S2E18 Whistleblower's Roundtable with Tom Drake

"Juders today dropped nearly all of the charges against Thomas Drake, the former US intelligence official who walked out of the Baltimore Courthouse today, had been charged under the S.V. Anaj Act with mishandling sensitive information. It's a high-profile failure for the Justice Department, which is cracking down on government leaks.

Prosecutors claimed that Drake had betrayed his country, but in his only television interview

“on 60 minutes, Drake told us the only thing he betrayed was a gigantic waste of taxpayer”

money. I'm John Kiryaku, and this is Dead Draw. What makes a spy tick? With this episode, we're bringing season 2 to a close. Not to worry though, season 3 is starting immediately, as in with the very next episode.

The way that we're putting a bow on season 2 is with an episode that previews an important part of what season 3 of the podcast is going to focus on. For starters, my story will pick up with both my re-entry to my life, and as it would turn out my re-entry to the world of spies and spying.

If ever it became clear to me that once a spy always a spy was, at least sometimes true,

it was at this point in my life. It might be the closest thing I have to a superpower. Funny thing? I was about to learn that the same applies to being a whistleblower. Once you've seen how the rail-polyteic sausage gets made, you can't unsee it, or unknow it.

Something inside of you who suddenly seems attuned to the corruption. It's not unlike a familiar but deeply unpleasant smell that the back of your throat just knows.

“As clubs go, and being a whistleblower isn't unlike being in a club, I can honestly say”

that I'm honored to share this space with so many remarkable, courageous people, but I doubt there's a one of us who really wants to be here in this club. To begin with, it means there was something super rotten in the state of Denmark that demanded attention. Then, once you've picked up the whistle and considered putting it to your lips, you have

to know that it will mean putting your family, your finances, and your future through all kinds of painful generations that neither your family nor your finances nor your future were ever meant to handle. But there's that damn compulsion inside of you to just do the right thing. Yes, we make a choice to blow the whistle, and yet in a very profound way, we don't.

We can't. Because doing the right thing isn't a choice, it's an obligation, it's a responsibility, a way of thinking. And so, we blow the whistle.

“Hell, anyone with access to the same information could do the exact same thing.”

They should, yet they don't. It's really what we want to explore, with the series of roundtables we're going to have over the course of season three. While we continue to explore what makes spice tick, we'll also now ask the question, "What makes whistleblowers tick?"

To kick us off is one of the members of the Mount Rushmore of whistleblowers, former NSA executive Tom Drake, Tom Blue the whistle on the NSA's Trailblazer project, which at an astronomical cost violated the NSA's charter and the law by spying on Americans. In the early 2000s, NSA was developing two electronic tools capable of collecting intelligence from the growing flood of information pouring from new digital networks like the internet.

The first was called "Bin Thread."

Thin Thread was put through rigorous testing in 1998, and it performed each task well. It sorted through massive amounts of data and it located threat-related communications with far more success than the existing system. It used more sophisticated methods of sorting through massive phone and email data to identify suspect communications.

It identified U.S. phone numbers and other communications data and encrypted them to ensure color privacy, and it used an automated auditing system to monitor how analysts handled the information that prevented misuse and it improved efficiency. Thin Thread was hands down the way to go.

Well, the second tool was the aforementioned Trailblazer, which cost billions of dollars

dwarfing the cost of Thin Thread, not that the wild costs really mattered. Trailblazer had political support because it was initiated by NSA head Michael Hayden,

That apparently was worth everything. Enter Tom Drake.

Although he had worked as a contractor for NSA for a few years before NSA finally hired

him, Tom was delighted to go to work as a full-on staff employee of the agency, and indeed he entered NSA as part of the Senior Executive Service. The last Tom's first day of work was 9/11, 2001, the day that changed everything. Thin Thread had been discontinued three weeks before 9/11, and Trailblazer had been given the green light, but as he got down to work at NSA, Tom witnessed the abuses and illegality

piling up and he felt compelled to act, which he did via the prescribed legal channels and institutional processes. But nearly a decade into the prescribed process, with all the illegality continuing throughout, Tom saw clearly that nothing was going to change unless someone with deep knowledge personally took action to change things.

No one ever said doing the right thing was easy. There's a reason. It's hard. But once you've been compelled to do the right thing, not doing the right thing simply stops being an option, Tom and I recorded this conversation in the lead up to the 25th anniversary

of the 9/11 attacks.

Although it wasn't exactly what I wanted to talk about with Tom, 9/11 will always be the

gorilla in every room it's in. So that's where our conversation began. It's crazy to think that 25 years have passed, but then when you think about 25 years having passed, he also realized we're talking about an entire generation plus that came after 9/11, that didn't live through it.

No.

“And I think that's why it's incumbent upon us to keep telling the story, because we know that”

the official narrative is nonsensical. I'm not talking about controlled demolitions and dancing is really, I'm talking about the fact that we should have seen it coming, we should have defended against it. We knew it was going to happen. The entire system was broken.

The FBI and the CIA hated each other. You had Richard Clark and George Tenant screaming from the rooftops that it was going to happen. You had the White House slapping them down and saying, no, the real threat is China. It's not these Arabs with no shoes and in fact, it was the Arabs with no shoes.

I wonder after 25 years, if we've learned our lessons, and I fear that we haven't. Well, the problem was we didn't learn the lessons then because it was looked forward or not backwards.

And then it was used as what I call the first false flag.

“It triggered all kinds of secret, secret executive actions that we both got caught up”

in and became whistleblowers against, I mean, you call it up the mirror. The torture regime and for me, even though I became aware of the torture regime, which actually came out before, then even deeper deep state secret, which was mass domestic surveillance. Yeah, mass domestic surveillance. But all triggered by 9/11, right, you just, that became the excuse.

And of course, Cheney five days after 9/11 said, we're going to go to the dark side. You had former CIA executives over Black saying, we're going to take the gloves off. It was pretty clear that this was now, hey, we have our excuse. We can now restore the imperial presidency and now we can do all kinds of things that we really couldn't do before, but we got our excuse.

But that was a failure. A fundamental failure to keep so many people out of farms. Why? And then look what it led to. For me, it became the first order of fact.

That's what you see on TV. But then there's a second, third order of facts. And this was all we ever excused out. We can actually go back into it, Iraq. Oh, what?

Before, right, that was the first scene they were thinking of right after that.

“I remember the intelligence pretty things.”

People at Arab linguists and I work as I used to be a crypto linguist during a cold war. Yep. And it tells and solves her in the evening after the end of the cold war on the terrorism desk of all things at the Pentagon as so it's those of facts we are still paying a incredibly high price.

So with that, any question on the geopolitical stage, and there's also the curiosity, I've really talked to you at length about this in a while, but given the looming anniversary, right? Yeah. And what I still is the shadows of 9/11, which really go deep.

Oh, yeah.

“The lawyers, some of the lawyers involved in this decision making, Cheney is dead, wolves”

he is dead. And there's just so many of them who are involved, John Rizzo, the CIA general counsel. He's dead, Jim Pavett, the deputy director of the CIA, at the time is dead. But their legacy, this hideous legacy that they left is alive and well, and we see it in the intelligence budget, we see it in the defense budget, we see it in the fact that Americans

are not in the streets when we say we want to begin wars of choice.

But before we get into all that time, one of the things about your story that has always

just fascinated me in a headshaking kind of way is you're very first day at NSA as a senior executive was 9/11, and it started it, I mean, just as the work they began, the first

“plane hit, what in the world was that like, you haven't even probably chosen a test”

chair yet and 9/11 happened, this was interesting, I was an outside hire, even though I had been a contractor there for quite a while, and of course I had my previous intelligence background, which was quite extensive, both in the military, both Air Force Navy, and then I was actually supporting the CIA, the J2 in the Alert Center, the National Military Joint Intelligence Center, and I walked in that day just to give you a little sort of with

some trepidation, here's why, guess where I was sitting, what desk I was sitting on in 1993 in the Alert Center, the Pentagon, and it probably doesn't even exist anymore, it was vapor, I don't know that, but I was on the terrorism desk, which in itself was a backwater desk, even there, because obviously you had all the military components, you had CIA, you had state, obviously there's all this sort of supporting agencies as well, and of

course, terrorism is we well, no, asymmetrical warfare, I have been going off for quite a while, especially if you go back for years with all the hijackies, I expressed an interest in counterterrorism in the early 1990s, and I was told in plain English, that is a career ending move, and then by 1997, I said, no, you know what, I'm really interested in terrorism, I really want to do this, and my boss pulled me inside, he said, Middle East definitely,

tradecraft, you can go into tradecraft, definitely, but terrorism, you're never going

to get promoted again, I said, you know what, I have 20 years, 25 years ahead of me, I'm going to go into counterterrorism, and I did, and it was fun and rewarding, and then 9/11 happened, and all of a sudden it wasn't to backwater, and they would do it, yep, I was a rich on the, because of my NSA, background, well, military, retired NSA, they put me on the electronic intelligence desk, but they realized obviously had other skill sets, and

so I actually ended up on the terrorism desk, on watch, which rotating watch, I was actually an individual ready reserve, but as a commissioned officer, so I was fully integrated, would not just the desk, but the alert center schedule as well, and sometimes we do extra shifts, sometimes someone got called out, I would, I would just put on a uniform and go

“down in the panic on, well, remember when they tried to drop the world trade center towers”

of first time, 1993, they sure did.

I was there on that desk, that was February, I was there, we were sending out reports, and it turns out, and there were subsequent studies, if they had positioned the trucks with a bomb just a little bit differently, they may have succeeded in what their terrible plan was, which was to basically tip one of the towers over and drop it onto the other. Yes.

As it turns out, it almost succeeded about half a dozen people actually died, and others of a thousand were injured, people don't remember this, almost a thousand were injured, even quite seriously. We were sending out reports. This is what I walked in with on my first day at NSA on 9/11, 2001. We were sending out reports. We were using at the time very sophisticated technology, but we had access to all kinds of intelligence, lots of it compartmented,

and of course, for obviously specialized compartments as well, depending on the source,

I remember I was literally on watch just after this happened. The J2, these senior military

“intelligence officer at the time of two star, comes down into our spaces, makes his way”

over to the alert desk, the main desk, right? Usually it was an '05, I mean, '06, but an '05 could fill in. It was a military position. It was rare that a civilian, even though we had civilian intelligence officers, would actually fill it, given that it's the Pentagon. He's saying, "Yeah, yeah, I read all the reports." He said, "And he's shaking his head, I'm sitting there by mouth as just onto the floor, just like I'm arrested because the next

is what he then says it came out of his mouth." Who cares? There's always a direct quote.

Who cares about some raghead, spouting off thought was in the desert, underneath a fig tree. Who cares? Wow. We are reports. We're saying they're coming back. This is what they've initiated spectacular attacks. They get the attention of the entire world. They're coming back, and we even made reference to the use of airplanes as weapons. You're saying? All in the world. I talk about the motion truck, eight, a half years prior,

“it's a night 11. I talk about the Maginca plot a lot, because most people don't remember”

the Maginca plot. No. The Maginca plot was supposed to be hatched from Manila. It was conceived by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom we knew only as Muhtar. The idea was to hijack 14 Boeing 747s and to fly them into buildings all the way up and down the west coast of the United States. The plot was foiled by accident when a cleaning lady stumbled on the plans as they were laid out on KSM's dining room table. He was out getting lunch, and she called the police and the police

called the Philippines Intelligence Service. They called the CIA. KSM went on the run and there was no budget to plot. But that confirmed what you just said, that Al Qaeda intended to use aircraft, weapons, and we still didn't pay attention. Still then, and then we then all the other subsequent attacks took place. Kibar towers. Yeah. Tanzania Kenya, the nightclub USS Cole. Yeah. Absolutely true.

So you are in NSA on your very first day. It happens to be 9/11 and then the first plane hits.

And then I was actually in the, I was in, I was actually in the Legislative Affairs office. Oh, well, please. He's actually been hired in from the outside as well, because NSA realized at a problem with their overseers. It was a, it become a huge problem. They really didn't like it to be overseen. Yeah. It just came out there in the 70s. What I was a very young teenager. And that was my own civic awakening, realizing you've got to go and wait off the rails, vitally in the fourth amendment,

engaging in state sponsored assassination CIA. And of course, that led to a number of reforms, just given the, all the exposures and revelations. Right. Church committee, pipe committee, and a number of others, including the Ford and tell the surveillance act of 1978. And under Ford, you couldn't do state sponsored assassination. Right. Let ops quite unquote. That level was supposed to not occur anymore, because all the trouble we got ourselves into.

Yeah. As you well know the history, sort of the darker side history. Now, if that's, I didn't

the CIA. So I walked in that first day and, and the arrangement was, I would spend about a month

with the number three at NSA, the signals intelligence director. I reported directly to her. Wow. And I was brought in. Guess what my title was. This is so, it's so surreal.

Seeing her change later. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Because that is, say, all these, all these studies have been conducted. I mean, we're talking really high level studies. Well, internally and externally, say, and a saying was way behind the times,

will flee an adequate for the demands of the 21st century.

“You need to bring it outside of the hires.”

You need to shift all your legacy thinking. You've got to make the future because you're growing a crazy rule of it. And you're driving in all the, and all the data. Drowning. I'm quite drowning.

So the range of wise, I would go around just to get a fetal, because I was also

“going to be serving a sort of a de facto communications officer to get a feel for what”

her responsibilities were, what things we could like, where are sort of the edges, the interfaces, where are the fault lines, where are the issues, where are the challenges, how can we meet them? And we're also coming from a very technical background as well, although I've done a lot of management and technology consulting during my go-go times out, it's still developing

elsewhere in the 90s and the early odds. So I walk in at O'Dork 30, which O'Dork 30, I realize there's a movie that was in dark 30.

In the case, it was, oh, it's far, far, far and far ahead, just that the sun was coming

“up on that faithful day, making my way down Route 32 in our, in Howard County.”

I pull in to my designated, I've been designated, given a designated, because you see, I know what's CIS at the, but I was the DIC's Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service. And then I say, I pull into my spot. I walk into their old headquarters building, and I showed up in her place, a place on for NSA, this old school, wooded wood paneled office, quite large, expansive desk city

area, a mini conference corner, all that. My calendar became her calendar except for the very pop deck, which was the top tier, we're talking about half dozen at the very, very top, I was part of what they considered the top 40, at NSA, and other of those who provides her East Counseling sessions. So we were at the, we realized later, fairs office, and she was trying to convince a CISC,

the Senate Intelligence Committee, tag team, a technical advisory group team, why, and what, what the country would get for the billions and billions that have been programmed for the trailblazer program, they're having great difficulty explaining what would the nation get in terms of national security for all the many, many of billions, they're already programmed at that point in time, again, prior to 9/11, well, this is on 9/11, of course.

So I'm sitting there, and she's, she was considered to be sort of the voice of NSA, she was usually wheeled in, even though most people in a, say, were highly introverted. The joke was, you can tell the difference, she's introverted, extraverted and say, if they're looking at their own shoes, right, they're introverted. So looking at your shoes, they're extroverted. Yeah, so it was one of those jokes. Well, her executive assistant, who

I know, before in a prior capacity was a contractor, when she was also in the technical space, opens up the door, says one of the towers had been hit by their plane. And I learned

“it right away. Because of what I came, that, remember when we just shared, oh, Hinkah,”

all this, it's like, yeah, my time and down at the Pentagon, I said, oh, is this what I had feared all along, a landmark building spectacularly at bark and the plane's crashing

into it. And you, the first, that's the first thing, but then it's like, oh, yeah, I remember

there were some 25 bomber that hit the, the Empire State building, that was back in 1945, cause a lot of damage. And as a side note, the actual design, the architectural design of the twin towers that both in North and South are different than the Empire State building, are different. Yeah, it was a big lot. Yeah, that's correct. And it was very open and it had basically, you know, it was, it had

the base of the columns that extended all the above four of them. That was the primary means by which it was spectacular design. There's no question about that. Of course, it dominated in for a number of years, it was considered that he told building buildings plural in the world. Not too long after, without going any other, all of a sudden, the door opens again. The other towers hit, I, I knew we were under attack. I literally stood up, set out

while, and everybody was thinking, but hadn't said, America is under attack. Next four months are a Blair John, because sure we went into crisis response. And I didn't even come to until, you know, like in terms of feeling even half human again. I mean, just 16, 18 hour days, are they getting any sleep every day? I used to sleep under my desk. I would just ball up in my jacket and use it as a pillow and sleep under the desk. Sleep two hours

for, so you call it the end of the day, they kept referring to the work force. That's how

basically the seniors, the high level managers would refer to the people that did the

real work, was the workforce. They knew we had failed in the nation. They knew we had fundamentally failed to keep people out of harm's way, which was the prime directive. Well,

“there was also another prime directive, which was, you can't, I remember, you as persons”

corporations, legal residents, legal residents, legal residents, legal residents, aliens, visitors, without a warrant, or the amendment constitution, fundamental to how America was even came about 250 years ago and now, and then, of course, the constitution 12 years later, to formalize all that, what was then unleashed, though, is what I had to quickly confront. Yeah, it was clear because the failure was used as an excuse to not just claw back executive power, but under

the cover of mass security and using 9/11, the failure as an excuse, we're going to start doing all kinds of things that would, would normally not be permitted, or we would have to get permission, or we'd have to pass special legislation. All that would just, all those guardrails, the guardrails that existed that morning when I walked in just disappeared. I've heard you tell the story where you say that the hair on the back of your next stood up because you recognized immediately what path

NSA and the larger intelligence community were going to take, and it was not the path of respect for the rule of law. No, rule of law is in the way, constitution is the way. I had several moments

of truth, but the primary one was not, it was basically barely three weeks, it's three weeks after

9/11. I already knew that they were starting to shift technology, IT systems, onto domestic networks, to just, and they were, I'll just say this quietly, allowed, that they were leveraging their special relationships with certain telecommunication concerns that they had existed for quite a while that became greatly expanded after 9/11. Some of them went back decades and to get into executive orders and whole lot of other things. And then whispers, because I was very well connected, whispers

as I admit, because I was also responsible for putting the very best event of America at NSA and at the fight. So I was being introduced all kinds of basic skunk works, projects that weren't part of what they called a production chain, meaning they weren't operational, but they were either had demonstrated themselves as a demonstration platform, they were a pilot or a testbed. And I

“remember CIA director George Tettett and issued a memo, this is before the big huge re-org,”

to the entire intelligence, and you say, hey, whatever you got, I don't care, we need it, put it into the fight. We don't know where the next stack's coming from. Whatever. So that was part of my tasking. Yeah. And so I was going around campus while the whispers were they were engaging in just simply breaking the fourth amendment. Yeah. And I'm saying, oh my gosh, the impact, the downstream, we don't even know yet what that's going to mean. We down in hours,

we're seeing it's all normalized. But then this was, but the excuse was the failure, the excuse was we need ability unfettered, no restrictions. It didn't matter what rights existed, didn't matter what a piece of paper, what it said, written on a parchment, that matter. So the

answer question directly, I confronted the number three. She said, she was the singer, the second

director, she emerged. She, I, very conflicted person, as it turns out, she didn't want to acknowledge what I knew she knew. Okay. That we've gone off the rails and it was going to come back to bite us, the whole thing called blowback, right? Yes, indeed. And I get us right away, but it's going to

“catch up with us on point. And for this kind of deep state secret, there was going to be a point,”

just like there was with the torture regime. It wasn't got a remain secret. Okay. So she said, and I realized that she was aiming to sort of handing it off, right? Go talk to general counsel,

the mass surveillance was so secret. It was authorized by the president and that the authorization

was a memo kept in David Addington, says, yes, gay, and he was basically the lawyer, chief of staff,

he was basically the chief. Well, he was basically his counselor, right? He was, yep, but he was innately involved in, hey, what else can we do? Well, yeah, we can take the constitution throughout out the window and John Hughes involved and, you know, others, but it was a very small set, a small cabal as I will call it, who were engaged in a conspiracy, she was a cool against

“a constitution of being very direct here, because that's what it was. All unnecessary, all the tools”

that necessary existed, we didn't have to draw the line way over to the side of security, because guess what, Franklin was right, you're going to sacrifice both of liberty and security. So I confronted him. I said, what are we doing violating the Fourth Amendment? What are we doing engaging it on, and this is more or less, yes, surveillance. He said, you don't understand as to drape. This is all bit approved by the White House, where the executive agent, it's legal,

and as soon as he said legal, the hair went up in the back of my head, because guess where I was thrown back to, as a very young teenager, Nixon administration, I remember the famous interview, a cult got three years after he resigned, the David Frost interview, David Frost, the Frost Exchange interviews when they came right to the point that last interview, and it's legal if the president says so, really, it's not illegal if the president says what? This was known simple,

“creep, problem breaking into the water gate, it wasn't the robes, CIA, and ours, all that, right?”

I'd fall that, because it unfolded over a couple of years, it led to the resignation of a president. This was far more consequential, way more consequential. I knew when I hung up the phone, and he said, don't ask any more questions. There was clearly a more than tacit threat, because he's recognized, this guy's asking questions, not only do we don't want the mass, we're not going to answer him. In that moment, I know,

in fact, I was already basically tagged by my supervisor, the number three,

simply by asking the question and say, what are we doing? We're violating the constitution of all the things. And that makes you a malcontent. Your guy that's just not going to do as he's told, you're not going to play by the rules. And you said something a minute ago that I want to reiterate, you go to the general council. In fact, you really couldn't go to the general council, because the general council is in on it. I had exactly the same experience. My general council,

CIA, was one of the architects of the torture program, one of the ones that worked with John Ew and Jay-Biby at the Justice Department to justify the torture program. So I went to the media, you played by the rules, and you went to the Pentagon, and then to the oversight committees. I went to every single, I went to every channel, all the formal disclosure channels in entirely. Yes. And the designated channels, whistleblower channels, in my case, there was actually two.

The first one was under the Intelligence Committee, Whistleblower Protection Act.

Even though there were special constraints, depending on which agency you belong to, this came out in 1998, because it realized that one that had been designed earlier, the regular whistleblower, because that was insufficient, did not cover the intelligence community. Even though there was these other restrictions, I at that time had the authority under the law, passed by Congress signed in the law. By the president,

I could go to the designated intelligence oversight committees. I could go to an individual Congressperson. I could go to an individual staffer, or there was another, there was actually another way to go directly to the committee.

“And at that time, it's important to say this, or they changed it later,”

you did not have to get clearance from your home agency first. You could go directly.

in terms of the day-to-day account. They called it the staffers would have their accounts.

“They were basically considered the experts. They were typically senior GS15 level as what they were,”

but the Congressional payroll. They were the ones that were the directly yeas on and interface to the agencies in which they would have relationships for oversight purposes. Not too long after I was pulled side by the number three and said, "Oh, they're looking for leakers." That's the press. They're looking for leakers to Congress. Even said, "Oh, we're in at one point." Because a war room, the war room wasn't a bad actarism and real asymmetric

that's, it was Congress was considered to be the threat. Oh my gosh, we don't want them to know what we're doing. Obviously, they had to hide what they were violating at the violation of the law. They had to hover it up and actually the cover up became far more extensive as it turns out, but it's where the Congress worsens the crime in many cases and we go back again to the Watergate era. So this, I mean, it's not interesting to parallel with your experience because I knew

after I left that conversation with the General Council, one of the few red in red had its own compartment at the time it was known to still or win. It was referred to later as the president surveillance program, although when it first, when it came out for when I had almost four years

three months later, oh, it's the terrorist surveillance program. Well, that was, we always had

free reign when it came both first. It was like you're restricted. You still had the fourth amount of restrictions, but you certainly didn't have any restrictions when it came to a foreign intelligence. Okay. Yeah. It's when it applied to U.S. persons. And so I would, there was a male

“office. I remember it's still to this day, this early October. And I did know about the memo”

already knew that they had all of this. He was authorized. I didn't know what the memo. He was confirming when I had already discovered organically. If you're enjoying dead drop and of course, we hope you are, then while you're waiting for new episodes, I'd like to suggest another great granular story podcast from the cost-art and touched-owned family. Just the photographer with David Swanson does for photojournalism what dead drop does for spies. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist

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I knew I faced this is my moment of truth. Would I remain silent and act like I never heard

what he told me? Foundered it momentarily, moment of truth and said, "You know what? I'm eyewitness to the subversion of the constitution from inside an incredibly secret agency and if I don't do something, guess what? I'm complicit with the crime. I took an oath. I take a bit of the number of times in my extended government career, Air Force twice, CIA, to the edited, and maybe, and then the final time was the fifth time as a senior executive

“entering service at NSA. I knew I could not violate the oath and that's what led to me going”

to all the channels. But of course, those channels, let's get real here. Let's be completely honest. Do you just mention the counsel itself? The fact that he had been raised in with the supervisor. Oh, remember, I'm an outside hire. I didn't come up within the ranks. I wasn't elevated as they say. Sort of a lofty level of executive level. The supergrazes that used to call them.

guy. And that's a whole story in itself. How far they went to get rid of me over six and a half year period. So going to the general council, obviously, that's red alert. It's like, you put a target on your own back. Oh, yeah, I put it up. But that was a choice I made. I own it. Oh, sorry. I'm fully, I owned it. I didn't have to do that. I could just play the game. Did my job, quote, unquote, did my job followed honors. Yeah.

And retired and made tons of money. And that's a whole lot of the story in itself. How much money I could have made. But there's a lot more life than just acquisition as a friend, even. It's

“that it's hard to. In gold, gold, press Latin. Okay. Like somehow, it's it's never enough, right?”

It's just you can't get enough. Okay. Oh, okay. So that's when I became a whistleblower because

I, but I also knew I was going to play by the rules and I also knew and you did was the third rail.

There was a third rail. I knew this or Millsburg growing up as a even younger teenager when he went to the press after he went through the channels that existed then. There's a problem. All the channels that I ultimately exercise, all of them for exposure channels. And guess what? Unfortunately, there's people within the oversight committees that had already been co-opted. Yes. And at the Pentagon in your case. Yes. Well, that was the DOT level. Yeah. You went to the Inspector General

and the Inspector General turned on you. Yeah, that is an extraordinary story as how far they went. And it actually came to a head during the pre-trial proceedings, extended pre-trial proceedings when the government ultimately charged me for daring expose. And that's really why they came after me. It really ticked them off. It wasn't I did ultimately go to the press with a class of information that they used as the excusing cover. What they were really ticked off about was the fact

that I'd expose the mass domestic surveillance program. That was really, they were ticked off of that. Yeah. So you had, you had a bunch of colleagues that were sucked into this as well. But like still Benny and Kirk Webe. Yes. And others, can you tell us about how you ended up

“working with them, partnering with them, and what's been to to all of you collectively?”

Yeah, the very best sort of America. You know, they really are. Necessity is the mother of invention. He goes back to the early days of the industrial

it. You got a problem. Let's fix it. You got an issue. Let's take it on. It was always against the

backdrop that we especially at a secret agency. We owed the very best of who we were in America to provide for the combat offense as designated as one of the two primary responsibilities the government in the preemble of the constitution. The other one's promote the general welfare. Which sort of days forget about that. That's the people side where I got to take care of the people. It's well citizens. But there's also the side and it's defense, right? The combat offense.

It's not common offense. It's common defense. I mean, I used to play in sports as always like

“the best offense. It's a good defense. I think sort of forgot about all that.”

So I had known about them for my technical background and they were actually one of the first, it was the signals, the signals intelligence analysis research center. Again, a skunk works. Sort of like the SR-71, Kelly Johnson. I was very familiar with that for my Air Force days. And a lot of breakthroughs in the '50s and '60s, even in the '70s, sort of the foundation of the modern military that we basically just kept living off, living off of, for quite a while.

Right? F-15. I mean, there's just really, of course, then you get in the corruption in the military industrial complex. I said, "Is that awareness about?" But there are one of a number of

these very small backwater, non-operational attempts to solve the most critical

challenge problems faced by not just NSA, but also faced by the intelligence community at large. And this was particularly critical because of the digital age, the extraordinary expansion explosion of internet. And they had taken on the biggest challenge problem. One of the biggest challenge, there was these top five. Every year, they would come out, publish their top five challenge problems. One of them was big data. How do we deal with the extraordinary amounts of data?

People forget the analog era. It was basically hard boxes, hard targets, and you had these

as you weld up a chop, you put two, you put two, you put in, and per his guises and forms.

“And then you have maps and all the different covers, okay, without going to detail, all the”

different covers. I met some of them when I was in the bubble. Which was fascinating during some of our assemblies, right? It was like the one place where they could say, "Oh yeah, we're married to each other, but you can't even recognize us when we leave outside the bubble." Not even in the loads of the CIA. Yeah, look, that's right. I had a totally different persona. I mean, I've been watching the agency by the way. I don't know if you've seen the series. It's kind of remarkable. It's

yeah, I had bring back memories of certain things. I used to help train people like what you ended up doing, we were actually sort of, you had a chance when I was going through my own training,

you could augment, you get extra pay for it, of course, because like, extra duty, never mind.

You get in the sign of the paramilitary unit at the CIA, if you wanted to, we actually helped train the operatives. It was fascinating. Dead drops and out of the right, you know, people try to track you all that. So nice. So yeah. So all of a sudden, there's this amusing air quotes here, leak investigation. In fact, nothing has been leaked. It's been, a crime has been reported to the appropriate oversight committees New York Times article New York Times. Take us from there.

I know there was, I never went to the press before I did go to the press, and it was not prior to the revelations, which is the tip of the iceberg. They acknowledged later that they had

12, 12 sources. I was not a source. Never was a source. That was an earthquake.

Underneath the entire intelligence community, but in particular, MSA. Because because it turned out while they're focused on Tom Drake, there were a lot of other people who objected to this thing. Correct. And other parts of the government as well. Right. And I, you know, it's, well, that's a whole story to sell because I ended up as, you know, in my capacity, I had a lot of liaison liaison. I did after 9/11, especially when I became a trouble maker.

And I romantly enough, they would send me on these missions. Some of my volunteer form, because it was

“sort of out of sight out of mind. They didn't really want me involved in an effective, right?”

But because I was a senior executive as reporting to the number three, they couldn't just get rid of me. I would be too obvious, like for me. So, inch enough, I had he sent to the school to have to sign it 101 for new recruits. I would be sent to the CIA to talk about new ways, even innovative, even non-linear methods for predicting the future. And the challenges we would face going forward into the 21st century, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. And all the questions that were being

raised, never mind the investigations that were being launched, those part of my tasking.

But you were asking me, because I want to, I got to close a loop on what you had asked me before that. But yeah, I just wanted to ask you all of the sudden and excuse the terminology, the links, the links, and then the shit hit the fan. And then I just skipped over. Yeah, I skipped over a whole bunch of stuff as well. This is what you don't know how I can build and had Luminus and Diane Rohr, who is my primary, not the only one. I don't talk about the other, but it was my

primary contact under the, under the, uh, intelligence treaty was the Lower Protection Act. So I had, I had dropped in thread was what the program, this breakthrough program. It met the

“key challenge problem. But it was a three, a little over three million dollar program,”

but they are not engaged by an exchange. But it was a breakthrough solution. It worked out about a dozen people focused, skunk works. We're going to solve this problem. And they did during a three-year period. They solved the big data problem. While ensuring we were always compliant with the fourth amendment of the Constitution and still find the real, the real threats. Now I've got to file everything up into one haystack or multiple haystacks and treat every

straws in needle, find the real needles in the haystack. So when the New York Times article was published I mean, it just, it was earthquake. I knew because so few people have been read into it. It extraordinarily compartmented program. We're talking one of the most compartmented of compartmented programs that I've been involved in a number of them, not just at NSA, not just at CIA,

that euphemism, I'd also been involved in a lot of military ops where it was SAR sap. So special

“access required, only the people that were briefed in were read in, were new about it, or the details.”

This one was unbelievable because it was the president was authorizing it. It was his impromotor on the program in NSA with the executive agent. I knew I would get picked up. I knew that picked up, meaning I would be immediately put on a very, very short list. And there was a series that came out some years ago called personally adventurous. I knew that I would become a person of interest, but more than that I'd become a target because so a few people have been read into the program.

Are any of our needs? I was never read into the program. But I had people that were

obviously protected all these years for obvious reasons, who were in my two and fro about NSA,

“who would share a whisper certain things to me. And things I found out technically that made”

it crystal clear because people were, like you said, there were people, even if they weren't going to become whistleblowers, we're asking questions about what are we doing time. This is not who we are. And then when did this all fall on your head? Well, massive national security investigation two weeks after and at the very end of December, multi-million dollar 25 full-time FBI agents, five full-time prosecutors from the DOJ, and they drew people

because I ended up having to deal with them. They took the best to the best at FBI, the ones that are specially trained, and you'll get a kick out of this job. I don't know if I didn't ever share the details about this one. They actually pulled quite a few of them from their mole hunter unit. Oh, my god. The specialized unit at the FBI that literally is trained to go after real spies like Aldrich Ains' type spies, traders. And others, yes. Wow. Wow. They took them.

“They mocked off their real investigators looking for real traders. I think that's focused on you.”

Yes, because I became a designated targeted enemy at the state. And so there was a massively investigation. They started doing, and again, a lot of details here that I wouldn't go into, both extraordinary electronics or valence of a whole story in itself. I could write half a book about it. And later, physical surveillance. They even bragged about it when they, so I'd all culminated in a raid of Diane Roark and Bill Benny and Kirkwebian Ed Loomis in late July of 2007.

Bill and Kirk came to me shortly thereafter. You're said, Tom, they're asking all kinds of questions about you. You're next. Turns out I was the last one that we know of because I had had the bull's eye on me. They considered me the ringleader. So guess what? Late November. I'm getting ready. I was teaching at the National Defense University. This is part of, we eventually, they eventually,

I got later, they finally got, they were able to find a way to pull all my teams, enterprise

teams, all the money, all the products out for an enemy. And all I was left with is an office and a desk and a computer and a flag. So I knocked out the National Defense University on teaching information, technology, strategic leadership. And I was getting ready to go down to Fort McNair, where the campus is located. Beautiful. That's a beautiful location. And I look out the Petram window and there's a dozen FBI agents streaming across the front lawn.

And, you know, that's when the nightmare began. So I was interviewed. I, I knew people said, you're not even. You're stupid. You're doing your, I was read my Miranda rights, but I decided to cooperate. Why? I wanted to continue reporting. I crimes and misdemeanors is defined by the constitution, also an including decisions made at the very highest levels of government, including the president. They don't want to hear that. So we're not here to hear that.

They were following orders. So I cooperate with them over three separate interviews

“and till it was obvious in the third one, when I'm down in the mole-hunter unit”

in their conference room at the DC field office, the FBI field office,

where I was confronted for the first time and they played bad cop, good cop.

I was confronted in the bad cop was the chief prosecutor. It was cough get asked. This room had no windows, but it's just cough gas. So that was an April 2008, a resign from NSA, because they had already suspended my clearance, moved there, moving to permanently revoke it. I already at that point, I had hired a criminal attorney who I spent many, many tens of thousands of dollars, and of course went into much, much more debt after that because of what happened.

And then multiple attempts to get me to plead out. And they had charged you with a whole bunch of

“felonies, like life-ending felonies. So this is April 2010. So two and a half years after I was rated,”

when you use that term, I was envisited. No, I was rated. Well, yeah. You know, you know what that's like? Yeah, when they break down the door of the house and a dozen or a dozen and a half FBI agents pour in and tell you, sit on the couch and don't get up. That's a raid. Yep. It was clear, I, you know, and I didn't know, I mean, even then it's possible, because

but I was, I was the first, as it turns out, under the old, the, the old, the rural or one

era, I was the first one. Yes. Yes. I would have become the scapegoat. I was the one they're going to make an example of. And they were on your case as a template to go after other whistleblowers. And they did. And they did. Yeah, they did. So yeah, I mean, so what happened, I was working

“for Apple. And it's the only job I could find. I was retail jobs selling computers and iPhones.”

And you know, and it was my understanding at the time that when you applied for the job at Apple, that it hadn't gone all the way to Steve Jobs for his approval. Yes, that true. There was it. Yes.

Well, at the executive level, they actually brought out the head of HR with the store leader

to ensure that as long and unless I was convicted of a felony, they were going to stand behind me all the way. Why? And they, and they did. I am actually, I'm indebted to Apple for how far they went. And it was extraordinary. It became a safe place for me. People, you can imagine people are calling up, people calling Apple. You've got a you've got a criminal. You've got, you know, you've got a Benedict Arnold, you know, tree a tree. You got a trader working for you.

Oh, no, they protect it. Protecting me. They said, yeah, if you're convicted, that's, you know, then we have a different conversation. Right. Right. So it was extraordinary. But so, so, and of course, because once I got indicted, it was clear that intrepid reporters, especially the ones that were still the old-talked them, shoe on the beat, we're going to find out where I worked. And then they would find out, although Apple would not acknowledge where, you've got out that I worked at the

Apple store in Bethesda, Maryland. And this is the kicker. But as to Maryland, I rent district a lot of people in the garment. Very, very senior personnel live in Bethesda and visit the Apple store. I can't tell you how many senior leaders of the CIA live in Bethesda, Maryland. And of course, they use that Apple store. How many members of the Senate and House intelligence committees live in Bethesda, Maryland? I, I would start naming if I started naming names, you would instantly

recognize who they were before, who they are today, or some of them are retired or still quite prominent, who would come into the store. So often, many times, of course, they either had a very discrete degree detail, depending what part of the garment they worked in, or they had the full long one, like the attorney general holder. You got up with the black bands, and they were very, they, there was a basic bubble around him. I saw him in a number of times. I actually saw him,

I guess it was with his kids, his wife and kids at the, at the mall in, in Tyson's court of Virginia, and you couldn't get within 40 feet of the guy. No. In the mall, they made a bubble around him. But Tom, getting back to this situation, they searched you, was it seven felonies? No, 10.

This is a common tactic that they use. It's called charge stacking, where they will charge you with 5, 10, 20 felonies. They will drive you quite literally into bankruptcy, and then they'll come back in the spirit of kindness and generosity and say, take a plea to one, or two, or five,

and we'll drop the others, and you never even considered. No, they tried, initially, because when

the one that extraordinary face-to-face confrontation with the chief prosecutor back, all the back to April of 2008 down at the mall hunter, right, killed off his mall hunter's conference from, he made it crystal clear. You better start talking. We have more than enough evidence of

“put you away for the rest of your natural life, Mr. Drake. That's what I was facing at that time.”

Well, isn't 20 years better than the rest of your life? But no guarantees. So when they guided me, I was facing 35, five of the SPI jacks, 793 E, the same one that Ellsberg was charged with, or, and this is, this is just still surreal on 1,000 one charges, felony for making false statements. When, in fact, they were false themselves, one for obstruction of justice, the four false statement charges, and the obstruction of justice,

where the ones they had maximum flexibility on, those were the ones they put in your back pockets and charged stepping, because even if they could fail, yeah, they could still get me for several years, potentially before a journey. Yes, in prison. Yes. Yeah, I was, I was behind several

“calls, but you never bed. This is a thing. You and I met in the immediate aftermath of my own”

arrest, and we were introduced by our friend and mutual attorney, Jesslyn Radack, and one of the things that extraordinary attorney. Extraordinary attorney and agree that I am intended. I came begin to tell you, um, I've had a special dedication to her and my book that I just got cleared from the government. She was not just NSA, and you know what that means. Oh, yeah, that's hard work. That's hard work. I'm not easy to do. Jesslyn, I champion Jesslyn at every opportunity.

Yeah. She, and, and she, she, God knows she doesn't do it for the money, because she's not making it. He money. She does it because it's the right thing to do, and because that's the kind of heart that she has, but she was with the law herself. And she's it was a noted whistleblower on a major national security issue. And we'll get to that when we have our conversation with her, but the one

thing that struck me from the moment I met you was that you never considered a plea. Do not.

No. In creme. Oh, and even even when the case was collapsing, the last thing I was going to do is I told the chief prosecutor in April of 2008, I will not, and this is become in some ways tied to me directly. I will not plead bargain with the truth. Yeah, there you go. But, but that's a whole story to solve. We don't have time to go into it. And I go into great detail in the book about how it, how, because people, it was clear. I was headed for, I was headed for trial.

It was clear. And as my criminal defense attorneys, and I had public defenders, I was declared engine before the court by the way. Yeah, when I was rained, I was declared engine, still the and no, no, my original criminal defense attorney. He kept the government in bay as long as he could, but he wasn't willing to continue without getting paid. I had no money left. I had no liquid access left. I already suspended them all. And so, and no, no other, even though there was law firms

or willy, there were individual attorneys, willy, and knew it was a critical first amendment case

like Ellsburg. They knew that history was ringing in their ears. But then their firm said,

“you want to represent Mr. Drake, you have to, even though I had pro bono, they were late,”

because they're big enough to do that conflict of interest. We represent certain agencies and the individuals, you cannot represent. If you want to, you have to leave the firm. Well, why would they want to give up? I mean, you can imagine this is where you get into that security thing. Yeah, they give up the lucrative practice that they had, which, you know, they're making hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to defend it with no guarantee, right, that I could prevail.

Yeah, no guarantee. So, and then, so you, you met me, you were going at it, right? One of the things, yeah, and one of the things that Jesslyn is really, really good at is in her relationships with the media. What she did for me is what she championed with you.

who listened to what you had to say and believed you when you said it, so that your side of the story

“could get out there. You didn't have a whole story. Steve minutes. You tell us about, yeah, that's”

a whole, the, the, she, she knew my first met her. What was it, steak? But she also knew that we would have to, that I knew this before even met her. I knew once I was indicted, I had to find a way

to influence the court of public opinion. I knew that was critical. That would involve the press

directly. Or remember, the government, as you well know in your case, they had the high ground. Oh, yeah, they held a lot of cards. And I'll say mainstream media, who by default accepted the government narrative. And they almost always do. Yeah. And it's under Obama, no less. Why will Obama? Why would his own, his, his, his, those more, it was more dependent than why would the

“DOJ, right? Go after you, you must, I was told by family members. I was dealing with family dynamics.”

This is the thing, people don't realize huge massive impact that occurs. The, the, the incredibly

high cost you pay with your own family. Yeah. I was heading for divorce. I was separated for quite

a while. I had my own adult children questioning who I was as their father. Yep. I might have signed or more to veteran. Couldn't, you just, you was having a hard time accepting that is a son who had been all the Syrian and the military was now a senior executive in the government. Why would the government be charging him with espionage of all things? Maybe he did know his own son either. I mean, he was extraordinarily difficult of time. It really, really was. So they had, they held

the high ground, just like new one and met her. We have to establish a strategic campaign, a media

campaign. And so because I, it says, the other restriction, I could not say anything publicly

free trial, right? Nor could I not a single word to anybody. And you know why? I mean, it's player. They really really used it against you. It's insurable, right? That's right. So she had to become my voice and my own understand why they did want to engage with the media, but my public defenders are extremely reluctant to have any contact with any media because they kept saying, and it's true, we don't want to have undoing influence of the jury.

I did. I wanted to have undoing influence with the jury. Sure. So as much as they did, why it? And this is where I'm indebted to her because I mean, it could have, it's very, it could have easily become a different outcome. If my case had not on public in the court, a public opinion through the press. So did I have offline meetings with a number of reporters and journalists in an Azure Curtis phase? Yes, but it was like I wasn't there. Could they ask me all kinds of

questions? Yes, but they could not go on their record. It was all, it was all filtered through her as a lawyer. Yeah. Because members, that's the only protection I had. And that was a very thin protection as it turns out. I'll tell you something. She did the same for me. We met with several journalists. They were not all necessarily friendly, but I was able to get my side of the story out there on, on background. One of the things that she did, and I know she did this very successfully with you

“with, uh, I believe it was Jane Mayer at the New Yorker. Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. And Jane wrote a beautiful,”

beautiful. Thanks for saying. Well, she connected me with an Israeli journalist named AL Press who wrote the same kind of article about my case for the New York Times. The New York Times then rejected it. Then he sent it to the New Yorker and the New Yorker rejected it. And then the London review of books. So I'm getting to the point where 10 or 15,000 people around the world are going to read this. Nobody's going to pay any attention. And then the London review of books

killed it because they said that they did not want it to impact Barack Obama's reelection campaign. Yep. But you ended up not just with this glowing, wonderful expose written by the great Jane Mayer.

the case started to fall apart against you. Well, because that became, again, the Jane Mayer article

“it's New Yorker. She's been a long time, a long time investigative journalist for them. A lot”

of breakthrough stuff over the years, right, including the early, early revelations of the torture

regime. She had heard about surveillance, but no one would talk. She had more people talking off of London. She was really good at getting sources to talk even if they would not go on their record. So through another contact, partly me, but also because the strategic communications campaign, me, the campaign of Justin was now beginning to get out there. 60 minutes at a producer level brought it to Scott Kelly in his team. And there was all this back and forth, right? Because again,

Jane Mayer is working on this, she spent several months. She had dropped everything else that she was working on to focus on just me and the background and interviewed a whole lot of people, both on the record off the record. That led to 60 minutes. And when Scott, when I first met Scott Kelly, and we hit off really well, I part of my use, I grew up in Texas. That was our common

“connection. And he said, this is the most important story I'm working on right now. But they”

didn't know at the time, and I heard this from the camera crew, they didn't know at the time, okay, you're running across the people. This is a history of 60 minutes. They've had a lot of it with the blurs. So you go back to big cigarette companies and all these closures there and a number

of others. They did know whether or not I could tell the story. It was much more powerful when you

have the very person. In this case, under the gun facing, basically the rest of his life in prison and trial was now scheduled for a 13 June of 2011, can he tell the story? And this was my first time. On this, this level of exposure. And I told myself, I'm just going to be myself. Wow. What a huge risk. It was huge. I realized that. And of course, Johnson was there because there were risks to say anything. At that late estate, even though people didn't realize how far the case

was starting to collapse. But this was April, when all the filming, early April, when all the filming was taking place. So that got all kinds of attention. There's no question. I mean, yes, the careful reader, those who enjoy the long form investigative pieces, they come from investigative journalists like Jane Mayer, that that goes into far greater detail in terms of the background. But TV has an enormous impact. It's the combination of the visual, it's the combination

of the very person who's under the gun and about could very well end up in prison. And there's got plenty of all people. Right. At the time, it was one of the most highly respected journalists in America. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that, that was broadcast. So the Jane there, the agreement,

there was all the back and forth. The agreement was New York, New York would publish first.

And then they would broadcast. It was a very last week. That's that Sunday. But it was it was right for a sweep sweep. It was a two hour. And I was at the top top of the hour. So it was a 14 minute, 27 second. It was the full segment. You know, they do their segments. But this is a full version. Huge impact. There's no question. And then that washing

“posts ways in like, what are you doing? Go, right? Do you remember Watergate?”

Seriously. And then it reminded you sort of, do you remember our roles, the press? To their credit. And it was almost like magic after that, the entire case just fell apart. Yeah. But I was still exposed because of what you said, the stacking, right? The charge stacking. My public defenders knew that. They knew that I was still exposed. And that's a whole story in itself because I was not going to plead to any felony of any kind. I wasn't going to plead

to anything. Why should I? What they had put me through ruined literally? I don't have retirement.

And of course, I was cut short, right? I didn't work even for my government. My military background,

which is extensive is all cut short. I never had a full career in terms of a full retirement.

So I never got to the point. In my case, where I could actually retire,

“which would be a rather solid pension, and then I could still go out, right?”

Yeah. Of course, that's that's a route. What are you willing to give up in the defense of the Constitution and the oath that you took to defend and support it? So the good mean, this is on the very, I mean, it's a dramatic in the book. I go into excruciating detail how that all happened because no one up until it all began to publicly collapse. There was no indication that I was, there was, we're going to trial. It was clear. And I said, I can't, and there was a whole story there.

The last week and a half, but it turns out the government realized that they were losing. They were. They weren't going to be able to go because the judge, they tried to play the judges of the fool. I, it turns out, one of the, this is, this has been less, been less publicized or the

“years, in my case. I actually ended up with a judge who knew, no matter what I was charged with,”

I still had rights under the Constitution. He made that crystal clear from D1. And then the government, in typical fashion, overreach, they tried to play him as a fool and to his credit. He wasn't going to be played as the fool. They even got to the point, is it where the only ones, where the only ones who can say what is classified or not, you can't. Well, you know, he, people don't realize that at the court level, they have their own researchers, they have their

own staff, the court staff. So, it was remarkable. And so on the eve of trial, this is literally the Thursday before the Monday. We've, all that the jury has already sequestered. They already have the alternates in place. They're already, they're already being given all the instructions, all the restrictions. We're going to start doing the formal selection on Monday, start of trial. There's a break in the afternoon. I know, and in the book, it's a really, it's pretty dramatic.

It would make for a great stage play. It really would. Because you don't know until that moment,

until that moment, which is basically the last day before these, the formalities scheduled data

trial, that I'm going to trial. There doesn't seem to be any other off-ramp. And then for the first time and after all those years, an off-ramp emerged. And so, I used to play competitive chess. I didn't know that. I, yep, competitive chess. I was actually rated by the US chess Federation. I even, I stopped playing in the military, because I just got two time consuming to stay competitive. I was a pretty good player.

I probably thought it's stuck with it. I would have been even better, but it took you to get really good at it. Bringing it back to Jessa and Redak. She was on the phone. Because there was a rather interesting conversation that took place between her and the public defender, one of them, and then me. And I said, "You want to make a plea deal? These are my terms."

I knew in that moment, because the guard was desperate. It turns out to get out from under. The problem was, they still had, in our locker-tory, review, available to them. They could have instantly said, "We're going to take this up at the 4th Circuit, the appeals level." That would have put, they did this with stretch effort sterling, another CIA employee. They did that with Jeffrey Sterling. He was willing to take his chance, but then they put an order to

lock a tour review with the same prosecutor that I had, who did not play by the rule that all. And guess what? It sat out there for almost two years before they made a decision. I risked the same thing, John. I risked that they would either stall over. I will guess what they do at the meantime. You take it right off the white hot heat of the press, because the press was like,

“"Oh, on my case." Remember, people don't realize how incredibly rare it was in American history.”

I was the first whistleblower since Ellsberg, charge and like manner, and there had only been two

other instances of an American's being charged on the SVG. Yes. I was the first whistleblower since

at the SVG under a bomb alone. Yes, seven now under Trump between the first and second

“second administration. Seven, they're reminded all the other investigations. And that doesn't”

count all the other legal investigations. They'd even know, but the Obama administration engaged in. Eight, I was the first under the SVG. There was another minor one, another one, not too long before me, where they're trying to say, "Hey, you know, we might be used one of these other SVGs like." Is that the case in West Virginia? Yeah, I thought so. I was the sixth, Shemai, Shemai, Shemai Leibowitz, but it wasn't, he was under

798, and it was involving a podcaster. Yeah, he actually had it in the prison.

People don't realize all the others by the way that you don't hear about. They were also charged. They tried because they considered me an enemy of the state, John. They actually, I mean, they said that I had not just damaged national security. It was the highest level of damage. Agreed. Something grey. Not just grey. Except Shemai. Not just grey. Except Shemai. Not just grey. Except Shemai. Except Shemai. Like the Oslozanburgs. Yes, that was the category.

There was a gallery put out. Some, a couple years later, they began brief. This is what they did. Joint DNI, DOJ Task Force. Me and Snowden were placed on that as a road gallery of those who would do as harm. We were mixed in. Remember the shooter, the Navy yard. Oh, my God. Remember, we were put on the same list. Oh, my God. Johnson, we were put on the same rogues gallery. Ironically, the picture they used for me was the one that took me when I accepted that I

rid our truth telling fries. If that's where I was a Benedict Arnold. They literally

“painted me. That's how it wasn't just a caricature. That's how I was viewed.”

Well, the joke was on them because things worked out for you in the end. And now look at you. You're on the Mount Rushmore of National Security Whistleblowers. And nothing's ever going to change that. Well, I'm very, I don't have to say, I'm very, I don't, you know, it's funny. I'm very uncomfortable with any other labels that are placed on the courage or people's set off on something, right? And they use the word hero. Yeah. L. I did John. This is really important. And this is where

I keep discarding my ego. I do. Even with all the attention, all I did was raise my hand with great solemnity. And I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Yes, a piece of paper that establishes fundamentally what it means to be an American. And I, the aspirational nature, the actual articles of that Constitution, I did not take lightly. My father retired. He's where were were to, he was a hero that long story. He actually was supporting OSS missions.

Wow. There's a bond with your navigator. He reminds me. I got to send you the book you wrote all down in Greece. Oh, all this all because if you're, you're, you're, you're a great background. Yeah. With the partisans. And of course, the fact you played, he was occupied, Greece, none of them was a precursor to the CIA. Wild Bill. He went down in northern Greece. And this, he was that, the number of planes went down, highly modified B25. It wasn't, it was not

configured as a normal bomber. For obvious reasons, it's flying, finally classified missions for the OSS.

In fact, as you know, he was put under a different cover, right? He was actually a guard unit. The guard unit was actually used out of Louisiana. It was actually used as cover for OSS, the airborne missions. So he first started out in North Africa, and then he moved to Italy. He started fly across the Adriatic. On his 44th combat mission, 41st combat mission, plane was struck, engine caught fire,

“and remember they're flying a low altitude anyways. On the wrist at night, no less. The Germans,”

of course, you can imagine. He's technically considered, yeah, he's in flying sergeant. He would be a real catch. I value target, right? Right. And a number, a number of them would get shot down, blown up,

Churchill, the Churchill, basically executive action on the Churchill side. And he was down in Greece. Macedonia, that origin, six months, lost 50 pounds. I don't know if you know the full history of there's extraordinary trust networks set up at an incredible risk for the locals to bring people out. American airmen, bring, bring American and British airmen out, who had found themselves as we used, as I used to say later, when I was an aircrew member,

Denai Territory, and the extraordinary risk. Sorry, he doesn't, he never, he never hit yogurt,

after he feeds back. Oh, I bet. Oh, my God. You can imagine the PTSD and everything else, which we have to live with as a family in the intervening years after. That's part of my own heritage, right? I got to send you the book. I mean, it's just, I'd love to see it. Oh, my God. Tom, you can't talk about it. You know from your operation, the operational site of CID, even though there were those compartments, I lived inside of it. When I was in the

D.I., right, even though technically it was interesting, it was an S&T branch, but I was actually

in the analytics side for highly, for weapons of mass destruction. That's the part of the D.I.

“that I, but I was assigned, I think, partly based on my background, right? So what was”

N.Pick at the time? Right, national photographic stations. Yeah. But I couldn't, he couldn't say anything about his experience. A lot of veterans didn't talk about their World War II experience. Anyways, very few did. They just wanted to know. His was classified by Lee, classified. It was sitting around the poker penny, any poker at his retirement home community in San Antonio with his buddies from the, the community, his retirement community, and he got to talk and any of

them is a 80s. He said, Bill, you got to write about this. So he engaged with a military publishing house and that's great. Yeah, that's great. And what about his side up? What about you? What's next for you now? I know that you retired officially formally, but you're still a young man. So what next? Well, I'm 69. Well, I'm 62. So I still think here. So I just spent a pretty intense 16 months writing what is a two books in one memoir and mirror on the abuse and pathology of power.

And loaned up in America in my time overseas and by time at the CIA and my time at NSA and then the aftermath. And then I take a big go to the 200,000 foot level and say, what does this all mean going forward? You know, in terms of what I call the Bayes Human Condition. So that's been my focus. This has been my focus. I'm still available. I'm actually not in the same manner as you,

“because it's like, wow, I think it's about anywhere in the social media.”

Yeah, there's a job here. I'll go again. But I've noticed an uptick and partly because well, I went through a very severe health crisis for a while, where I almost died. I was stage four cancer and the good news is I'm stable and you love great. Yeah. So I've started. I've started to make myself available again. And then you've got a lot of surveillance stuff as you kind of imagine, flock, cameras, and pallin teeter. And it's just like, oh my gosh, yes, all that hacking.

It's been going on and artificial intelligence. And it's like, what do we do into ourselves? And now

you've got this war of choice that we'd never should have chosen in the Middle East. You got the

Middle East itself. And I've been invited into a number of conferences and symposiums and good more recently. And so I certainly will continue with that. I'm really hoping to get a chance here in the Virginia future where I get as I did in the past in front of the younger generation that were either just born or barely born or hadn't been yet been born on 9/11 to bring it all away back to that faithful day. Please make us part of that ongoing mission Tom. This seems like

one of those lessons that history teaches that we would be stupid to not learn or worse to forget.

“Thanks,今天 Tom, for roundtabling with me. As I think you'll see with our whistleblower roundtables”

inside each whistleblower, there really is this greater good compulsion to do the right thing,

real heroes. Hopefully, Willon's fire even more whistleblowers to step forward. The world needs

“whistleblowers now more than ever. As governments around the world harness technology to gather more”

and more information about us, we need to fight back in every way we can.

Thank you as always for making Dead Drop part of your ongoing podcasting experience. Please

“remember to enhance that experience by liking, rating, reviewing, or commenting on the podcast,”

wherever you happen to catch it. We'll see you in season three. Until then, I'm John Kiriaku.

Dead Drop is written by John Kiriaku and Alan Katz. Caustard and touched on productions

“produces the podcast and John Kiriaku, Alan Katz, and Nick McCannick are its executive producers.”

His podcast, "It's a Castered and Touchstone Production."