Previous NSA Leakers, Thomas Drake And Mark Klein, Speak Out In Defense Of Ed Snowden

[jakeXT]

As US politicians and pundits push each other aside to tar and feather Ed Snowden for revealing some basic facts about NSA surveillance that the politicians and pundits themselves refused to call out for its clear abuse of basic 4th Amendment principles, two of the most important previous leakers of details of NSA surveillance have spoken out in support of Snowden. Thomas Drake, the former NSA employee who blew the whistle on NSA surveillance abuse (and faced decades in jail on trumped up charges that fell apart in court), has pointed out that Snowden's revelations confirm his own claims from before:

The NSA programs that Snowden has revealed are nothing new: they date back to the days and weeks after 9/11. I had direct exposure to similar programs, such as Stellar Wind, in 2001. In the first week of October, I had an extraordinary conversation with NSA's lead attorney. When I pressed hard about the unconstitutionality of Stellar Wind, he said:

"The White House has approved the program; it's all legal. NSA is the executive agent."

It was made clear to me that the original intent of government was to gain access to all the information it could without regard for constitutional safeguards. "You don't understand," I was told. "We just need the data.

Drake also highlights how he did use the "official" whistleblower channels that many are saying Snowden should have used, and look what happened to him:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130612/12291923424/previous-nsa-leakers-thomas-drake-mark-klein-speak-out-defense-ed-snowden.shtml

[snot]

1. K&R'd!

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130612/12291923424/previous-nsa-leakers-thomas-drake-mark-klein-speak-out-defense-ed-snowden.shtml

[Demeter]

2. They Need the Data...What do they need the data for, eh?

The only purpose that general collection of data can serve is BLACKMAIL...either directly, or through manufacturing crimes to fit "the data" to entrap a person who has not broken a law in fact or in spirit.

It's Extra-Judicial on its face. They are looking for non-crimes, pre-crimes, thought crimes: ways to prevent regime change and to stifle democracy.

This isn't about crime at all. It's about power: the theft of power and the abuse of power.

In a democracy, power belongs to the People.

In Fascism, which this is, power oppresses the People.

[ReRe]

3. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI...

^^^^^^^^^ Everything you said Demeter.
Democracy = Power to the People.
Fascism = NO power to the people.

... J Edgar would love this. For Blackmail and entrapment purposes. Preemptive wars, future crime, the effing Matrix. Everything is starting to move real fast now. Keep a journal, folks!

[LondonReign2]

4. knr

[William deB. Mills]

5. Congressional Campaign to Punish Clapper for His Perjury

It took four whistle-blowers a decade to crack open the apparent official-media conspiracy of silence about NSA spying on Americans. But now suddenly, evidently because of the blatantly vicious official mistreatment of Manning and Snowden (talk about picking up a stone to drop it on your own foot!), it has become acceptable in US society to discuss fundamental principles of democracy - e.g., whether or not a bunch of politicians have the right to sneak into a smoke-filled room to "reinterpret" US law to their own convenience and undermine Constitutional guarantees of civil liberties.

But to get to the point - Clapper's perjury before Congress has now actually made some Congressmen angry! See Democracy Now (where one can actually find real news): http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/2/reps_conyers_massie_on_bipartisan_campaign. Congressmen are starting a campaign to punish Clapper for committing perjury.

The other side of the "make Snowden a hero" coin is to bring to fire and bring to trial officials who abused power.

I can't believe that we actually have a few representatives in Congress with sufficient integrity and self-respect to resent being lied to. My hat is off to Manning, Snowden, Drake, Weibe, Binney.