On Thursday, the New York Times attacked the Obama Administration for its misuse of espionage laws to target news media disclosures of government waste and abuse; and on Friday,
T. Drake
Thomas Drake, the recently-exonerated victim of the Obama Administration’s evil crusade, published his first op-ed exposing what he called the Bush-Obama Administration’s “vicious campaign against whistle-blowers.” The New York Times reported that a former top official “in charge of ensuring that real secrets are kept secret,” J. William Leonard, who headed the Information Security Oversight Office during the George W. Bush Administration, “has delivered a stunning repudiation of the Obama Administration’s decision to use the Espionage Act against a whistle-blower attempting to expose government waste and abuse.” Leonard was willing to testify on behalf of whistleblower Drake, until the Justice Department dropped all ten felony charges against Drake last month. The Times correctly points out that the Obama Administration has used the Espionage Act in five case of news media disclosures, whereas there were no more than four in all previous Administrations. Additionally, the number of documents classified by the Obama Administration jumped by 40% last year. While Obama had originally promised more declassification, “the Administration’s emphasis since then has all been in the opposite direction,” concludes the Times. “Treating potentially embarrassing information as a state secret is the antithesis of healthy government.” Drake’s op-ed in the Washington Post cites the judge’s reference to British tyranny, and recounts that his own dispute with the National Security Agency (NSA) started when he heard about secret electronic surveillance and data-mining after 9/11, that bypassed the 4th Amendment and FISA. Later, he became aware of, and tried to expose, massive fraud involving private contractors, illegalities, and intelligence failures on the part of the NSA. As a result, Drake says, he was targeted “in a multi-year, multimillion dollar federal criminal ‘leak’ investigation as part of a vicious campaign against whistle-blowers, that started under President George W. Bush and is coming to full fruition under President Obama.” Drake notes that this country used to recognize the importance of free speech and privacy; but if we sacrifice these liberties in the name of security, “then we transform ourselves from an oasis of freedom into a police state that crucifies its citizens when they step out of line or speak up against government wrongdoing.” ”These are the hallmarks of despotism, not democracy,” Drake concludes. “Is this the country we want to keep?”
