{"id":14733,"date":"2015-11-24T08:12:17","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T13:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14733"},"modified":"2015-11-24T08:12:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T13:12:17","slug":"nsa-leaker-thomas-drake-praises-report-showing-u-s-failure-toward-whistleblowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14733","title":{"rendered":"NSA Leaker Thomas Drake Praises Report Showing U.S.\u2019 Failure Toward Whistleblowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/eartotheground\/item\/nsa_whistleblower_thomas_drake_praises_report_showing_20151123\" target=\"_blank\">NSA Leaker Thomas Drake Praises Report Showing U.S.\u2019 Failure Toward Whistleblowers\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n<h6 class=\"date\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/images\/eartothegrounduploads\/AP110413129740.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"420\" border=\"0\" \/><\/h6>\n<div class=\"entry_body_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"article_main_image\">\n<p class=\"article_main_image_captiondetail\">\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<em>Former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake was originally charged with leaking classified information.\u00a0<small>(Jacquelyn Martin \/ AP)<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Whistleblower Thomas Drake, who in 2010 became the first American charged with espionage in almost 40 years and who was a predecessor of Edward Snowden, applauds a\u00a0<a title=\"new report\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pen.org\/sites\/default\/files\/secretsources_low-res.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new report<\/a>\u00a0by the PEN American Center accusing the government of failing to protect whistleblowers.<\/p>\n<p>The report comes after presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said at last month\u2019s Democratic debate that NSA whistleblower Snowden \u201ccould have gotten all the protections of being a whistleblower\u201d instead of leaking materials to the press. PEN\u2019s report shows that Clinton is wrong and that the U.S. government gives employees and contractors little assurance that they won\u2019t be prosecuted, even if they go through sanctioned channels.<\/p>\n<p>Of his experience as a whistleblower, Drake said during \u201cSecret Sources: Whistleblowers, National Security and Free Expression,\u201d a panel at the Newseum in Washington examining the impact of the Obama administration\u2019s response to national security leaks, \u201cI had become a dissident, as far as the NSA was concerned [&#8230;] If you become a dissident, the white blood cells kick in, culturally, to get rid of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Charges that Drake passed classified documents to a newspaper reporter were dropped in 2011. He said of the PEN report to\u00a0<b>Al-Jazeera\u2019s \u201cAmerica Tonight\u201d<\/b>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Probably the biggest takeaway for me is it\u2019s one of the first reports that actually pulled this information all together in a cogent fashion. It gives a history. It shows the dynamics. It shows how things have evolved. It shows how far the administrations, particularly President Obama, have gone in pursuing those who would dare hold up a mirror to power. It talks about the lack of protections for sources. It highlights the risks to journalism, as sources, like myself, are considering engaging in criminal activity. It raises serious questions, extraordinarily disturbing questions, about the government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NSA Leaker Thomas Drake Praises Report Showing U.S.\u2019 Failure Toward Whistleblowers\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake was originally charged with leaking classified information.\u00a0(Jacquelyn Martin \/ AP) Whistleblower Thomas Drake, who in 2010 became the first American charged with espionage in almost 40 years and who was a predecessor of Edward Snowden, applauds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22,249,5110,577,10742,8738,827,876],"class_list":["post-14733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-al-jazeera","tag-edward-snowden","tag-espionage","tag-nsa","tag-thomas-drake","tag-truthdig","tag-united-states","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14734,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14733\/revisions\/14734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}