White House computers get FBI scrutiny

Estrada said he met Aragoncillo during his state visit to Washington in 2000 and received about six reports from him.

He compared what Aragoncillo did with reports diplomats send back home. “I don’t think that’s espionage,” he said.

“He’s a kind person,” the former president said of Aragoncillo. “He’s a good family man. He has two children.”

Estrada said Aragoncillo communicated with him by mail and also spoke with him on his birthday, but he didn’t say when. Estrada was toppled in massive street protests in 2001 on charges of corruption and is under house arrests while on trial.

A Philippine opposition senator has acknowledged receiving information from Aquino. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief under whom Aquino served, said he and “many others” received information passed by Aquino, but he played down the value of the reports, describing them as “shallow information.”

White House and Justice Department officials declined to comment on the investigation.

‘Wealth of evidence’
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a former federal prosecutor who handled an FBI spy case, said the Aragoncillo case raises questions about easy access to classified materials and how long the naturalized U.S. citizen was able to pass on sensitive information before he was stopped.

“If the complaint is accurate, there is a wealth of evidence which makes it all the more surprising he went undiscovered as long as he did, because it was not a very sophisticated operation,” Schiff said.

Aragoncillo was hired to work at Fort Monmouth in July 2004 and began sending classified information and documents in January, often via e-mail, according to an FBI complaint made public last month. The documents’ contents have not been made public.

From May to Aug. 15 of this year, he printed or downloaded 101 classified documents relating to the Philippines, of which 37 were classified “secret,” according to the criminal complaint.

He sent some of the material to Aquino, the complaint said.

Aragoncillo’s public defender, Chester M. Keller, declined to say if his client was cooperating with investigators. “It’s just too sensitive right now,” Keller said.

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