[JURIST] A Taiwan-born US Navy officer has been charged [charge sheet] with espionage, attempted espionage and prostitution, media outlets reported Sunday. Investigators believe Navy Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin has been passing secrets to the Chinese government. Lin was an intelligence specialist on board the Navy’s Lockheed Martin EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance when the alleged criminal conduct was committed. It is alleged that Lin successfully transmitted information to China about two or three times. Outside of transmitting secrets, the Navy also found evidence of actions of adultery connected to Lon’s solicitation of prostitutes.

Lin’s prosecution is the latest in a long line of prosecutions for the prevention of national security leaks. Last May former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] officer Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to 42 months in prison after being convicted of telling New York Times journalist James Risen [NY Times profile] about classified plans to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In April of last year General David Petraeus [JURIST news archive] was sentenced [CNN report] to serve two years on probation and pay a $100,000 fine for leaking classified information to his biographer and lover Paula Broadwell. In August 2013 Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for disclosing[JURIST reports] classified information to the anti-secrecy organization Wikileaks. In June 2013 Edward Snowden, a former government employee and contractor, was charged[JURIST report] with disclosing to newspaper reporters information about US intelligence activities that he obtained during the course of his work, raising significant First Amendment concerns [JURIST op-ed] over the Espionage Act. In January of that year, John Kiriakou was sentenced [JURIST report] to two and a half years in prison for leaking an undercover officer’s name to the media and for exposing parts of the CIA’s torture strategies.