NSA Analysts Tried to Warn About 9/11 But an Alert Was "Stopped for Some Reason" (2018)

William "Bill" Edward Binney (born September 1943)[4] is a former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and whistleblower.[5] He retired on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency.

He was a critic of his former employers during the George W. Bush administration, and later criticized the NSA's data-collection policies during the Barack Obama administration. He dissented from the view that Russia interfered with the 2016 US election. More specifically, he was critical of the view that Russia hacked the DNC server.[6] He is a leading member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.[7][8][9]
Biography

Binney grew up in Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1970. He said that he volunteered for the Army during the Vietnam era in order to select work that would interest him rather than be drafted and have no input. He was found to have strong aptitudes for mathematics, analysis, and code breaking,[10] and served from 1965 to 1969 in the Army Security Agency before going to the NSA in 1970.

Binney was a Russia specialist and worked in the operations side of intelligence, starting as an analyst and ending as a Technical Director prior to becoming a geopolitical world Technical Director. In the 1990s, he co-founded a unit on automating signals intelligence with NSA research chief John Taggart.[11] Binney's NSA career culminated as Technical Leader for intelligence in 2001. He has expertise in intelligence analysis, traffic analysis, systems analysis, knowledge management, and mathematics (including set theory, number theory, and probability).[12][13]

After retiring from the NSA, he founded, together with fellow NSA whistleblower J. Kirk Wiebe, Entity Mapping, LLC, a private intelligence agency to market their analysis program to government agencies.[14]
Whistleblowing
Binney sitting in the offices of Democracy Now! in New York City in May 2012, prior to appearing with hosts Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, and guest Jacob Appelbaum

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In September 2002, he, along with J. Kirk Wiebe and Edward Loomis, asked the U.S. Defense Department Inspector General (DoD IG) to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting "millions and millions of dollars" on Trailblazer, a system intended to analyze mass collection of data carried on communications networks such as the Internet. Binney had been one of the inventors of an alternative system, ThinThread, which was shelved when Trailblazer was chosen instead. Binney has also been publicly critical of the NSA for spying on U.S. citizens, saying of its expanded surveillance after the September 11, 2001 attacks that "it's better than anything that the KGB, the Stasi, or the Gestapo and SS ever had"[15] as well as noting Trailblazer's ineffectiveness and unjustified high cost compared to the far less intrusive ThinThread.[16] He was furious that the NSA hadn't uncovered the 9/11 plot and stated that intercepts it had collected but not analyzed likely would have garnered timely attention with his leaner more focused system.[13]
Post-NSA career

After he left the NSA in 2001, Binney was one of several people investigated as part of an inquiry into a 2005 exposé by The New York Times on the agency's warrantless eavesdropping program.[17] Binney was cleared of wrongdoing after three interviews with FBI agents beginning in March 2007, but in early July 2007, in an unannounced early morning raid, a dozen agents armed with rifles appeared at his house, one of whom entered the bathroom and pointed his gun at Binney, who was taking a shower. The FBI confiscated a desktop computer, disks, and personal and business records.[18] The NSA revoked his security clearance, forcing him to close a business he ran with former colleagues at a loss of a reported $300,000 in annual income. The FBI raided the homes of Wiebe and Loomis, as well as House Intelligence Committee staffer Diane Roark, the same morning. Several months later the FBI raided the home of then still active NSA executive Thomas Andrews Drake who had also contacted DoD IG, but anonymously with confidentiality assured. The Assistant Inspector General, John Crane, in charge of the Whistleblower Program, suspecting his superiors provided confidential information to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), challenged them, was eventually forced from his position, and subsequently himself became a public whistleblower. The punitive treatment of Binney, Drake, and the other whistleblowers also led Edward Snowden to go public with his revelations rather than report through the internal whistleblower program.[19] In 2012, Binney and his co-plaintiffs went to federal court to retrieve the confiscated items.[20]
Allegations on intercepts

Binney is known for making the claim that the NSA collects and stores information about every U.S. communication.[21] Binney was invited as a witness by the NSA commission of the German Bundestag. On July 3, 2014 Der Spiegel wrote, he said that the NSA wanted to have information about everything. In Binney's view this is a totalitarian approach, which had previously been seen only in dictatorships.[22] Binney stated that the goal was to control people. Meanwhile, he said that it is possible in principle to monitor the whole population, abroad and in the U.S., which in his view contradicts the United States Constitution.[22]

In August 2014, Binney was among the signatories of an open letter by the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity to German chancellor Angela Merkel in which they urged the Chancellor to be suspicious of U.S. intelligence regarding the alleged invasion by Russia in Eastern Ukraine.[23][24][25] In the open letter, the group said:

[A]ccusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.[24]

Russian interference in the 2016 election
Further information: Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak

Binney has said he voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, calling Hillary Clinton a "war monger".[26]

Binney has asserted that the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election is false, and that the Democratic National Committee e-mails were leaked by an insider instead.[9][27][28] An investigation by Duncan Campbell later detailed how Binney had been persuaded by a pro-Kremlin disinformant that the theft of the DNC emails was an inside job, and not the work of Russian agents (contrary to the findings of the US intelligence community).[29] The disinformation agent altered metadata in the files released by Guccifer 2.0 (whom the US intelligence community identifies as a Russian military intelligence operation) to make it appear as if the documents came from a computer in the Eastern United States, not Russia. (Specifically, the local time zone of the computer's system clock was changed to UTC−05:00.)[29] Binney appeared on Fox News at least ten times between September 2016 and November 2017 to promote this theory.[21][9][27] Binney said that the "intelligence community wasn't being honest here".[9] He has been a frequent guest on RT and Fox News and has been frequently cited on Breitbart News.[21] In October 2017, Binney met with CIA Director Mike Pompeo at the behest of President Trump to discuss his theory.[9] However, on meeting Campbell and analysing the material again, Binney changed his position: he said there was "no evidence to prove where the download/copy was done", and that the files he had based his previous assessment were "manipulated" and a "fabrication".[29]
Role in apparent release of the Nunes Memo

On January 23, 2018, Binney made an appearance on InfoWars[30] in connection with the Nunes memo, a Congressional document alleging irregularities in the application of the FISA Act, which at that time was not publicly available although its potential release was a topic of public debate.[31] During the show, host Alex Jones announced that Binney had been able to provide him with the actual memo, and the purported leaked document was shown on air.[32] However, this was in fact a public document that had been available on the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence since at least May 2017.[33][34] The actual Nunes memo was released February 2, 2018.[35]
Claims of fraud in the 2020 election

After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election and Donald Trump refused to concede, Binney doubted the official results and claimed that there had been large-scale voter fraud. One of Binney's tweets alleging missing votes was based on a mistaken conflation between eligible voters and an outdated number of registered voters; this was cited in an article by The Gateway Pundit, which in turn was promoted by Trump.[36][37][38][39]
Documentary film

Binney's story is recounted in A Good American, a documentary film.[40]
See also

MAINWAY
PRISM (surveillance program)
Mark Klein
Thomas Tamm
Russ Tice
Perry Fellwock
Targeted surveillance
Citizenfour – a 2014 documentary
A Good American – a 2015 documentary

References

"For Immediate Release: Callaway Awards Tuesday November 13, 2012". The Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Justice. November 13, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
Hannah Borno (January 23, 2015). "NSA whistleblower William Binney wins 2015 Sam Adams award". International Business Times. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
"Past Winners and Honourees of the Allard Prize". Allard Prize For International Integrity. Allard Prize Foundation. September 8, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
Video-Interview by Thomas Drake (October 26, 2011). "William Edward Binney Collection" (Video; 25 Min). Veterans History Project. American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. Retrieved June 29, 2013.
"Three NSA Whistleblowers Back EFF's Lawsuit Over Government's Massive Spying Program". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 2, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
Kopan, Tal (June 21, 2016). "DNC hack: What you need to know". CNN. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
"Was Donald Trump behind meeting of CIA chief and conspiracy theorist?". NBC News. November 7, 2017. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
Bicks, Emily (October 16, 2020). "Is Thomas Schoenberger the Mastermind Behind QAnon?". Heavy.com. Retrieved June 17, 2024.
Campbell, Duncan; Risen, James (November 7, 2017). "CIA Director Met Advocate of Disputed DNC Hack Theory — at Trump's Request". The Intercept. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
"Keynote Address: William Binney". Schedule – HOPE Number Nine. 2600 Enterprises. 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
"The Government Is Profiling You". MIT Center for Internet and Society. November 12, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2013.
"Sworn Declaration of Whistleblower William Binney on NSA Domestic Surveillance Capabilities". Public Intelligence. July 16, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
Mayer, Jane (May 23, 2011). "The Secret Sharer: Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state?". The New Yorker.
"NSA Whistleblowers William (Bill) Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe". Government Accountability Project website. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved June 9, 2013.
Shorrock, Tim (April 15, 2013). "The Untold Story: Obama's Crackdown on Whistleblowers: The NSA Four reveal how a toxic mix of cronyism and fraud blinded the agency before 9/11". The Nation.
"NSA Whistleblowers William (Bill) Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe". Government Accountability Project. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
"The FRONTLINE Interview: William Binney – United States of Secrets". FRONTLINE. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
"Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance". Democracy Now!. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
Hertsgaard, Mark; Kasten, Felix; Rosenbach, Marcel; Stark, Holger (May 22, 2016). "Blowing the Whistle: Former US Official Reveals Risks Faced by Internal Critics". Der Spiegel. Retrieved June 16, 2016.
Bronner, Ethan; Charlie Savage; Scott Shane (May 25, 2013). "Leak Inquiries Show How Wide A Net U.S. Cast". The New York Times.
"Was Donald Trump behind meeting of CIA chief and conspiracy theorist?". NBC News. Retrieved November 9, 2017.
"Untersuchungsausschuss im Bundestag: US-Informant vergleicht NSA mit einer Diktatur". Spiegel. Spiegelonline GmbH. July 3, 2014. Retrieved July 4, 2014.
"US-Geheimdienst-Pensionäre warnen Merkel vor Fehlinformationen" (in German). Der Tagesspiegel. September 4, 2014.
"The State Department Says Russia Is Invading Ukraine—Should We Believe It?". The Nation. September 2, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
"US-Geheimdienst-Pensionäre warnen Merkel vor Fehlinformationen". Der Tagesspiegel Online. September 4, 2014.
"Was Donald Trump behind meeting of CIA chief and conspiracy theorist?". NBC News. November 7, 2017. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
"Conservative media figures are embracing a wild WikiLeaks conspiracy theory that the CIA hacked the DNC, and then framed Russia". Business Insider. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
"Why Some U.S. Ex-Spies Don't Buy the Russia Story". Bloomberg.com. August 10, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
"Briton ran pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign that helped Trump deny Russian links". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
"Alex Jones tries and fails to pass off a publicly available document as the House GOP's secret Russia memo". Media Matters for America. January 23, 2018.
Mckew, Molly K. "How Twitter Bots and Trump Fans Made #ReleaseTheMemo Go Viral". POLITICO Magazine.
"Read the disputed memo here". CNN. February 2, 2018.
"Fact Check: Did Infowars Release the 'Secret FISA Memo'?". The Weekly Standard. January 23, 2018.
Matsakis, Louise (January 24, 2018). "The Cynical Misdirection Behind #ReleaseTheMemo". Wired – via wired.com.
McCarthy, Tom; Yuhas, Alan (February 2, 2018). "'Nunes memo' published after Trump declassifies controversial document". The Guardian – via theguardian.com.
"PolitiFact - Bogus analysis leads to ridiculous claim about Biden votes". PolitiFact. 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
"Fact check: Claim that turnout numbers prove U.S. election fraud uses wrong figures". Reuters. January 4, 2021. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
Bump, Philip (December 21, 2020). "Analysis - Another good example of how laughably flimsy Trump's electoral fraud claims are". Washington Post. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
"Flawed Calculation Behind False Claim of Fraudulent Votes". FactCheck.org. December 21, 2020. Retrieved February 19, 2021.

Kenigsberg, Ben (February 2, 2017). "Review: In 'A Good American,' Examining Sept. 11 and Data Collection". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 7, 2017.

External links

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Wikiquote has quotations related to William Binney.
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The Future of Freedom: A Feature Interview with NSA Whistleblower William Binney, February 2015
William.Binney.HOPE.9.KEYNOTE.Part1, related to ThinThread development
William.Binney.HOPE.9.KEYNOTE.Part2, related to ThinThread development
"Who's Watching the N.S.A. Watchers?: Giving In to the Surveillance State", Shane Harris op-ed in The New York Times, 22 August 2012
"The National Security Agency's Domestic Spying Program", Laura Poitras opinion piece in The New York Times, 22 August 2012
'The Program' – a video by Laura Poitras for The New York Times, 22 August 2012.
William Binney at IMDb
O'Brien, Alexa. "Retired NSA Technical Director Explains Snowden Docs". Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
Web site for documentary A Good American

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Laureates of the Sam Adams Award

2002: Coleen Rowley 2003: Katharine Gun 2004: Sibel Edmonds 2005: Craig Murray 2006: Samuel Provance 2007: Andrew Wilkie 2008: Frank Grevil 2009: Larry Wilkerson 2010: Julian Assange 2011: Thomas A. Drake and Jesselyn Radack 2012: Thomas Fingar 2013: Edward Snowden 2014: Chelsea Manning 2015: William Binney 2016: John Kiriakou 2017: Seymour Hersh 2018: Karen Kwiatkowski 2019: Jeffrey Sterling 2020: Annie Machon 2021: Daniel Hale

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American whistleblowersLiving peopleNational Security Agency peopleNational Security Agency cryptographersEberly College of Science alumniPrivacy activists1943 births

Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history.[4][5][6] Drake's defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project.[7][8][9] He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.

On June 9, 2011, all 10 original charges against him were dropped. Drake rejected several deals because he refused to "plea bargain with the truth". He eventually pleaded to one misdemeanor count for exceeding authorized use of a computer;[10] Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, who helped represent him, called it an act of civil disobedience.[11]
Biography

Drake's father was a World War II veteran and his mother a secretary for Pearl S. Buck. He entered the U.S. Air Force in 1979, becoming an Airborne Voice Processing Specialist, with a fluency in German, and went on ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions.[12] It was in that capacity that he encountered the surveillance state of East Germany and the Stasi, which informed his worldview and to which he compares developments in the United States since the September 11 attacks.[13] Drake left the Air Force in 1989. He was also in the U.S. Navy, where he analyzed intelligence for the National Military Joint Intelligence Center.[14] According to The Washington Post, he also at one time worked with the CIA.[15] In 1989, Drake began work as an NSA contractor, evaluating software.[4][15] As a contractor, he worked on projects like JACKPOT and LIBRARIAN, becoming an expert in the quality-testing of software and working on a system for measuring the quality of computer code at the NSA. Drake also continued his academic studies.[16][17]

In 2000, he was hired as a software systems quality specialist and management and information technology consultant for Columbia, Maryland-based Costal Research & Technology Inc. (CRTI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Alexandria, Virginia-based Computer Systems Management, Inc. (CSMI).[18] In late 2001, he went to work at the NSA as a full-time employee at the Signals Intelligence Directorate at Fort Meade with his actual first day on the job as an NSA employee being September 11, 2001.[8][19][20] In 2002, he became a Technical Director for Software Engineering Implementation within the Cryptologic Systems and Professional Health Office. In 2003, Drake became a Process Portfolio Manager within NSA's newly formed Directorate of Engineering. He held a Top Secret security clearance.[8] During the congressional investigations into 9/11, he testified about NSA failures.[15] In 2006 he was reassigned to the National Defense University,[15] where he became the NSA Chair and an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences within the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF).[8] Drake was forced to leave the NDU in 2007 when his security clearance was suspended, and he resigned from the NSA the next year.[5][8][21] Drake then went to work at Strayer University but was forced from that job after his indictment of April 2010.[21] He found work at an Apple Store.[22][15][21] He then founded Knowpari Systems, a consulting firm.[23]

In 2011, Drake was awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth Telling[2] and was co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award. Accepting the SAAII award he said,[13] with references to an 1857 speech of Frederick Douglass:

"Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. They never have and they never will. ...each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and must speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there can be no peace."

Whistleblowing on Trailblazer and government response

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Drake action within the NSA

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the NSA desired new tools to collect intelligence from the growing flood of information pouring out of the new digital networks like the Internet. Drake became involved in the internal NSA debate between two of these tools, the Trailblazer Project and the ThinThread project.[9][21] He became part of the "minority" that favored ThinThread for several reasons,[21] including its theoretical ability to protect the privacy of US individuals while gathering intelligence.[15] Trailblazer required billions of dollars, dwarfing the cost of ThinThread. Drake eventually became "disillusioned, then indignant" regarding the problems he saw at the agency.[15] Around 2000, NSA head Michael Hayden chose Trailblazer over ThinThread; ThinThread was cancelled and Trailblazer ramped up, eventually employing IBM, SAIC, Boeing, CSC, and others.[24]

Drake worked his way through the legal processes that are prescribed for government employees who believe that questionable activities are taking place in their departments.[21] In accordance with whistleblower protection laws such as the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, Drake complained internally to the designated authorities: to his bosses, the NSA Inspector General, the Defense Department Inspector General, and both the House and Senate Congressional intelligence committees.[25]

He also kept in contact with Diane Roark, a staffer for the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee of the U.S. Congress (the House committee responsible for oversight of the executive branch's intelligence activities).[21] Roark was the "staff expert" on the NSA's budget,[9] and the two of them had met in 2000.[15]

In September 2002, Roark and three former NSA officials, William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe,[26] and Ed Loomis,[27] filed a DoD Inspector General report regarding problems at NSA, including Trailblazer.[15] Drake was a major source for the report, and gave information to DoD during its investigation of the matter.[15] Roark tried to notify her superior, then-Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Porter Goss.[7] She also attempted to contact William Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court at the time.[15] In addition, Roark made an effort to inform Vice President Dick Cheney's legal counsel David Addington, who had been a Republican staff colleague of hers on the committee in the 1980s.[20] Addington was later revealed by a Washington Post report to be the author of the controlling legal and technical documents for the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program, typing the documents on a Tempest-shielded computer across from his desk in room 268 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and storing them in a vault in his office.[28][29][30] Roark got no response from any of the three men.
NSA own inquiry and acknowledgement

By 2003, the NSA Inspector General (IG)[15] had declared Trailblazer an expensive failure.[31] It cost more than 1 billion dollars.[25][32][33]

In 2004, the DoD IG produced a final report of its investigation that had been prompted by Roark & the others in 2002. The report basically agreed with their assertions and found very serious flaws at NSA. For a time, the NSA was even banned from starting projects over a certain size, for fear it would waste the money. However, there were no plans to release this DoD IG report to the public at the time.[27]
Eventual whistleblowing

In a 2011 New Yorker article, journalist Jane Mayer wrote that Drake felt the NSA was committing serious crimes against the American people, on a level worse than what President Nixon had done in the 1970s. Drake reviewed the laws regarding disclosure of information, and decided that if he revealed unclassified information to a reporter, then the worst thing that would happen to him was probably that he would be fired.[20]

In November 2005, Drake contacted Siobhan Gorman of The Baltimore Sun newspaper, sending her emails through Hushmail and discussing various topics.[9][21] He claims that he was very careful not to give her sensitive or classified information; it was one of the basic ground rules he set out at the beginning of their communication. This communication occurred around 2006.[34] Gorman wrote several articles about waste, fraud, and abuse at the NSA, including articles on Trailblazer. She received an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her series exposing government wrongdoing.[9] Judge Richard Bennett later ruled that "there is no evidence that Reporter A relied upon any allegedly classified information found in Mr. Drake's house in her articles".[35]
2007 FBI raids

In July 2007, armed FBI agents raided the homes of Roark, Binney, and Wiebe, the same people who had filed the complaint with the DoD Inspector General in 2002.[27] Binney claims they pointed guns at his wife and himself. Wiebe said it reminded him of the Soviet Union.[20] None of these people were charged with any crimes. In November 2007, there was a raid on Drake's residence. His computers, documents, and books were confiscated. He was never charged with giving any sensitive information to anyone; the charge actually brought against him is for 'retaining' information (18 U.S.C. § 793(e)).[19] The FBI tried to get Roark to testify against Drake; she refused.[20] Reporter Gorman was not contacted by the FBI.[15][21]

Drake initially cooperated with the investigation, telling the FBI about the alleged illegality of the NSA's activities.[20] The government created a 'draft indictment' of Drake, prepared by prosecutor Steven Tyrrell. It listed charges as "disclosing classified information to a newspaper reporter and for conspiracy". Diane Roark, Binney, Wiebe, and Loomis (the complainants to the DoD IG in 2002) were also allegedly listed as "unindicted co-conspirators".[27] In 2009 a new prosecutor, William Welch II, came on the case and changed the indictment.[15][20] Some charges were removed, as was any naming of 'co-conspirators'. The new case only contained charges against Drake.[27]

Prosecutors wanted Drake to plead guilty, but he refused. He believed that he was innocent of the charges against him.[15] The government wanted him to help prosecute the other whistleblowers. He refused this as well.[20] He later explained his motivations to the Ridenhour Prizes organization: "I did what I did because I am rooted in the faith that my duty was to the American people ... I knew that you did not spy on Americans and that we were accountable for spending American taxpayer monies wisely."[36]
Indictment

In April 2010, Drake was indicted by a Baltimore grand jury on the following charges:[4][5][6][8]

Willful Retention of National Defense Information 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) (5 counts)
(793(e) is a modification of the Espionage Act of 1917 made under the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950)
Obstructing justice 18 U.S.C. § 1519 (1 count)
Making a False Statement 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a) (4 counts)

The indictment contained many other allegations, but most of them did not relate to the actual charges against him. He was not specifically charged with unauthorized disclosure of classified information, nor was he charged under 18 U.S.C. § 798, the "SIGINT" statute.[37] The indictment gave details about his communications with Roark and with Gorman, but he was not charged with any crime directly relating to those communications.[8] The indictment also did not list the names of Gorman or Roark, but they were confirmed by reporters (e.g. Mark Hosenball of Newsweek).[4][9] Roark's lawyer claimed that the indictment contains a "mischaracterization of the facts" about the relationship between her client and Drake.[9] Roark herself later spoke out in support of Drake and the other whistleblowers of the Trailblazer project.[20]

The "willful retention" charges regarded five documents allegedly "related to the national defense" that were found at Drake's residence. The five documents in question were referred to as "What a Success",[38] "the Regular Meetings", "Volume is our Friend", "Trial and Testing", and "Collections Sites".[39] "What a Success" was declassified a few months after Drake was indicted, and should never have been classified in the first place, according to an official complaint filed by J. William Leonard, a former director of the Information Security Oversight Office.[40] "Regular Meetings" was marked "UNCLASSIFIED" and posted on NSANet but prosecution argues the defendant should have known it was really classified. Drake's team also argued that the latter three of the five named documents were part of a collection of thousands of unclassified papers related to the DoD Inspector General Report (mentioned above). Drake's defense attorneys argued this meant that the defendant brought home the material accidentally, not "willfully."[41]

The obstruction charge was related to Drake allegedly deleting documents while he was purportedly aware that the FBI was investigating leaks to the media, and that the FBI was contemplating investigating leaks to Siobhan Gorman of The Baltimore Sun.[8] The false statements charge was filed in relation to the FBI's questioning of Drake without a lawyer present in the initial stages of the investigation when he was cooperating with them. One count is for alleged statements made by him regarding whether he had willfully taken certain documents home. Another count is for allegedly lying about the purported transmission of classified information to Gorman.[6][20] Drake's defenders point out that the government's own expert found that he had not destroyed any evidence. They also point out that Drake was careful not to give any classified information to Gorman, and that many of the documents in question were 'retroactively classified' after they were seized from his home by the FBI.[20][42]

The federal offices involved in filing the indictment included the DOJ Public Integrity Section, DOJ Criminal Division, DOJ National Security Division, the FBI, and the NSA Office of Security & Counterintelligence.[6] Drake was represented by James Wyda and Deborah Boardman, federal public defenders.[7][43]

Drake was also a client of the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower non-profit. Jesselyn Radack, director of Homeland Security and Human Rights for GAP, worked with Drake. Author and NSA authority James Bamford was a consultant for Drake's defense as well.[44][45]

Government prosecutor William M. Welch II, who had previously been charged with contempt and removed from the Ted Stevens case, served as the government's initial Senior Litigation Counsel,[46][47] John P. Pearson of the DOJ Public Integrity Section was the government's Trial Attorney, and Lanny A. Breuer was in charge of overseeing the prosecution.[20]

Federal Judge Richard D. Bennett was responsible for hearing handling the case, and initially set trial for June 2011.[48][49]

The Drake case has been written about in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Agence France-Press, Newsweek, Wired, the Washingtonian.com, the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News, Politico, and elsewhere.[50] Jesselyn Radack, of the Government Accountability Project, has also discussed the case.[51]

The U.S. government publicly stated that the prosecution of Thomas Drake was not intended to deter government employees from reporting problems. "Whistle-blowers are the key to many, many department investigations—we don't retaliate against them, we encourage them", a spokesman for the Justice Department said. "This indictment was brought on the merits, and nothing else."[52]
Court proceedings

In the spring of 2011, the prosecution made several moves to restrict the normally open proceedings of a jury trial in a United States courtroom, as reported by Gerstein at Politico and others. This was done under the legal auspices of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), which attempts in theory to prevent the release of classified information during open trials. The prosecution also moved to use the controversial "silent witness rule," in which exhibits are hidden from the public by the use of "code words" in court. The government had only attempted to use the rule a handful of times previously; its legality has been challenged under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.[53] The government also moved to restrict cross-examination of witnesses,[54] to restrict jurors from reading the Siobhan Gorman Baltimore Sun articles about problems with NSA and Trailblazer,[55] and to prevent the defense from making arguments or introducing evidence to the courtroom about whistleblowing or overclassification.[56]

In addition, the prosecution also had the court seal two exhibits the defense had already published in one of its public court filings, which listed various documents the prosecution would try to use at trial.[57][58]

The prosecution argued that the CIPA also applied to non-classified information and attempted to have unclassified information presented at trial in redacted form only.[59]
Government arguments

Referring to Siobhan Gorman's Baltimore Sun news stories, the government legally pleaded that the "newspaper articles are unduly prejudicial. The only purpose for the admission of these newspaper articles is to put NSA on trial." The prosecution also contended that it had no legal obligation to prove Drake's intent to harm national security, saying that it "does not have to prove that defendant intended to harm the country" under the specific part of the Espionage Act that Drake was charged with; 18 U.S.C. § 793(e). As for the 'overclassification' defense, the government argued that such a defense claim would be 'confusing to the jury' and thus irrelevant to the charges.[60] The government also argued that any discussion at trial of the legal concept of whistle-blowing would likewise be irrelevant to the charges.
Final disposition

In early June, shortly after the May 22, 2011, broadcast of a 60 Minutes episode on the Drake case, the government dropped all of the charges against Drake and agreed not to seek any jail time in return for Drake's agreement to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor of misusing the agency's computer system.

At the July sentencing hearing the presiding judge, Richard D. Bennett of Maryland's Federal District Court, issued harsh words for the government, saying that it was "unconscionable" to charge a defendant, two years after his home was searched, with a list of serious crimes that could have resulted in 35 years in prison, only to drop the 10 counts of the indictment on the eve of trial.[61] Expressing his "irritation" with the prosecution, Bennett also completely rejected the government's request for a $50,000 fine, despite the sentencing guidelines recommending a fine of $500-$5,000. He noted that Drake had been financially devastated, spending $82,000 on his defense, losing his $154,600 job at the NSA and his pension, and being fired from his university teaching position. He sentenced Drake to one year of probation and 240 hours of community service.[61]
Since 2012

Drake appeared on The Daily Show on August 6, 2012, to talk about the history of his case,[62] and in September sent an audio message of support to CryptoParty.[63]

On March 15, 2013, Drake spoke at a National Press Club Luncheon about the national intelligence community and its attitude towards whistle-blowing.[64]

Drake inspired Edward Snowden to leak information on the NSA spying program PRISM in June 2013.[65] Snowden went public rather than reporting within the system due to the reprisals against Drake (and other whistleblowers), which led the Assistant Defense Department Inspector General (DoD IG) in charge of the whistleblower unit, John Crane, to himself become a whistleblower when it became apparent that Drake's identity had been leaked by DoD IG to the Justice Department.[66]

Drake has become an activist against the surveillance state, frequently giving interviews and speaking at events such as Restore the Fourth and Stand Up For Truth.[67][68] One of the themes of his speeches and interviews is a "privacy exercise" as follows "Put your entire life in a box, your documents, bank accounts, your passwords, everything—and give it to a complete stranger—a fellow American for safekeeping. Would you do it?" he states that he has yet to encounter a "yes".[69]

In a September 2013 interview, Drake reaffirmed his belief that the problems of the NSA are so chronic and systemic that the only solution would be to completely dismantle and subsequently rebuild the entire organization.[70]

On July 3, 2014, Drake along with former Technical Director of the NSA William Binney gave testimony to the German Parliamentary Committee investigating the NSA spying scandal. He described the close cooperation between the NSA and the German secret service BND.[71][72]

On November 10, 2015, Drake appeared on a PEN American Center panel at the Newseum about "Secret Sources: Whistleblowers, National Security and Free Expression."[73]

In 2014, Drake supported the international launch of The Whistler founded by Eileen Chubb and Gavin MacFadyen.[74]

In 2015, The Whistleblower Interview Project published Drake's contribution to the project.[75]
Espionage Act and whistleblowing

Drake is one of four individuals in the history of the United States who has been charged specifically with "willful retention" of "national defense" information under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e). Most prosecutions are for "delivery" of classified information to a third party—something that Drake was not charged with. This particular portion of the Espionage Act was created in 1950 during the Second Red Scare, as part of the McCarran Internal Security Act.[25] Anthony Russo and Daniel Ellsberg were the first to be prosecuted for the "retention" of what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, which Ellsberg gave to The New York Times, eventually resulting in another landmark Espionage Act case in 1971, New York Times Co. v. United States. The prosecution of Russo and Ellsberg was dismissed in 1972 because of government misconduct. The second prosecution was of Samuel Loring Morison in 1985, a Navy analyst who sold satellite photographs to Jane's Defence Weekly; he was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton. The third was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee case in 2005, United States v. Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman.[4]
Founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Drake is a founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.[76] In September 2015, Drake and 27 other members of VIPS steering group wrote a letter to the President challenging a recently published book, that claimed to rebut the report of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA's use of torture.
Related media works

In 2014, a documentary called Silenced, in which Drake was featured, was released.[77][78] It was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2016. Having an analogous theme as the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour, which portrays similar treatment of Edward Snowden, Silenced has been the official selection and recipient of several awards from multiple film festivals[79] even before its release to major cable networks in March 2015.

Also in 2014, Drake's involvement with Thinthread, his subsequent indictment, etc., along with others associated with his activities (Roark, Binney, Wiebe, Loomis), and Snowden were featured in a PBS documentary, "United States of Secrets".[80]
See also

Biography portaliconPolitics portalflagUnited States portal

Mark Klein
Thomas Tamm
Russ Tice
Perry Fellwock
Stephen Jin-Woo Kim
Jeffrey Alexander Sterling
Chelsea Manning
Julian Assange
Wen Ho Lee
Reality Winner

Notes

USA v. Thomas A. Drake: Selected Case Files, FAS.org, exhibit C Sentencing Memorandum (Redacted), July 11, 2011
"The Ridenhour Prizes - Fostering the spirit of courage and truth", www.ridenhour.org, Retrieved 2011-03-12
Blaylock, Dylan (2011-11-17). "Radack, Drake Win Sam Adams Award". Government Accountability Project. Archived from the original on 2012-01-15. Retrieved 2012-01-05.
Scott Shane (April 15, 2010). "Former N.S.A. Official Is Charged in Leaks Case". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
"Obama's Justice Department indicts NSA whistleblower". Agence France-Presse via rawstory.com. 2010-04-15. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
"Former NSA Senior Executive Charged with Illegally Retaining Classified Information, Obstructing Justice and Making False Statements". Justice News. United States Department of Justice. April 15, 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
Greg Miller, Spencer S. Hsu and Ellen Nakashima, with Carol D. Leonnig, Howard Kurtz and staff researcher Julie Tate (April 16, 2010). "Former NSA official allegedly leaked material to media". Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
"United States v Thomas A Drake. Criminal Indictment of Thomas A Drake", filed April 14, 2010, US District Court, District of Maryland, Northern Division. This is a PDF of the criminal indictment itself, provided via jdsupra.com, in an upload from Justia.com. Retrieved 2010 April 17
Mark Hosenball (April 16, 2010). "Exclusive: House Republican Staffer Introduced Alleged NSA Leaker to Reporter". Declassified. Newsweek.com. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
Josh Gerstein (June 9, 2011) "Ex-NSA official takes plea deal". Politico, Retrieved 2011-6-10
Jesselyn Radack, Daily Kos blog, 2011 6 11
NSA employee accused of leaking information sentenced to probation July 15, 2011, By Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun
Drake, Thomas (2011-11-21). Whistle Blower Threatened with 35 Years in Prison, Warns of Developing Tyranny (Flash). Washington, D.C.: Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.
Exhibit E, Defense sentencing motions, Federation of American Scientists website, July 2011.
Ellen Nakashima, with Greg Miller & Julie Tate (2010-07-14). "Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake may pay high price for media leak". Washington Post. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
Exhibit F, Defense sentencing motions, Federation of American Scientists website, July 2011.
11th INTERNATIONAL SOFTWARE QUALITY WEEK, (QW'98), SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES, Software Research, Inc (soft.com)
"Testing Software Based Systems: The Final Frontier". Software Tech News, DoD. 2000-01-03. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 7, 2012. Retrieved 2010-08-09.
"USA v. Thomas A. Drake: Selected Case Files", Government's Motion to Preclude Evidence of "Whistleblowing", February 25, 2011, www.fas.org. Retrieved 2011-03-13
Jane Mayer (May 23, 2011) The Secret Sharer, The New Yorker, Retrieved 2011 May 16
Scott Shane (11 June 2010). "Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press". The New York Times.
"The 'Whistleblower' Probably Isn't". Rolling Stone. October 6, 2019.
"Speaker: Thomas Drake: Web 2.0 Summit 2011 - Co-produced by UBM TechWeb & O'Reilly Conferences, October 17 - 19, 2011, San Francisco". Archived from the original on 5 September 2015. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
James Bamford, The Shadow Factory, Chapter "Trailblazer", published by Doubleday, 2008
Scott Shane,Obama Steps Up the Prosecution of Media Leaks, New York Times, 2010 June 12, A1.
"NSA Whistleblowers William (Bill) Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe". Government Accountability Project. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved April 27, 2013.
Shane Harris (January 25, 2011) Indictment Continues Obama Administration's War on Leaks, Washingtonian, Retrieved 2011-09-03
Barton Gelman (2008-09-14). "Conflict Over Spying Led White House to Brink". The Washington Post.
"To What Extent Did the Government Monitor Phone, Internet Activity After 9/11?". PBS Newshour. June 28, 2013. Archived from the original on June 30, 2013. Retrieved June 29, 2013.
"NSA inspector general report on email and internet data collection under Stellar Wind – full document". The Guardian. June 27, 2013. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
Martin Sieff (August 18, 2005). "NSA's New Boss Puts Faith In Hi Tech Fixes". Space War.
"Little-known contractor has close ties with staff of NSA". The Baltimore Sun. 2006-01-29. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
"Eight questions for Daniel Ellsberg". The Economist. 2010-07-31. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
Wired News (14 July 2010). "NSA Executive Leaked After Official Reporting Process Failed Him". Wired News. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
Memorandum, June 2011, from FAS.org
"The Ridenhour Prizes - Fostering the spirit of courage and truth". ridenhour.org. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
Former Official Indicted for Mishandling Classified Info, Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, 2010 April 15 .
"What A Success e-mail message" (PDF). National Security Agency response to FOIA request. July 20, 2012. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-11-08. Retrieved March 22, 2013.
Indictment, April 14, 2010, Federation of American Scientists, fas.org, Retrieved 2011-03-21
Aftergood, Steven (March 19, 2013). "Classification Complaint Arising from Thomas Drake Case Dismissed". Federation of American Scientists Secrecy news. Retrieved March 22, 2013.
"Defense Memorandum in Support of DoD Inspector General Audit Documents", March 15, 2011, Federation of American Scientists, fas.org, Retrieved 2011-03-21
Jesselyn Radack (May 23, 2011)"Comment-Other reasons", Daily Kos Retrieved May 26, 2011
Josh Gerstein "Defense slams secret evidence plan in NSA leak case", Politico, 2011-03-14, www.politico.com. Retrieved 2011-03-15
Drake pleads guilty to misdemeanor in NSA espionage case, Tricia Bishop, 06-10-2011
"Jesselyn Radack biography", GAP website, Retrieved 2011-6-10
Mike Scarcella (02-18-2009) "DOJ Prosecutors Replaced in Post-Trial Stevens Litigation". www.law.com, Retrieved 2011-03-12
Leah Nylen, (2010-10-12) "Judge Lifts Civil Contempt Finding Against Stevens Prosecutors - Main Justice", www.mainjustice.com. Retrieved 2011-03-12
Ellen Nakashima (2010 November) "Checkpoint Washington - Setback in case against accused NSA leaker", Washington Post, voices.washingtonpost.com, Retrieved 2011-03-10
Josh Gerstein "U.S. seeks to seal info in NSA leak case". politico.com, Retrieved 2011-03-17
See other refs
The Huffington Post: Why Thomas Drake Is Not an Enemy of the State. May 19, 2011.
Shane, Scott (11 June 2010). "Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
Josh Gerstein "Defense slams secret evidence plan in NSA leak case". www.politico.com, Retrieved 2011-03-17
Government's Motion for an In Camera Hearing, February 25, 2011, from "USA v Drake selected case files", from Federation of American Scientists, Project on Government Secrecy, www.fas.org Retrieved on 2011-03-17
Josh Gerstein "Justice Department plans to use secret code in leak trial". www.politico.com, Retrieved 2011-03-17
See under "external links," the FAS website of the court documents
Josh Gerstein (2011-03-17) "U.S. seeks to seal info in NSA leak case", www.politico.com, Retrieved 2011-03-17
"Exhibits A and B, for Document 71: Defense Response to Government's Motion to Exclude Discussion of Overclassification". March 11, 2011, retrieved from the website of the Federation of American Scientists, Project on Government Secrecy, "USA v Drake selected case files", www.fas.org. Retrieved 2011-03-17
Steven Aftergood (May 12, 2011) "In Drake Leak Case, Govt Seeks to Block Unclassified Info"
"Government's Reply in Support of Motion to Exclude Evidence of Overclassification". FAS, Retrieved March 18, 2011
"Transcript of Sentencing Proceeding, United States of America v. Thomas A. Drake" (PDF). United States District Court of Maryland. July 15, 2011. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
Episode #17135: A Leak of Their Own - License to Spill
"cryptoparty". SoundCloud. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
"NSA Whistleblower Discusses Intelligence Community".
WNYC June 26, 2013, The Takeaway. available at http://www.thetakeaway.org/2013/jun/26/nsa-leaker-thomas-drake-edward-snowdens-case/ accessed 7-7-13
"Blowing the Whistle: Former US Official Reveals Risks Faced by Internal Critics", by Mark Hertsgaard, Felix Kasten, Marcel Rosenbach, and Holger Stark; Der Spiegel 05/22/2016
Thomas Drake (NSA Whistleblower) speaks at Restore the Fourth DC. YouTube. 10 July 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
"Stand Up For Truth video -- University of London, Birkbeck | Stand Up For Truth". standupfortruth.org. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
Whistleblowers, Part Two: Thomas Drake. YouTube. 9 June 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
"Should the NSA be dismantled? An interview with whistle-blower Thomas Drake - Vocativ". Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
Bundesnachrichtendienst "ein Wurmfortsatz der NSA", FAZ July 4, 2014
"Ex-NSA-Mitarbeiter Drake: BND unterstützte Drohnenkrieg der USA". Der Spiegel. 4 July 2014. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
"Secret Sources: Whistleblowers, National Security, and Free Expression". PEN American Center. 22 October 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-26.
Media, Insofar (2014-02-21), The Whistler: International Launch, retrieved 2020-06-25
Media, Insofar (2015-01-07), Thomas Drake in The Whistleblower Interview Project, retrieved 2020-06-25
Andy Worthington (2015-09-15). "28 Veterans of US Intelligence Fight Back Against CIA Claims That the Bush Torture Program Was Useful and Necessary". Archived from the original on 2015-09-28.
"Silenced 2014". IMDB. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
"screenings schedule". Silence Documentary Film. Reframed Pictures, James Spione, et al. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
"Silenced: A James Spione whistleblower documentary". Silenced Film 2014. Reframed Pictures, James Spione, et al. Retrieved 29 March 2015.

"PBS Frontline, "United States of Secrets "". PBS. Retrieved 23 September 2016.

External links

Thomas A. Drake at IMDb
USA v. Thomas A. Drake: Selected Case Files, from the Federation of American Scientists
Silenced: documentary trailer published via YouTube
IMDB: Silenced 2014 documentary's listing on Internet Movie Database

vte

Laureates of the Sam Adams Award

2002: Coleen Rowley 2003: Katharine Gun 2004: Sibel Edmonds 2005: Craig Murray 2006: Samuel Provance 2007: Andrew Wilkie 2008: Frank Grevil 2009: Larry Wilkerson 2010: Julian Assange 2011: Thomas A. Drake and Jesselyn Radack 2012: Thomas Fingar 2013: Edward Snowden 2014: Chelsea Manning 2015: William Binney 2016: John Kiriakou 2017: Seymour Hersh 2018: Karen Kwiatkowski 2019: Jeffrey Sterling 2020: Annie Machon 2021: Daniel Hale

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