Thomas drake nsa whistleblower

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This prompted an outraged response from Federal District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett, who called the government’s behavior – charging the defendant with serious crimes that could result in up to thirty-five years in prison, only to renege moments before the trial – “unconscionable.”

In June 2011, Thomas Drake accepted a misdemeanor plea for exceeding authorized use of a government computer.

His trial has not been scheduled.

Also in May 2010, Shamai K. Leibowitz of Silver Spring, Maryland, a 39-year-old Israeli-American who worked on contract for the FBI as a Hebrew linguist, was sentenced to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to leaking classified documents to a blogger.

Last August, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, 43, a senior adviser for intelligence on contract to the State Department, was charged with leaking defense data.

The legislation would have covered workers at airports, at nuclear facilities and in law enforcement, including the FBI. Earlier versions of the bill, backed by the Obama administration, would have included employees of intelligence and national security agencies, but House Republicans, apparently worried about leaks on the scale of the WikiLeaks disclosures, cut those provisions.

Meanwhile, whistleblowers may draw solace from reports this past April that the Justice Department had suspended its investigation of Thomas Tamm, a former department lawyer.

In 2005, he contacted journalist Siobhan Gorman at The Baltimore Sun, and began corresponding with her via encrypted email – though he was careful not to reveal secret or classified information. They received a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting, and the government began investigating the source of the leak. “It’s going to have a chilling effect—sources will be less likely to turn information over to reporters,” she said.

After key rulings on classified evidence went against the prosecutors, they struck a plea agreement: in exchange for Drake’s pleading guilty to one count of exceeding the authorized use of a government computer, they dropped all the original charges and agreed not to call for prison time. The $10,000 award is named for Ron Ridenhour, the Vietnam veteran who in 1969 wrote to Congress, President Richard M.

Nixon and the Pentagon in an attempt to expose the killing of civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai the previous year; the massacre was later brought to light by reporter Seymour Hersh.

“I did not take an oath to support and defend government illegalities, violations of the Constitution or turn a blind eye to massive fraud, waste and abuse,” Drake said in accepting the award, his first public comment on his case.

Drake, who resigned from the NSA under pressure in 2008, has been working in recent months at an Apple computer store outside Washington, D.C., answering questions from customers about iPhones and iPads.

He was to be tried in Baltimore on June 13, but the trial was averted four days earlier. Why has the Obama administration pursued so many leakers?

All presidents abhor leaks.

as an American, I will not live in silence to cover for the government’s sins.”

Strong words, but Drake’s case raises another question. Remember to subscribe on your favorite platform! “If you are a public employee, they can get your e-mail records. The indictment against him included not only five counts of violating the Espionage Act, but also one charge of obstruction of justice and four counts of making false statements to the FBI while he was under investigation.

He met with Diane Roark, a Republican staffer on the House Intelligence Committee of the U.S. Congress. “I knew he could lose his job.”

In any case, Drake contacted Gorman, and they subsequently exchanged encrypted e-mails, according to the indictment. Although the indictment did not spell out any details, news media reported that Kim had provided information to Fox News, which aired a story saying the CIA had warned that North Korea would respond to U.N.

sanctions with another nuclear weapons test. With the secret authorization of President George W. Bush, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the NSA director, initiated a program of intercepting international phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States without a warrant to do so. Repeated efforts to pass a stronger law failed this past December when a single senator anonymously placed a “hold” on the bill.