Thomas Drake

Thomas Drake is a former senior executive with the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States Air Force and Navy veteran, computer software expert, and whistleblower. While at the NSA, he blew the whistle on multi-billion fraud, loss of intelligence, wrongdoing, and a secret dragnet electronic surveillance and data mining program conducted on a vast scale by the NSA after 9/11. The surveillance program violated and subverted the US Constitution as well as individual sovereignty and privacy, while weakening national security and fundamentally eroding civil liberties. In April 2010 he was charged by the US Department of Justice with a ten felony count Espionage Act indictment facing 35 years in prison, until the government’s case against him collapsed in June 2011. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth Telling, the 2011 co-recipient with Jesselyn Radack of the Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award, and the co-recipient of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation 1st Amendment Award with Jesselyn Radack.

Twitter: @Thomas_Drake1