Edward Snowden on whistleblowers: what the evidence says · JRE #1368

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA executive, was indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2010 on a 10-count indictment including five counts of willful retention of national defense information under Espionage Act provisions (18 U.S.C. 793), plus obstruction of justice and false-statement counts; commonly cited reporting puts his maximum exposure at up to 35 years in prison. In June 2011, days before trial, the government moved to dismiss the original indictment and Drake pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor of exceeding authorized computer access, receiving no prison time (240 hours community service, one year probation). Separately, in July 2007, FBI agents conducted armed raids on the homes of NSA officials William Binney, Kirk Wiebe and Diane Roark, and separately searched Ed Loomis's property at his workplace, seizing computers and records as part of a leak investigation tied to a 2005 New York Times exposé on NSA warrantless surveillance; none of them was ultimately charged. Drake, who had also been a source for that IG complaint, was raided separately in November 2007. All of these events, the 2007 raids on Drake's fellow whistleblowers and Drake's own November 2007 raid, occurred under the George W. Bush administration, with Drake's formal indictment following in April 2010 under the Obama administration. Snowden's characterization is accurate on the core facts: Drake was charged under Espionage Act provisions, the case against him ultimately collapsed into a misdemeanor plea, and his fellow whistleblowers were subjected to aggressive FBI raids beginning in 2007 under Bush; the claim compresses some multi-year detail but is not misleading.