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New details about the NSA’s post–Sept. 11 domestic surveillance programs have emerged in a stunning New Yorker article about NSA whistle blower Thomas Drake, who faces trial next month for allegedly leaking information about waste and mismanagement at the agency.
The NSA bypasses the US Constitution to Spy on ANY Americans, Whistle Blower to Stand Trial
The article provides new insight into the warrantless surveillance program exposed by The New York Times in December 2005, including how top officials at the intelligence agency viewed the program. Former NSA Director Michael Hayden, in 2002, reportedly urged a congressional staffer who was concerned about the legality of the program to keep quiet about it, telling her that she could “yell and scream” about the program once the inevitable leaks about it occurred.
nsa operation thinthread classified wire tapping
Asked why the NSA didn’t employ privacy protections in its program, Hayden reportedly told the staffer, “We didn’t need them. We had the power,” and admitted the government was not getting warrants for the domestic surveillance.
Drake tried to get the word out. But now, as a result, he has been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 and if convicted of all charges could spend the next 35 years of his life in prison. The government says he betrayed his country.
Drake says the only thing he betrayed was NSA mismanagement that undermined national security.
After a long career in U.S. intelligence, Drake never imagined he’d be labeled an enemy of the United States. As a young airman, he flew spy missions in the Cold War; in the Navy, he analyzed intelligence for the joint chiefs at the Pentagon.
Later, he worked for defense contractors in the highly technical world of electronic eavesdropping. He became an expert in sophisticated, top secret computer software programs and ultimately rose, in 2001, to a senior executive job at the NSA.
Part of the failure at the NSA, the largest U.S. intelligence agency, was in its old technology. The agency eavesdrops on the communications of the world. But in the 1990s it was becoming ineffective, overwhelmed by the explosion of digital data.
“Vast volumes of data streaming across all kinds of different networks, wired, wireless, phones, computers, you name it,” Drake explained.
“And what does that look like to NSA? Coming into building in Maryland?”
“Choking on it,” Drake said. “Just incredible amounts. Even just storing it was becoming a challenge.”
Anonymously, Drake contacted Sun reporter Siobhan Gorman and became an unnamed source for her, starting with an article about the failing, over budget NSA programs designed to keep up with growing technology.
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