https://www.whistleblower.org/general/whistleblowers/thomas-drake-nsa-whistleblower-victory/
June 09, 2011
Huge Victory for National Security Whistleblowers
(Washington, D.C.) The Government Accountability Project (GAP) has learned that client Thomas Drake has agreed to a plea bargain arrangement on the charges brought against him by the federal government. While Drake was facing 10 felony counts and 35 years in jail, this settlement agreement stipulates no jail time or fines shall be imposed on him. In return, Drake will plead guilty to a mere misdemeanor. Drake appears publicly in court tomorrow to enter his plea.
The action taken against Drake by the Department of Justice was widely seen as a bellwether case for the current crop of the Obama administrations prosecutions under the Espionage Act against national security and intelligence whistleblowers. Todays news is an absolute victory for whistleblowers.
GAP Homeland Security and Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack commented, This is a victory for national security whistleblowers and against corruption inside our intelligence agencies. The prosecutions case was built on sand and crumbled under the weight of the truth.
Tom Drake went through all proper and legal channels. His experience proves that, presently, there is no safe way to draw attention to wrongdoing at intelligence agencies. The intelligence community cannot keep using a broken classification system to escape responsibility for its internal corruption and lawbreaking.
GAP represents Drake on whistleblower issues. He has a separate criminal defense team.
Radack continued, No public servant should face 35 years in prison for telling the truth. The prosecutions case imploded in the face of numerous negative rulings and huge public support for Tom Drake. This is incontrovertible proof that the Espionage Act should not and cannot be used to silence whistleblowers.
Regarding the Obama administrations ongoing prosecution of national security whistleblowers, Radack stated Whistleblowers are not spies. The Espionage Act is a particularly heinous tool that should never be used to cover up government wrongdoing and punish whistleblowers that expose it. This sends a message to the Justice Department to abandon its perverted strategy of prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act.
Tom Drake Background
Drake is a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee who is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act for retaining, not leaking, classified information about a data collection program that was costly, threatening to Americans privacy rights, and wholly undeveloped, despite the availability of a cost-effective, functional alternative that respected Americans privacy. He did everything by the book, raising concerns through official channels first including senior NSA management, the Defense Departments inspector general, and Congress. His concerns were ignored. Drake started, legally, communicating with a reporter never sharing any classified information whatsoever. A series of articles exposed this billion-dollar affront to privacy rights. For more information, see GAPs Tom Drake page at http://tinyurl.com/4dlabu3
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Ex-N.S.A. Aide Gains Plea Deal in Leak Case; Setback to U.S.) included this:
The deal represented the almost complete collapse of the governments effort to make an example of Mr. Drake, who was charged last year in a 10-count indictment that accused him of obstructing justice and lying to investigators. It is uncertain whether the outcome will influence the handling of three pending leak cases or others still under investigation.
The case against Mr. Drake is among five such prosecutions for disclosures to the news media brought since President Obama took office in 2009: one each against defendants from the National Security Agency, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the military and the State Department. In the past, such prosecutions have been extremely rare three or four in history, depending on how they are counted, and never more than one under any other president.
Officials say they have been prompted by a bipartisan belief in Congress and in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations that leaks were getting out of hand.
U.S. National Security Agency
The flurry of criminal cases has led to both praise and criticism for Mr. Obama, who entered office promising unprecedented transparency but in less than three years in office has far outdone the security-minded Bush administration in pursuing leaks.
Jesselyn A. Radack, a lawyer for the nonprofit Government Accountability Project who had rallied support for Mr. Drake, hailed the outcome.
This is a victory for national security whistle-blowers and against corruption inside the intelligence agencies, she said. No public servant should face 35 years in prison for telling the truth.
“was charged last year in a 10-count indictment that accused him of obstructing justice and lying to investigators.”
Guilty of anything or not, these evil people always charge that. Hopefully justice will return.
This is fantastic news.
Obummer using the Espionage Act to punish whisle blowers who were exposing the Obummer admin’s nefarious dealings.
Have I got that right?