How to trap a whistleblower

[Luminous Animal]

Tell them that going through "proper channels" will provide meaningful redress to their concerns, not injure them

Last week, President Obama misled the public when he told a comedian Jay Leno that protected legal channels exist that Edward Snowden could have used to challenge government misconduct:

I can tell you that there are ways, if you think that the government is abusing a program, of coming forward. In fact, I, through Executive Order, signed whistleblower protection for intelligence officers or people who are involved in the intelligence industry.

This message is false. And the President repeated it at his press conference a few days later. Obama is referring to Presidential Policy Directive #19. If the President had bothered to read his own Executive Order, he would have known that it was not implemented at all when Snowden blew the whistle on the National Security Agency. Further, it fails to provide protected legal channels to contractor positions such as Snowden’s.


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.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/16/how_to_trap_a_whistleblower/

[LearningCurve]

1. Thanks for this

I feel the urge to bookmark it, it might come in handy in future discussions.

[Luminous Animal]

2. You might like to check out Drake's wikipedia entry

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][22] He became part of the "minority" that favored ThinThread for several reasons,[22] including its theoretical ability to protect privacy while gathering intelligence.[15] Trailblazer, on the other hand, not only violated privacy, in violation of the Fourth Amendment[citation needed], and other laws and regulations, it also required billions of dollars, dwarfing the cost of ThinThread. Drake eventually became "disillusioned, then indignant" regarding the problems he saw at the agency.[15] Circa 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.[22] 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 S. 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).[22] 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.[21] 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 all three men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

[WillyT]

3. K & R !!! - Thank You For That !!!

[midnight]

4. K&R

[uponit7771]

5. So every male person of color should run from the US justice system because, using the same logic...

...and some facts to back it up, we don't have a chance in fuckin hell for a fair trial and we should run away to a place that treats people even worse?

Nah, Snowden is a fuck up...self serving ass'd fuck up.

Glad Obama can further his discussion on the privacy issues but after seeing SnowGlen on the conservatives channels and them wanting to squeeze their cute wittle cheeks I'm starting not to trust a nit of this crap.


Seems coordinated, out of proportion (relative to what GOP is doing with the 15a) and misplaced to say the least

[NuclearDem]

6. And when, sans Snowden, was that conversation going to happen?

Since this whole thing Snowden revealed is just "old news", why didn't the administration bring it up in the 4.5 years since being sworn in?

[uponit7771]

7. What SnowGlen "leaked" was old news the lies they're telling are new. Didn't Obama bring the issue u

...up a month before SnowGlens leaks?

Regards