Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker (Thomas Drake)

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

A federal judge harshly criticized U.S. prosecutors’ treatment of a former spy agency official accused of leaking classified material, calling delays in the now-closed case “unconscionable” and comparing it to British tyranny in the colonial era.

In 2007, FBI agents raided the house of Thomas Drake, then an official at the National Security Agency, but it took another 2 1 / 2 years for officials to indict him, Judge Richard D. Bennett said at a sentencing hearing earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, according to a transcript released Friday by the Secrecy News blog.

“And then, over a year later, on the eve of trial, in June of 2011, the government says, ‘Whoops, we dropped the whole case,’ ” Bennett said.

Drake was given a mild penalty for pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charge of exceeding authorized use of a computer: a year’s probation and 240 hours of community service. All 10 felony counts were dropped.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/judge-blasts-prosecution-of-alleged-nsa-leaker/2011/07/29/gIQAfFcDiI_story.html

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60 Minutes profiled Tom Drake in May 2011 (Transcript)

[chill_wind]

1. K & R.

[tpsbmam]

2. Bizarro world time: GWB appointed judge rightly blasts Obama DOJ

prosecutor for it's abysmal treatment of Thomas Drake. Sometimes the world is just too bizarre for me to fathom!

[Luminous Animal]

3. Obama's DOJ persecution against journalist James Risen has also collapsed...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

"The second defeat Obama's whistleblower war suffered occurred in the prosecution of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who -- like Drake -- allegedly leaked information that exposed serious ineptitude but entailed no national security harm. As I wrote about several times, the Obama DOJ was seeking to force New York Timees reporter James Risen (to whom Sterling is accused of leaking) to testify about his source. But yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema quashed the DOJ's subpoena, ruling in a decision (not yet public because it's now undergoing a classification review) that Risen need only testify to affirm the accuracy of what he wrote (which he had long ago offered to do)."