Three NSA whistle-blowers speak out about gov't. spying
When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief.
Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way.
For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media.
To the intelligence community, the trio are villains who compromised what the government classifies as some of its most secret, crucial and successful initiatives. They have been investigated as criminals and forced to give up careers, reputations and friendships built over a lifetime.
Today, they feel vindicated.
They say the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who worked as a systems administrator, proves their claims of sweeping government surveillance of millions of Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing. They say those revelations only hint at the programs' reach.
On Friday, USA TODAY brought Drake, Binney and Wiebe together for the first time since the story broke to discuss the NSA revelations. With their lawyer, Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, they weighed their implications and their repercussions. They disputed the administration's claim of the impact of the disclosures on national security — and President Obama's argument that Congress and the courts are providing effective oversight.
And they have warnings for Snowden on what he should expect next.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/
NSA's second massive spy center in San Antonio, Texas:
Even as reports break about the size and scope of the National Security Agency’s vast data storage center in Utah, new details are emerging about a second massive NSA center in San Antonio, Texas. According to the Houston Chronicle, “Satellite and aerial imagery show that massive air conditioning units and backup generators have been added to the facility, which is now ringed by barbed-wire fencing. City permits and property tax records show that the complex has been dramatically expanded.” According to sources, the plant will supposedly translate intercepted communications from the NSA; the communications are then forwarded to Maryland for processing.
The data center itself is about 94,000 square feet. It became operational in 2012. But the San Antonio Express-News could find no funding in the Defense Department budgets from 2004 through 2013 for the work at the Sony plant where the NSA center was located. The property on which the data center is located has grown by approximately 135,000 square feet, and is now worth some $72 million. A local bond sale in 2006 estimated that the NSA would be dropping $300 million into the area.
Originally, the NSA was much more transparent about the project, actually holding a job fair to promote their expansion in San Antonio. But from 2007 on, the news about the site has been nonexistent. In 2010, San Antonio residents reported that their garage doors had been opening randomly, and the NSA admitted that its antenna were interfering with garage door openers.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/17/NSA-center