Thomas Drake: '9/11 Became a Profit Center' for the NSA

Thomas Drake, a former National Security Agency senior officer who blew the whistle on the NSA "Trailblazer" surveillance program, talks about NSA's commitment to national security profit-making after 9/11. Stating that "9/11 became a profit center", Drake warns that the NSA has become a "jobs program", in line with the military industrial complex.

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The scale of government secrecy and surveillance has surpassed all previous boundaries—especially in the national security arena, where the budgets, size and scope of intelligence agencies have ballooned since 9/11. Unprecedented secrecy is largely evading traditional oversight mechanisms, leaving policy makers, the media, and the public in the dark.

What impact are secret governmental operations having on our democratic processes, and are the decisions that are being made behind closed doors helping or harming our national security? What tools are available to penetrate this secrecy, foster a new culture of government accountability, and impose enforceable constraints on intrusive surveillance of innocent Americans?

Thomas Andrews Drake is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, linguist, management and leadership specialist, and whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that he 'mishandled' documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. His defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.

[ChrisInAVan]

What Thomas Drake just described is Fascism. Corporations and top gov't colluding without any representation.

[DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

first you accuse it of being a "bull-shit conspiracy theory, " and when i prove it true, you turn to saying "so what?"
you do not think that it is significant that the people used as justification for invading Iraq (Saddam) and Afghanistan (bin Laden) are former business partners with the Bush family and were supported by the US government?
I am not "implying" anything. I am merely stating a verifiable fact: that the bin Laden family, Bush family and Saud family were business partners in Carlyle

[bharth_yadav]

So totally gov don't care about common people life's

[DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

Caryle involved bin Laden family, Bush family, Saud family, etc.

[paulrprichard]

‘Please make us safe’ is the plea from the people but enormous fortunes and multi-billionaires are made as a result.

[LaughingMan]

I wasn't aware that you represented 'everyone', and that this was some sort of contest.

[SkitzLdN]

Seems money is the biggest evil in our world or is it greed?

[DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

i never said that Osama did not "exist"

[WakeSideLife]

You lost this one friend. Everyone knows it. Bow out respectfully.

[Gunt]

Haha! I just thought I'd do a casual search on your name to see how much trolling you do! You're everywhere disrupting legitimate discussion with ad hominem attacks and mis-representations - your arguments are carbon copies. I notice with your favourite tactic of selective quoting you don't manage to find any that indicate anti-semitism!

[DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

good for you? i searched you as well... what's wrong with your right eyebrow?

[LaughingMan]

You are mixing bull-shit conspiracy theories with fact.