Remembering Thomas Drake (No, He Didn't Die)

Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the NSA, is living proof of how insidious the “channels” argument is. Shortly after 9/11, he complained about NSA programs that were embryonic versions of what Snowden is now revealing. He complained that NSA foreign collection programs were being turned inward on Americans. One of those programs, Stellar Wind, stripped off data anonymization features, auditing trails, and other privacy protections that were available in a cheaper, effective, and non-intrusive program called ThinThread.

Drake complained to his boss, to the NSA Inspector General, and—with three other retired NSA colleagues and a former House intelligence staffer–to the Department of Defense Inspector General. The Inspector General substantiated their claims, but immediately classified its report to keep it out of public view. (Most portions are now unclassified and never had to be.)

Drake then served as a material witness in two key 9/11 investigations. He told Congress about multiple secret domestic surveillance programs, including Stellar Wind, and critical indications and warning intelligence about al Qaeda and associated movements pre- and post-9/11, which NSA did not share.

After the infamous New York Times article that revealed NSA’s warrantless wiretapping of Americans, the Justice Department launched an investigation—not of the U.S.’s vast lawbreaking, but for those who exposed the secret surveillance. That multi-million dollar investigation spanned five years, required five full-time prosecutors and 25 FBI agents.

Although Drake and his colleagues were not sources, they were made targets of this federal criminal “leak investigation.” The IG that had promised them protection and confidentiality sold them out to the Justice Department, and Congress failed to protect its witness, Mr. Drake. This was just one element of ruinous retaliation that went on for years and in some respects has not yet ended. Reprisals included getting fired, having security clearances pulled, armed raids on their’ homes, shattered relationships with friends and family, and depletion of retirement accounts and second mortgages to pay attorneys’ fees.

Drake became the Obama administration’s first Espionage Act prosecution of someone accused of mishandling classified information. This draconian experiment soon escalated into a full-blown war on whistleblowers. The Drake case collapsed in spectacular fashion when the judge found that the information Drake possessed was completely unclassified, and had only been marked otherwise after it was seized from his home.

[...]

Drake lost his job, security clearance, and income stream, while simultaneously incurring half a million dollars in legal debt. And that was just during the investigatory phase. By the time of his indictment, he was declared indigent. Today, he works as a wage-grade employee at an Apple computer store, a far cry from his six-figure job at NSA.

  Salon

Albeit slightly more honorable.

I think this country should have a National Whistleblower's Day of Honor, or even a commemoration of the birthdays of each whistleblower hero who has been persecuted by the government.  We could commemorate the birthdays of each of them (Thomas Drake: April 22; we just missed John Kiriakou Day - August 9), and the mother of all whistleblower birthdays - that of Edward Snowden (June 21) - could be a national holiday.

(PS:  And the perfect day to celebrate William Binney will be the date of his resignation:  October 31:  Trick or Treat - Hallowed Be)