美国国家公共电台 NPR 前海军工程师出售潜艇机密 将其藏于三明治中（在线收听）

Nuclear secrets, Navy submarines and a peanut butter sandwich - they're all at the center of a federal proceeding in a West Virginia courthouse today.

核秘密、海军潜艇和花生酱三明治——这些都是今天在西弗吉尼亚州法院进行的联邦诉讼的中心议题。

Right. So an engineer for the U.S. Navy and his wife are making their first court appearance since being charged with trying to sell military secrets. The Justice Department says the couple tried to hand off those secrets to a foreign power. Instead, they were arrested as part of an FBI sting operation.

是的。美国海军的一名工程师和他的妻子自被指控试图出售军事机密以来首次出庭。 司法部表示，这对夫妇试图将这些秘密交给外国势力。相反，他们是在联邦调查局的部分诱捕行动中被捕的。

NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us now to tell us about the case. Ryan, there are details in this complaint that read like a spy novel - not a great one, maybe a bad one. But - so who's this couple, and what are they accused of?

NPR新闻的司法记者瑞安·卢卡斯现在与我们连线，为我们讲述这个案件。瑞安，这篇控告中的一些细节读起来像间谍小说——不是很好的小说，可能是很差的小说。但是，这对夫妇是谁，他们被指控什么罪名?

Well, they are Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana. They live in Annapolis, Md. He works as a nuclear engineer for the Navy. His focus has been on naval nuclear propulsion. And he had top-secret security clearance. His wife, Diana, is a humanities teacher at a private school, and prosecutors say that she was in on this alleged scheme here.

他们是乔纳森·托比和他的妻子戴安娜。他们住在马里兰州的安纳波利斯。他是海军的一名核工程师。他的重点一直是海军核动力推进。他可以使用最高机密的安全许可。他的妻子戴安娜是一所私立学校的人文学科教师，检察官称她参与了这起所谓的阴谋。

Now, according to court papers, this whole thing started back in 2020, when the FBI got its hands on a package that prosecutors say Toebbe mailed to a foreign government seeking to establish a sort of covert relationship providing secret information in exchange for money.

现在，根据法庭文件，整个事情开始于2020年，当时FBI拿到了一个包裹，检察官称托比将它寄给了一个外国政府，寻求建立一种提供秘密信息以换取金钱的秘密关系。

Court papers don't say which country it was, but the FBI posed as representatives of that unnamed country and went back and forth with Toebbe, communicating through encrypted channels. And court filings say that led to a series of exchanges in which Toebbe left small digital cards filled with thousands of pages of information in so-called dead drops.

法庭文件没有说明是哪个国家，但联邦调查局冒充那个国家的代表，通过加密渠道与托比来往。法庭文件显示，这导致了一系列的交流，在这些交流中，托比留下了小型的电子卡片，上面写满了数千页的信息，被称为“秘密情报点”。

The FBI says his wife acted as a lookout on a couple of occasions when he left these small packages of information. And in return, they got paid by the undercover FBI agents in cryptocurrency.

联邦调查局表示，在他留下这些小型包裹信息的时候，他的妻子充当了几次望风角色。作为回报，他们从卧底FBI特工那里得到加密货币的报酬。

Dead drops - tell us more about dead drops.

秘密情报传递——告诉我们更多关于秘密情报传递的事情。

A dead drop is, in essence, a secret hiding place that spies use to pass information. In this case, prosecutors say Toebbe hid these digital cards inside things left at the dead drops. He allegedly hid them inside a band aid package, a gum wrapper.

情报传递点本质上是间谍用来传递信息的秘密藏身之处。在这个案子中，检察官说托比把这些电子卡片藏在情报传递点的东西里。据称他把它们藏在一个创可贴包装里和一个口香糖包装里。

And in one instance, he allegedly wrapped the digital card in plastic, put it inside half of a peanut butter sandwich that was placed in a plastic bag. The thing here, of course, is the FBI was watching Toebbe as he serviced these various dead drops.

在其中一个例子中，据称他把数码卡用塑料包裹起来，把它放进了塑料袋里的花生酱三明治的一半里。当然，事情是这样的，联邦调查局一直在监视托比为各种情报传递点提供服务的事情。

And there's the peanut butter sandwich. All right. So what do we know about the kind of information that could have been sold here?

还有花生酱三明治。好吧。那么我们对这里可能已经出售的信息类型了解多少呢?

Well, according to the government, this was serious stuff. Prosecutors say the information included schematic designs and operating parameters and other things for the U.S. Navy's Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines, which court papers describe as fast attack submarines with the latest in stealth and weapons technology.

嗯，根据政府的说法，这是很严重的事情。检察官说，这些信息包括美国海军维吉尼亚级核动力潜艇的原理图设计、操作参数以及其他信息。法庭文件将其描述为具有最新隐身和武器技术的快速攻击潜艇。

They cost around $3 billion apiece. This information could certainly help a foreign power build submarines equipped with nuclear propulsion systems. It's the kind of technology that was a subject of that recent deal between the U.S., Britain and Australia that caused such a rift with France when the U.S. cut France out of the deal. So this is very closely held stuff.

每架造价约30亿美元。这些信息肯定可以帮助外国势力建造配备核动力系统的潜艇。这类技术是美国、英国和澳大利亚最近达成的协议主题，美国将法国排除在协议之外，导致了与法国的分歧。所以这是非常严格的事务。

Have we heard anything from the couple yet?

有没有从这对夫妇那里听到什么消息？

Not yet, no. They were arrested over the weekend in West Virginia. As of last night, it was still unclear whether they'd hired an attorney, but they are scheduled to make their initial appearance in federal court today in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

还没有。他们于周末在西弗吉尼亚州被捕。截至昨晚，尚不清楚他们是否聘请了律师，但他们定于今天在西弗吉尼亚州马丁斯堡的联邦法院首次出庭。

Prosecutors have already indicated in court filings that they want the Toebbes to remain in custody. The government says the couple possibly faces life in prison if they are indeed convicted and go to trial, and therefore they say that they pose a risk of flight.

检察官已经在法庭文件中表示，他们希望继续拘留托比夫妇。政府表示，如果他们真的被定罪并接受审判，他们可能会面临终身监禁，因此他们说他们有逃跑的风险。