Thomas A. Drake
Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history.[4][5][6] Drake's defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project.[7][8][9] He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.
Thomas A. Drake
Thomas Andrews Drake
April 22, 1957
Louisiana, United States
Former senior executive of the National Security Agency
American
On June 9, 2011, all 10 original charges against him were dropped. Drake rejected several deals because he refused to "plea bargain with the truth". He eventually pleaded to one misdemeanor count for exceeding authorized use of a computer;[10] Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, who helped represent him, called it an act of civil disobedience.[11]
Espionage Act and whistleblowing[edit]
Drake is one of four individuals in the history of the United States who has been charged specifically with "willful retention" of "national defense" information under . Most prosecutions are for "delivery" of classified information to a third party—something that Drake was not charged with. This particular portion of the Espionage Act was created in 1950 during the Second Red Scare, as part of the McCarran Internal Security Act.[25] Anthony Russo and Daniel Ellsberg were the first to be prosecuted for the "retention" of what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, which Ellsberg gave to The New York Times, eventually resulting in another landmark Espionage Act case in 1971, New York Times Co. v. United States. The prosecution of Russo and Ellsberg was dismissed in 1972 because of government misconduct. The second prosecution was of Samuel Loring Morison in 1985, a Navy analyst who sold satellite photographs to Jane's Defence Weekly; he was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton. The third was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee case in 2005, United States v. Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman.[4]
Founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity[edit]
Drake is a founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.[76] In September 2015, Drake and 27 other members of VIPS steering group wrote a letter to the President challenging a recently published book, that claimed to rebut the report of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA's use of torture.
Related media works[edit]
In 2014, a documentary called Silenced, in which Drake was featured, was released.[77][78] It was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2016. Having an analogous theme as the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour, which portrays similar treatment of Edward Snowden, Silenced has been the official selection and recipient of several awards from multiple film festivals[79] even before its release to major cable networks in March 2015.
Also in 2014, Drake's involvement with Thinthread, his subsequent indictment, etc., along with others associated with his activities (Roark, Binney, Wiebe, Loomis), and Snowden were featured in a PBS documentary, "United States of Secrets".[80]