PhD studies. “It’s conceivable given what he was working on that he might have used the [classified] material for research,” a former official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.The university’s director of communications, Dinah Winnick, confirmed to The Daily Beast that Martin, 51, is a PhD student in the Information Systems program but said the school had no further comment. ...