Related Stories
Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by new Pentagon source
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: May 29th, 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/snowden-whist...
Edward Snowden has called for a complete overhaul of US whistleblower protections after a new source from deep inside the Pentagon came forward with a startling account of how the system became a trap for those seeking to expose wrongdoing. The account of John Crane ... appears to undermine Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and [others] who argue that there were established routes for Snowden other than leaking to the media. Crane, a longtime assistant inspector general at the Pentagon, has accused his old office of retaliating against a major surveillance whistleblower, Thomas Drake. Not only did Pentagon officials provide Drakes name to criminal investigators, Crane told the Guardian, they destroyed documents relevant to his defence. Thomas Drakes legal ordeal ruined him financially. His case served as a prologue to Snowdens. In 2002, Drake and NSA colleagues contacted the Pentagon inspector general to blow the whistle on [a] tool, Trailblazer, for mass-data analysis. Crane, head of the offices whistleblower unit, assigned investigators. For over two years, with Drake as a major source, they ... prepared a lengthy secret report [that] eventually [helped] to kill the program. As far as Crane was concerned, the whistleblower system was working. But after an aspect of the NSAs warrantless mass surveillance leaked to the New York Times, Drake himself came under investigation and eventually indictment [for] hoarding documentation exactly what inspector-general investigators tell their whistleblowers to do.
Note: John Crane was forced out of the Pentagon in 2013. His story is told in a new book, titled, Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing In The Age of Snowden by Mark Hertsgaard. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.
Related Stories
Latest News
Key News Articles from Years Past
