Thomas Drake had been with the NSA for 32 years and was the senior technical director when he decided he could no longer support the agency’s actions. For the past several years, he has been raising awareness as a whistle-blower about domestic spying, waste, and fraud, and was even prosecuted under the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information (the charges have been dropped).
The National Press Club ◼ wrote of the event (all subsequent emphasis added)
In a passionate plea for the sanctity of the First Amendment, Drake warned that journalists are being increasingly frozen out of government sources.“What is the price of keeping the public in the dark, and having the government increasingly operating in the dark through secret law, or interpretations in secret of existing law?” he asked ominously.
“How else will the press report the real news when their sources dry up and the government becomes a primary purveyor of its own news?” he asked in one of many disturbing scenarios posed to the audience. He quoted George Orwell and John F. Kennedy to the same effect: It is a slippery slope from government secrecy to tyranny.
Club President Angela Greiling Keane has made press freedom a priority for her presidency this year. Had Drake been convicted, “it would have had a chilling effect on whistleblowers and journalists, who often receive and keep defense documents,” she said in introducing Drake.
“…In our post-9/11 world, the government is increasingly in the ‘First Un-amendment’ business, engaged in a direct assault on free speech and the very foundation of our democracy.”
The National Press Club posted video of Drake’s entire speech:
