What Edward Snowden has done is an amazingly brave and courageous act of civil disobedience.<\/p>\n
Like me, he became discomforted by [the NSA’s] direct violation of the fourth amendment of the US constitution.<\/p>\n
The NSAprograms that Snowden has revealed are nothing new: they date back to the days and weeks after 9\/11. I had direct exposure to similar programs, such as Stellar Wind, in 2001. In the first week of October, I had an extraordinary conversation with NSA\u2019s lead attorney. When I pressed hard about the unconstitutionality of Stellar Wind, he said:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe White House has approved the program; it\u2019s all legal. NSA is the executive agent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It was made clear to me that the original intent of government was to gain access to all the information it could without regard for constitutional safeguards. \u201cYou don\u2019t understand,\u201d I was told. \u201cWe just need the data.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first week of October 2001, President Bush had signed an extraordinary order authorizing blanket dragnet electronic surveillance<\/a>: Stellar Wind was a highly secret program that, without warrant or any approval from the Fisa court, gave the NSA access to all phone records from the major telephone companies, including US-to-US calls<\/strong>. It correlates precisely with the Verizon order revealed by Snowden<\/strong>; and based on what we know, you have to assume that there are standing orders for the other major telephone companies.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The supposed oversight, combined with enabling legislation \u2014 the Fisa court, the congressional committees \u2014 is all a kabuki dance, predicated on the national security claim that we need to find a threat<\/strong>. The reality is, they just want it all, period.<\/strong><\/p>\n
So I was there at the very nascent stages, when the government \u2014 wilfully and in deepest secrecy \u2014 subverted the constitution. All you need to know about so-called oversight is that the NSA was already in violation of the Patriot Act by the time it was signed into law.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
To the US government today<\/strong>, however, we are all foreigners<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
I became an expert on East Germany, which was then the ultimate surveillance state. Their secret police were monstrously efficient: they had a huge paper-based system that held information on virtually everyone in the country \u2014 a population of about 16-17 million. The Stasi\u2019s motto was \u201cto know everything\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
So none of this is new to me. The difference between what the Bush administration was doing in 2001, right after 9\/11, and what the Obama administration is doing today is that the system is now under the cover and color of law. Yet, what Snowden has revealed<\/a> is still the tip of the iceberg<\/strong>. [Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez – a member of<\/a> the Committee on Homeland Security and the Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities confirms this<\/a>]<\/p>\n
General Michael Hayden<\/a>, who was head of the NSA when I worked there, and then director of the CIA, said, \u201cWe need to own the net<\/strong>.\u201d [Background<\/a>] And that is what they\u2019re implementing here. They have this extraordinary system: in effect, a 24\/7 panopticon on a vast scale that it is gazing at you with an all-seeing eye.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
My concern [while working for the NSA] was that we were more than an accessory; this was a crime and we were subverting the constitution<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
I differed as a whistleblower to Snowden only in this respect: in accordance with the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, I took my concerns up within the chain of command, to the very highest levels at the NSA, and then to Congress and the Department of Defense. I understand why Snowden has taken his course of action, because he\u2019s been following this for years: he\u2019s seen what\u2019s happened to other whistleblowers like me<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
By following protocol, you get flagged \u2014 just for raising issues. You\u2019re identified as someone they don\u2019t like, someone not to be trusted<\/strong>. [Indeed, Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents<\/a> combined. And the government threw in jail the one telecom executive to refuse<\/a> government orders to hand over mass surveillance records on its customers.] I was exposed early on because I was a material witness for two 9\/11 congressional investigations. In closed testimony, I told them everything I knew \u2026.<\/p>\n
But as I found out later, none of the material evidence I disclosed went into the official record. It became a state secret even to give information of this kind to the 9\/11 investigation.<\/p>\n
I reached a point in early 2006 when I decided I would contact a reporter. I had the same level of security clearance as Snowden. If you look at the indictment from 2010, you can see that I was accused of causing \u201cexceptionally grave damage to US national security<\/a>\u201c. Despite allegations that I had tippy-top-secret documents, In fact, I had no classified information in my possession, and I disclosed none to the Baltimore Sun journalist during 2006 and 2007. But I got hammered: in November 2007, I was raided by a dozen armed FBI agents, when I was served with a search warrant. The nightmare had only just begun, including extensive physical and electronic surveillance.<\/p>\n
In April 2008, in a secret meeting with the FBI, the chief prosecutor from the Department of Justice assigned to lead the prosecution said, \u201cHow would you like to spend the rest of your life in jail, Mr Drake?\u201d \u2014 unless I co-operated with their multi-year, multimillion-dollar criminal leak investigation, launched in 2005 after the explosive New York Times article revealing for the first time the warrantless wiretapping operation<\/a>. Two years later, they finally charged me with a ten felony count indictment, including five counts under the Espionage Act. I faced upwards of 35 years in prison.<\/p>\n
In July 2011, after the government\u2019s case had collapsed under the weight of truth, I plead to a minor misdemeanor<\/a> for \u201cexceeding authorized use of a computer\u201d under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act \u2014 in exchange for the DOJ dropping all ten felony counts. I received as a sentence one year\u2019s probation and 240 hours of community service: I interviewed almost 50 veterans for the Library of Congress veterans history project<\/a>. This was a rare, almost unprecedented, case of a government prosecution of a whistleblower ending in total defeat and failure.<\/p>\n
So, the stakes for whistleblowers are incredibly high. The government has got its knives out: there\u2019s a massive manhunt for Snowden. They will use all their resources to hunt him down and every detail of his life will be turned inside out. They\u2019ll do everything they can to \u201cbring him to justice\u201d \u2014 already there are calls for the \u201ctraitor\u201d to be \u201cput away for life\u201d.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Since the government unchained itself from the constitution after 9\/11, it has been eating our democracy alive from the inside out. There\u2019s no room in a democracy for this kind of secrecy: it\u2019s anathema to our form of a constitutional republic, which was born out of the struggle to free ourselves from the abuse of such powers, which led to the American revolution.<\/p>\n
That is what\u2019s at stake here: to an NSA with these unwarranted powers, we\u2019re all potentially guilty; we\u2019re all potential suspects until we prove otherwise. That is what happens when the government has all the data.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
We are seeing an unprecedented campaign against whistleblowers and truth-tellers: it\u2019s now criminal to expose the crimes of the state.<\/p>\n