War on Whistleblowers: How the Obama Administration Destroyed Thomas Drake For Exposing Government Waste

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Fishing Expedition

Once the FBI discovered a group of people who had warned the appropriate congressional oversight committee, as well as the Pentagon, that NSA had made costly, ineffective choices, the bureau kept digging into their lives until it found something.

“My life was turned upside down.” Drake said at his National Press Club speech.“I know for a fact that everything you could find out or anything you could possibly imagine in your life -- any transaction, all your e-mails, any and all subscriber information with any concern, including telecommunication concerns -- was all exposed to the government.  Because they were looking for what was necessary to indict me.”

When the government designates whistleblowers as espionage targets, Drake said in an interview, that designation gives them “free rein to tear your life apart.”

Drake and most of the others charged by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act still either worked directly for or were contracted to the government at the beginning of the investigation, which means the government had broad access to information on them as part of their security clearance. Then the investigation proceeded using Title III (criminal, not intelligence) warrants.

But for investigative targets who don’t hold a security clearance, the label “espionage” may serve to give the government the same kind of investigative license it has with clearance holders.

Once the attorney general deems an investigation to be a counterintelligence (that is, espionage) probe, the government gains access to a whole set of secretive investigative tools, such as National Security Letters, which require recipients, such as telecom companies, retail outlets and even libraries, to turn over records of a target’s transactions -- without notifying the target. Other tools include orders, authorized under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, to turn over business records, up to and including cell phone GPS data. These tools effectively allow the government to camp out on someone’s life -- read their e-mails, search their dwellings and computers, review their financial information -- until the government discovers evidence of a crime.

Is Supporting WikiLeaks a Crime?

That may be what happened with WikiLeaks. On Dec. 6, 2010, Eric Holder confirmed what had been reported a week earlier in the media: among other theories, DOJ was considering prosecuting WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act. Holder announced this at the beginning of the investigation, not after finding evidence that anyone from WikiLeaks had solicited information from Bradley Manning.

In the same comments, Holder tied such theories to aggressive investigative techniques: “I personally authorized a number of things last week and that's an indication of the seriousness with which we take this matter and the highest level of involvement at the Department of Justice.”

In a statement before his court martial on February 28, Bradley Manning insisted that no one had solicited him to send information. “The decisions that I made to send documents and information to [WikiLeaks] were my own decisions, and I take full responsibility for my actions.”

Not long after Holder made his statement, the government reportedly reached the same conclusion. Yet the government continues its investigation into known associates of WikiLeaks. It appears that without having acquired any information showing evidence that WikiLeaks solicited the information in question, the government labeled WikiLeaks a spying entity, allowing the government expansive investigative powers.

To be clear, any investigation of Julian Assange -- who is not an American citizen and not in the US -- could easily use such tools. But to pursue, in the same heavy-handed way, any Americans involved, the “espionage” designation provides a very valuable tool.