Whistleblower Levels Shocking Allegations at Bush's Spying Programs

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted January 24, 2009.

One such whistle-blower, who was recently revealed to be the man who truly blew the lid off the Bush administration's wiretapping program, is former Department of Justice official Thomas Tamm, a prime source of Eric Litchblau's. Tamm was instrumental in breaking the story, and although he has remained largely anonymous until now, his life has been turned upside down ever since. In a cover story for Newsweek last month, "Is He a Hero or a Criminal?", Michael Isikoff reported how early one morning in August 2007, his house was raided by 18 FBI agents who took his computer, his kids' laptops, books, etc. Tamm's college-age son, Terry, "was escorted downstairs, where, he says, the agents arranged him, his younger sister and his mother around the kitchen table and questioned them about their father."

After the raid, Justice Department prosecutors encouraged Tamm to plead guilty to a felony for disclosing classified information -- an offer he refused. More recently, Agent (Jason) Lawless, a former prosecutor from Tennessee, has been methodically tracking down Tamm's friends and former colleagues. The agent and a partner have asked questions about Tamm's associates and political meetings he might have attended, apparently looking for clues about his motivations for going to the press, according to three of those interviewed.

In the meantime, Tamm lives in a perpetual state of limbo, uncertain whether he's going to be arrested at any moment. He could be charged with violating two laws, one concerning the disclosure of information harmful to "the national defense," the other involving "communications intelligence." Both carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison. "This has been devastating to him," says Jeffrey Taylor, an old law-school friend of Tamm's. "It's just been hanging over his head for such a long time … Sometimes Tom will just zone out. It's like he goes off in a special place. He's sort of consumed with this because he doesn't know where it's going."

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In its first week, the Obama administration has been silent for now about cases like Tamm's or Tice's. (Tice told Olbermann that he has volunteered his service to the Obama team but that "they never really utilized me.") Meanwhile, Friday morning still saw little in the news about the latest spying disclosures, apart from various blog posts, a story on Wired's newsblog and pieces in scattered local and alternative media. Among civil liberties organizations, even groups like the ACLU and Amnesty International have been (justifiably) focused on the news out of the Obama camp regarding Guantanamo and have not released statements on it.

But one thing remains clear: As we enter the Obama era, there are many unanswered questions about the full extent of the domestic spying that took place under Bush, including whether it is still going on. "The NSA has far greater capability than it's ever made public," Risen told Olbermann on Thursday night. Among its endless list of things to do, the Obama administration must take a close, hard look at the NSA's activities -- activities that have already led to heated dissent in the ranks of his supporters who decried Obama's support for the Protect America Act and his support, in the end, on telecom immunity.

As far as what is already in the government's hands, said Tice, "this [information] could sit there for 10 years and then potentially it marries up with something else, and 10 years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they, of course, won't have a clue why." 

See more stories tagged with: keith olbermann, barack obama, george w. bush, warrantless wiretapping, national security agency, james risen, russell tice, whistleblowers, thomas tamm, eric litchblau

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