Secret information: The currency of power

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-02-231213.html



Secret information: The currency of power
By Lars Schall
Dec 18, '13

The transcript of the following interview was exclusively arranged for Asia Times Online. An audio file of the interview is published at the German financial web site "Die Metallwoche" here.

Thomas Drake, born 1957, is a former senior executive at the US National Security Agency who blew the whistle on a multi-billion dollar program fraud and cover up as well as the NSA's secret unlawful surveillance program. The US Department of Justice prosecuted and indicted him under the World War I-era Espionage Act in April, 2010, under 10 felony counts including that he "mishandled documents". The case against him ultimately collapsed. He eventually pled to one misdemeanor count for exceeding authorized use of a computer. He is a former airborne crypto-linguist and electronic warfare mission crew supervisor. From 1991-1998 he worked at Booz Allen Hamilton as a management, strategy and technology consultant and software quality engineer. In 2011, Drake became the recipient of the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Award. He holds a Bachelor's and two Master's degrees as well as numerous graduate certificates.

Lars Schall: Thomas, the first question that I would have for you is, why did you a) join the Signal Intelligence Directorate of the US National Security Agency in late summer 2001; and b) leave the NSA in 2008?

Thomas Drake: Well, between those two dates a lot happened. I joined NSA in 2001 as a result of a special outside hiring program that was led by then director Michael Hayden, a director of NSA during the 2000 period. There had been a lot of pressure even in the late '90s. The NSA was growing increasingly irrelevant and having great difficulty keeping up with the challenges of the digital age, and a number of stakeholders, particularly Congress, began placing a lot of pressure on NSA to hire outsiders - people who had not grown up at NSA, had not been promoted at NSA, people who came from other parts of government but particular came from outside of government, even if they had government experience, but people that were not embedded, as they say, in the culture - and so about a dozen of us [were ultimately hired] after going through a formal application for jobs that had actually been advertised in a number of the leading newspapers across the United States.

[Sentath]

1. So much slime

Running so deep.

Money seeks advantage.