Thomas Drake

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Thomas Drake in April 2014

Thomas Drake ( Thomas Andrews "Tom" Drake; born April 22, 1957 in Louisiana , USA) is an American former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) . He worked there as an expert for software tests and published as a " whistleblower " internal information on the Trailblazer project for comprehensive worldwide monitoring . In 2010 he was charged as a spy because of this and faced a life sentence. The charges did not hold up in court, however, and he was sentenced to one year suspended prison sentence for “misusing a computer system”. In 2011 he received The Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize . In June 2013, following Edward Snowden's publications on the PRISM wiretapping program , Drake's statements at the time became a topic again in the media.

Life

Drake, who speaks fluent German, served in the US Air Force between 1979 and 1989 . According to the Washington Post , he also worked as an analyst for the CIA . Until August 2001 he worked for various companies on behalf of the NSA. The main tasks were the evaluation of software and quality assurance . He then moved to the NSA's Signal Intelligence Directorate in Fort George G. Meade , Maryland . In the following years Drake held various positions within the NSA. He had the classification level Top Secret. During the investigation of the Congress to the attacks of 11 September 2001 Drake testified about errors NSA. From 2006 he worked as a professor at the National Defense University (NDU). Two years later he had to leave the NDU and resigned from the NSA. His next job at Strayer University he had to leave because of the indictment; he later found work in an Apple store.

Whistleblowing

From the late 1990s onwards, the NSA tried to acquire new tools for wiretapping . In addition to various other means, software should be used. Some of those involved favored the Trailblazer project developed by SAIC , while others preferred the ThinThread developed in-house. The latter program brings together data from various sources and provides connections between people in real time. ThinThread tried to protect American privacy by filtering out most of the data. The Trailblazer project also tried data mining . However, it did not have any privacy protection options. In the opinion of Drake and other employees, this violated the fourth amendment to the constitution . In addition, the costs were extremely high. Was hired as the project Trailblazer 2006, a total cost of 1.2 billion were US dollars accumulated. Michael V. Hayden finally preferred Trailblazer. Drake then complained to his superiors, the Inspector General of the NSA and the Department of Defense . Drake also came into contact with Diane S. Roark, a member of the House Intelligence Committee of Congress for the Republican Party . In September 2002, Roark and the three other NSA employees filed a report with the Department of Defense Inspector General. Drake was an important source for this report. Two years later, the inspector confirmed these assessments and found serious errors on the part of the NSA.

In 2005, Drake contacted the Baltimore Sun on. According to him, it was very important not to divulge any confidential documents. The newspaper subsequently wrote several articles about waste and mismanagement at the NSA. There were also articles about the NSA in the New York Times .

In 2007 the FBI raided the homes of Drake and other former employees. The investigators wanted to know who is behind the article in the New York Times. Five documents were found on Drake that are classified as secret or higher. One of the documents had no classification at the time and was then classified as secret. Another was later removed from the classification. Drake was charged over it. If convicted , he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. However, prior to the June 2011 trial, the main charges were dropped and Drake was only found guilty of misuse of a computer system. The prison sentence of one year has been suspended.

In December 2012, he gave a lecture at the 29th Chaos Communication Congress of the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg together with the NSA whistleblower William Binney .

Following Edward Snowden's disclosure of the NSA's PRISM program , Drake said that Snowden saw what he [Drake] saw and that what Snowden disclosed was just the "tip of the iceberg." In July 2013, in an interview with Stern magazine, he mentioned a program called Ragtime, which "serves, among other things, to skim off government communications by the NSA". In 2014, he spoke as an interview partner in the SWR2 feature Spying Friends - Germany and the American secret service NSA .

In July 2014, Thomas Drake testified before the NSA committee of inquiry of the German Bundestag.

Awards

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ United States of America vs. Thomas A. Drake (PDF; 2.7 MB) from April 14, 2010
  2. ↑ Thomas Pany: Obama's War Against Whistleblowers . In: Telepolis . May 19, 2011
  3. ↑ a b Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti: US espionage exposed: Whistleblower threatens imprisonment ( memento of the original from June 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / futurezone.at archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: futurezone.at. May 20, 2011
  4. ^ Tricia Bishop: Drake pleads guilty to misdemeanor in NSA espionage case . In: The Baltimore Sun . June 10, 2011
  5. ↑ a b c The Ridenhour Prizes: The Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling 2011: Thomas Drake
  6. ↑ a b Ellen Nakashima: Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake may pay high price for media leak . In: The Washington Post . July 14, 2010
  7. ↑ Scott Shane: Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press . In: The New York Times . June 11, 2010
  8. ↑ a b c d Thomas Stölzel, America reads along ; Wirtschaftswoche from August 10, 2011.
  9. ^ A b Jane Mayer: The secret sharer . In: The New Yorker . May 23, 2011
  10. ↑ Josh Gerstein: Ex-NSA official Thomas Drake takes plea deal . In: Politico. June 9, 2011
  11. ↑ Fight against information leaks: Obama's government threatens backlash in court . In: Spiegel online . June 10, 2011.
  12. ↑ Scott Shane: No Jail Time in Trial Over NSA Leak . In: The New York Times . July 15, 2011
  13. ^ Stefan Krempl & Andreas Wilkens: 29C3: Summit of NSA whistleblowers and "enemies of the state" . In: heise online . December 28, 2012
  14. ^ Thomas Drake: Snowden saw what I saw: surveillance criminally subverting the constitution . In: The Guardian . June 12th, 2013
  15. ↑ Katja Gloger : US bugging affair BND used previously unknown NSA spying program . In: stern.de . July 24, 2013
  16. ↑ Katja Gloger: The whole world under suspicion. In: Stern . No. 31, July 25, 2013, pp. 62–67
  17. ↑ Interview in the SWR2 feature Spy Friends from November 19, 2014
  18. ↑ Ex-NSA employee in the committee of inquiry: BND supported drone warfare in the USA spiegel.de, accessed on July 9, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Drake, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Drake, Thomas Andrews; Drake, Tom
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American former NSA employee, whistleblower
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Louisiana , USA