Former NSA leakers: We told you so
Excuse me for interrupting the feeding frenzy over Snowden and Greenwald.
Jun 26, 2013
Recent leaks about surveillance programs at the U.S. National Security Agency show an agency with little regard for the U.S. Constitution and laws on the books, two past NSA leakers said Wednesday.
Leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden published early this month give more evidence of widespread privacy violations at the NSA, said former NSA employee Thomas Drake. "We need to confront the reality that we have a secret government that's not operating in our best interests," Drake said at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference in Washington, D.C. "What's at stake is the very essence of what it not only means to be an American, but also what it means to be a citizen."
Drake and former NSA employee William Binney said Snowden's leaks confirmed many of their past warnings about the NSA's growing surveillance efforts in recent decades. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., officials at the agency and President George Bush's administration chose to disregard the U.S. Constitution and laws against surveillance of U.S. residents and allow the agency to sweep in their communications, said Drake, who was indicted on 10 felony counts that were later dropped.
After 9/11, Drake said he witnessed the "United States government, in the deepest of secrecy, unchaining itself from the Constitution."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043080/former-nsa-leakers-we-told-you-so.html