NSA Whistleblower: Justice Department Covers Up Crimes of Obama, Bush Administrations [View all]

By: Kevin Gosztola Tuesday May 8, 2012

In a recent segment from Current TV‘s show “Viewpoint,” host Eliot Spitzer interviewed three National Security Agency whistleblowers: William Binney, a former technical director; Kirk Wiebe, former senior analyst; and Thomas Drake, a former senior official. Each man talked about what he saw the NSA do when they were employees. Each of these whistleblowers directly explained the threats to civil liberties posed by the lawlessness of the NSA in the past decade.

Much of what is shared in the segment was already shown, but since what the NSA did constitutes illegality and corruption that have gone unpunished, it is worth highlighting key points.

Drake recounts that shortly after 9/11 he discovered that “a legal regime—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act”—was now being “absolutely violated by NSA in league with the White House.” FISA created a special court to provide warrants for wiretapping, but NSA was increasingly abusing its authority and was secretly and unconstitutionally eavesdropping on Americans. Drake knew if he remained silent he would be “complicit.”

“The vast capability of the NSA was increasingly being turned inside the US,” Drake says. “To surveil networks, emails, phone calls, etc.” Hundreds of millions of calls from individuals in the United States were surveilled as part of “Stellar Wind.”

“The United States of America was turned into the equivalent of a foreign nation for the purposes of dragnet electronic surveillance,” Drake adds.

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/05/08/nsa-whistleblower-justice-department-covers-up-crimes-of-obama-bush-administrations/