Thomas Drake - Former Senior Executive, US National Security Agency HARDtalk

say he is in no danger. Now on BBC When it comes to national security,

does the need for secrecy override in the public's right to know? It

is a hot debate in many democracies, none more so than in the US where

prison Obama has gone after leakers and whistle-blowers with

unprecedented ferocity. Thomas Drake was an intelligence official

inside America's National Security Agency. He ended up prosecuted by

the government he served. Did he Thomas Drake in Washington DC.

Welcome to HARDtalk. Thanks a having me. I would like to take you

back to the sum of 2001 when you signed up as a staff intelligence

official inside the National Security Agency. At that point, you

had to sign an oath of confidentiality. How seriously do

you take that oath? I was not the - - it was not the first fund higher

taken. It is a secrecy agreement. I had taken a number during my course

of the government career and in the military. That secrecy agreement is

you are obligated to protect classified information - what they

call protected information. Did you see it in any way as optional that

you were entitled to have an opinion about the validity of the

secrets, the competences they were required to keep at the NSA? I did

not at all. There are legitimate secrets that government is entitled

to keep. However, they are not to use the very secrecy system as

cover-up or as excuses to engage in conduct which violate the laws of

the constitution. In terms of mine said, it is interesting you told me

you work in different government agencies - you work in these the a

and er the er US Air Force. In terms of the duties, the

obligations and chain of command and the requirement for absolute

loyalty, did you see it serving inside the NSA as in any way

comparable to serving in the US military? I was a civilian. The

rules were different. In the the army you follow a more restricted

form of system of justice under the constitution. In the military, you

are only obligated to follow lawful orders and have a duty to question

orders if you believe they're not lawful. I am picking away at this

idea of the mindset you signed up at the NSA. We will talk about the

detail of what you did in a minute but you have raised many questions

about what it means to retain confidences and sign-up to

confidentiality within government. Lenny Brewer says that you do not

get to disclose confidential information just because you want

to. The point he makes is a good one, is it not? He makes a point

but it is disingenuous and it is dissembling in the actual truth of

what you sign up for. The one thing they do not sign up for is to use

the system of classification, the secrecy system, as cover for

conduct that violates the very form of government there you are

obligated to take an oath to support and defend. The oath that I

took, not the secrecy agreement, takes primacy over that. The oath

to the constitution is to an idea not to a secrecy agreement, not to

an agency, not to the President of the US and certainly not an oath to

remain silence when the government is complicit in conduct that

violates the very constitution they knew was sworn to uphold, support

and defend. Everything you have said is very subjective. Every

opinion and analysis that you off on the constitutionality or

otherwise of operations you were required to engage in his deeply

subjective? There is actually very specific stature and Executive

Orders that govern the conduct of what is classified or not

classified. How you use these systems or not. Getting to the

specifics and remind people of exactly what happened in the

sequence of events after 2001. You were very much involved in

intelligence gathering after 9/11 in you became concerned very

quickly that you felt the NSA was massively over reaching - using its

massive capabilities, intelligence gathering computer-based

capabilities, to threaten the privacy pledge of individuals

inside the US by undertaking illegals of violence - yes? That is

a case unfortunately, to my shock and horror, I discovered that the

cause of 9/11, the US government at the very highest levels and

including the White House, chosen to make a critical and far-reaching

decision in the deepest of secrecy is that instead of following the

law, which will be the government from actually engaging in

electronics and vans without a warrant, under certain -- certain

circumstances, they decided to bypass the mechanism - a mechanism

signed into law by President Carter in 1978. The foreign intelligence

of violence Act to deal with massive abuse of the US government

in violating the rights of US citizens and those living in the US

in the 1960s and 70s. A 23-year legal regime was thrown out the

window. Not only be that the wheels come off, we were an entirely

different vehicles. The specific beginnings of your unease, as I

understand it, were not about these, as you put it, massive average and

freight to the constitution, your initial concerns were a out

mismanagement - about the way the NSA was using certain programmes

and software in a way which you felt was totally inefficient, was

costing hundreds of millions of dollars that were a necessary and

suggested incompetence more than anything else? It was actually both.

This was one of the public means that has been put out that somehow

I was a disgruntled employee and took issue with SAN management

decisions. It was both. The NSA was having great difficulty is, frankly,

even had admitted that a number of studies over the past 9/11 that

they were having challenges dealing with the digital age. They decided

to put all the eggs in one basket. With great fanfare, then launched a

programme called the Trailblazer Project. It was a multi- billion-

dollar programme it went into effect in the spring of 2000. That

was the programme that was going to catapult NSA into the 21st century.

However, the requirements for that programme had already largely been

meant by the very best of American ingenuity and innovation on a

number of France and they all this garden and pushed aside. -- number

of fronts. Careers were at stake, contractors were involved, a lot of

money was to be made. After nine in Nevin they double-barrelled on the

Trailblazer Project. Your critic of the Trailblazer Project which I had

looked into in some detail was partly that it reflected the

revolving-door mentality where people who had been senior in the

Pentagon and the defence establishment would they go into

the private contracting sectors, would get contracts from former

friends and you felt that this was perhaps the maligned side of the

American military industrial complex. It just seems to me

surprising that a man who was frankly depicts sceptical of the

military industrial complex would want to work in the National

Security Agency in the first place. Remember, I had served in the

government for a number of years and I answered an ad. In February

2001, it was a Sunday edition of the Washington Post. They were

looking for outsiders because there was concern by seven stakeholders

in the government, particularly congas, that the NSA was not

getting it. I answered one of the ads. I was coming in at a very

senior level, not having been brought up at the NSA. And a deeply

cynical about the system? Well, were not say deeply cynical. It was

an opportunity to serve my nation again at a senior position and

under specific circumstances to facilitate that. To help NSA to

meet the challenges of the 21st century, coming out of any number

of studies and concerns which had been formally boys and documented

and had been testified to before Congress. -- formerly him for

Easter. Moving this forward. President Obama Ana the last few

months when he has been discussing the dangers of a whistle blowing

when applied to national security interest, he draws a clear

distinction between those people working for the federal government

to blow the whistle on incompetence, mismanagement and that sort of

thing and those who divulge information that threatens national

security. Did you not feel that you cross a line when you started

complaining not just about what she saw as the overspend, mismanagement

and incompetence but the threat to constitution from some of the

Samoans undertaken - did you not recognise you were crossing the

line? Not crossing a line at all. The government is not to use his

San Pio was to violate the very constitutional -- constitution it

is supposed uphold and support. It was the government of across the

line. I was faced with their distinct truth that the government

was at some versing the constitution. I spent many users in

the system, became part of the 9/11 congressional investigation, I was

part of the office of the inspector-general... That is the

point. Within the system they are and there were checks and balances

in the US system - for example, the Congressional oversight of the

intelligence industry and a look at how surveillance manners are

handled and they can impose checks and balances. F f you have the

Supreme Court. You could have gone inside the system. F you were

unhappy with that and that is why you went to a newspaper and that is

when you cross the line? There is nothing illegal or criminal in the

US in going to reporters. It is not criminal. I went to a report that

in February 2006 with a classified information to regarding the trial

browser programme and the special harsh male side, without

the bulging unknown, in a way that suggested D knew that what you were

doing was wrong. What I was doing was not wrong. The government was

so banning reporters and journalists and so it was going to

make it that much more difficult to detect any activity that I may have

had involving those who they were You decided to play God. At Chorley,

I would not say that. I took an oath to defend the constitution.

They abused power. I took those concerns, UN classified concerns to

a reporter. That's all I did. That's the one thing the free press

under the First Amendment is the final check before the state it the

Government gets out of control. That's what I did. I just want to

be clear. We can talk about what happened legally in a moment. The

courts, insofar as they have tested the premise that you just put to me,

what the Government was doing through the NSA was illegal and the

courts never back you up. I will quote you from this three-judge

panel which looked at the intelligence. They look at the case

saying, ultimately, they ruled that national security interests

outweighed the privacy rates of those targeted. The courts, when

they tested what you believed to be coming down on your side.

actually, that is not true. One of the things the Government does not

divulge his state secrets. Absolute community. It's very difficult to

determine those who may have been affected by the conduct of the

Government, or actually part of it. You were in a catch 22. Three

courts found that the NSA programme was illegal. I am part of the case

that is still ongoing. There is representation from attorney Sun

case. I filed an affidavit about what I knew when I was inside ENSA

about the secret surveillance programme. The Government engaged,

and speaking as a whistle-blower, engaged in illegal activities and

they will fully chose to do that I could have remained silent. I chose

to speak up within the system. I made a fateful decision to go to

the reporter with what I knew. did their very best, certainly, to

try to persuade you, I say politely, that you had engaged in activities

which threatened the state itself. They charge you one that beat

espionage Act. In 2007, as part of that investigation they conducted a

raid on your home looking at your computer and your Office and files.

I wonder, a personal sense of what that meant you after having served

so many years inside the US security system. What was your

feeling when they knock on the door and raided your home? It's a story

of betrayal by my own government. For colleagues of mine were raided

four months earlier so it was not surprising that they were coming to

my house. It was quite something when a number of cars pulled up in

front the house and one doesn't armed agents streamed across the

yard with a knock on the front door. Did it make you question everything

you believed about the Government you had served for so long? No, the

question I had was when the Government goes outside the bounds.

One of the things Thomas Jefferson said is that the constitution is

the chain the Government uses. The Government was unchanging itself

from the very constitution it was sworn to uphold and defend. They

chose, under the guise of 9/11, that national security would take

priority over everything else. I remember a chilling conversation in

2001 when I said, two senior attorney's, if the law is not

working, go back to Congress and change the law, that's the legal

means under the constitution. I was told, if we do that they will not

agree. The espionage Act, it's been used several times by Barack Obama,

more than by any other president since it was passed in 1917. You

may have faced the rest of your life in jail had he been convicted

under that Act but in the end, you were not, they dropped the charges

and you are convicted, Mr meaner with a year of probation. Do you

accept, in any way, having accepted that conviction, do you accept that

you did anything wrong? You say, doing wrong. It was a plea

agreement. A drop goal of the original charges from the 10 counts

of the indictment. I was facing 35 years' jail. The case collapsed.

That was in the court. That was because of the weight of the truth.

What we ultimately ended up doing, because the Government had other

options, it was a plea agreement. I agreed to a misdemeanour. I

exceeded the use of a computer. I being knowledge that. It was true.

I guess that's the point. You have an understandably clear and

specific view of what you were convicted of. I want to get to this

point about the current thinking. You have been hailed, winning

prizes for whistle-blowing, people mention you in the same breath,

under the whistle-blowing Banner, like Bradley Manning, currently in

detention facing serious charges for his alleged role in the

WikiLeaks case. Another former CIA operative was convicted under the

law which requires citizens not to reveal the names of C I hate

Officials. I wonder whether you are happy to be in that company and do

you see yourself as a whistle Blower? I have seen myself as a

whistle Blower when I first made contact under the US code,

specifically authorising me to go to Congress or the Department of

Defence and other bodies, as a whistle Blower. That's the whistle

Blower Protection Act passed in 1998. That was signed by the

President. It's an unprecedented period of history under this

administration, more people have been charged under the espionage

Act and all other president's combine. The Act was passed in 1917.

It was World War I. It was about spies, not whistle-blowers. It was

now being used heavy-handed leat to go after those, insecurity, who

government objects to them sniffing through things for power. A person

from the National Security wrote about the dangers that come with it

whistle-blowers. She speaks about the way Leeks stop people from

voicing frank and honest opinions inside the system. In many ways, it

retards openness and transparency within the national security system.

She does have a point doesn't she? I believe it's the other way round.

The Government is charging people like myself to send the chilling

message is that if you decide to speak up, even within the system,

you will be hammered hard. I share that on 60 minutes. It works the

other way. The has a problem of trust inside the system. There's a

danger that wholesale leaks of information can happen because

someone inside the system has a problem with what's happening.

Everyone along the chain will start to second-guess about what they can

put into the public domain and on electronic media. I would disagree.

As a whistle-blower, if I have a reasonable lead about government

wrongdoing or fraud or waste or abuse or public safety, I have an

obligation to speak up. The mechanisms which I use, they are

compromised. I was retaliated against for what I did within the

system. If you have read a warrant served on me, they were focusing on

me and not the reporter. It was a red herring. They were more

concerned about I was a source for the New York Times article

published in 2005. It's about the existence of the programme.

final point. They thought that I was the source. You said recently

that we are now in a scary place in this country speaking truth to

power has become a criminal act. You don't really believe that, do

you? You make it sound like so Stalin in Russia or? The my case is

any thing at all that's precisely what they did, criminalising My

First Amendment activity. The activity of the Government that

involves any wrongdoing. Fraud, waste and abuse. Also in this

administration than any other administration in US history. That

should send a real message in terms of history as to what's going on.

Remember, I flew for my country of interest over East Germany. I never