we can send a tweet about what we think, and i think that starts conversations, and we like to talk a lot, so there is conversations, social media, and we like to get our opinions out there. >> i think this whole week has been about learning. i come from a small town where it is very politically homogeneous. chance fort much people that do not think the same to get their opinions out without being ridiculed. being heroes of the delegates has given the opportunity to -- beinger viewpoints here with other delegates has committee opportunity to learn other viewpoints and get my opinions out without being shunned. >> has posted his discuss their participation in a u.s. senate youth program sunday night at 8:00 p.m. on c-span's "q&a." during this month, c-span is pleased to present our winning

entries in the student am video competition encouraging middle and high school students to think critically about issues. asked to create the documentary based on the question what's the most important issue the u.s. congress should consider in 2014? first prize winners it are antonia, and madeleine, our eighth graders in silver spring maryland. to improveongress the nsa data collecting and surveillance programs. >> edward snowden -- thank you. bringing to the attention of the world the fact that the u.s. government, the nsa, is engaged in massive information gathering. -- 125 billion cell phone

conversations a month. >> that has been allowed in the media about the situation, some right, a lot wrong. >> i have told you, how .mportant they have been we use one of these programs to another plot to bomb the new york stock exchange. here we are talking about this in front of the world. >> to repeat something incredibly important, the nsa is prohibited from the same to phone calls or reading e-mail without a court order. period, end of story. >> the nsa, what is it, what does it do? it was hard to answer the question before edward snowden leaked documents to the public showing the full extent of surveillance on americans. the nsa is doing data collection

e-mail.cans it is not limited in scope to terrorists, to people that they have probable cause to believe they are committing some type of crime. it is a bulk collection of data. clock said it is one start of the -- >> that is just one part of the story. many believe they are doing the right thing under a law called fisa. >> nsa is trying to implement the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which is designed to try to capture communications and can indication from foreigners who are believed to be trying to do harm to americans or the united states. >> i think pfizer has a lot of problems. voted to reindly in and redefine the fisa court

responsibility. i think we have more work to do. news weing, all of the have endured about the national usurity agency really tells in a deep way that there are things we have to do to rein in and provide oversight, as members of congress, what the responsibilities of the nsa are. method has changed over time with the advancement of technology. >> it has changed enormously because of the change in technology. the technology what i wrote my first book was simply telephones that hung from wires in people's houses, and that was about it. there were occasional telegrams, but not much more than that. so -- the nsae was limited in what they could

eavesdrop on. technology was in favor of privacy back in those days. technology favors eavesdropping because it is very easy to access internet communications, satellite communications, micro communications. >> edward snowden release thousands of documents that revealed the true nature of nsa to everyone, not the american public. >> i do not think what he is done is ethical and right. i do not consider him to be a traitor because i do not think his intent or purpose was to arm his country, but he clearly violated the law. there are clearly, in my view, better ways for him to have proceeded. >> a lot of people have very different feelings on what edward snowden did. some people consider him a hero. some people consider him a

traitor. i think the most important thing edward snowden did was start a conversation about what our government is is doing, and how they are spying on us. it is a conversation that america needs to have because people need to talk about what that balance is, and what that balance should be. weore edward snowden, all had to go on with the government saying no, we are not collecting your data. well, we know that is not true, so he started an important conversation. >> the nsa is controversial, and the other way to resolve the that caps on -- congress... as their number one issue -- congress puts this as their number one issue. >> it is really not been consider since 1935, and it is causing enormous damage. the german public and government is mad at the u.s..

here are the brazilian president can sign a trip to the u.s. in the u.s.ple angry that the nsa is spying on them. so, the nsa remains to be reigned in, and i think after all these years it is time to do that. think it should be after all these years a targeted topic. >> to watch all of the winning videos and to learn more on our conversation, go to c-span.org and click on studentcam. you can post your comments on the facebook page or tweeting us. >> next, a look at the challenges faced by the whistleblowers, with daniel thomas drake, a former senior executive at the nsa, who was prosecuted as a spy, and a former ethics advisor. she now advises former nsa

contractor edward snowden. it was hosted by the university of southern california in los angeles. it is about two hours, 10 minutes. [applause] her -- >> i just want to mention that her husband was in the justice department. she played a leading role in lawyer.g as a i am all for models of people that do not sell out. so much of what we teach is selling out, not particularly here, but at american universities, we test people so that they will be able to make a lot of money, go on to great success, and rarely are asking

the questions of what you will use the skills for, will you help people, what have you, and here is someone that clearly excelled in the american university system, and has devoted her life after yale, which is also where jeff got his law degree, to really doing her oh e-work. time,thout taking more why don't you set the stage of why we are here since we did this as a co-project with your organization that you work with now. >> sure. thank you, bob. thank you to the annenberg school. in partnership with my organization, the government accountability project, for hosting this event. the government accountability project is the leading whistleblower organization. we have been around [video clip] -- for 35 years, and have represented whistleblowers from all parts of the government as

well as private corporations and other entities. 2008, i began the national security and human rights program, which ended up representing people in those communities. realize that those were the people that have virtually no protection. in our country right now, we are at this crossroads where the first amendment is under attack, and that implements both you as journalists, and us as whistleblowers. i was a whistleblower before i went to work. a lot of people want to know what a whistleblower is, and the government thinks it gets to to decide. the government, in this case, often the wrongdoer, does not get to decide who is a whistleblower and who is not. a person becomes a whistleblower by operation of law through

disclosing fraud, waste, abuse, the term weaker is often used synonymously with whistleblower. but these are quite different activities because a leak, for example, when richard armitage leak cia undercover operative valerie plame's, that served no public or whatsoever. that was done surely to punish ambassador joseph wilson. whistleblowing on the other hand is done to serve the public interest and the public's right to know so when i began this program, i was used to representing whistleblowers who often experience retaliation, such as being demoted or transferred to a meaningless position or having their security credentials told.

-- pulled. but that has escalated astronomically because, in 2010, thomas drake to the right of me was indicted under the espionage act, one of the most serious charges that you can level against an american. and he became the second person in u.s. history to be indicted for espionage for non-spy related activity since daniel ellsberg to my left. the pentagon papers whistleblower who did much of the same thing as another client of mine, as snowden is doing today with the help of journalists like yourselves. you play a critical function. that's why journalists are considered the fourth branch, the fourth estate in our government. we, the whistleblowers, are

considered the fifth estate. we are the last, final check when the pillars of our democracy are not working, as they have been failing over the past decade since 9/11. we have a congress that is largely complicit. you have a judicial branch that is not hearing cases because the united states government asserts the state secret privilege to shut down these cases. when you have two important branches of government not functioning, you, the press, play a critical role even more. that is when we need whistleblowers even more. but since 9/11, the people who are out to expose government, incompetence, ineptitude, and

things that embarrassed the government get hammered. but god forbid you should discover -- disclose government illegality because then the hammer will really fall on you and you will face being imprisoned for the rest of your life. this is not hyperbole. this is not exaggeration. i just wanted to set the stage and each of us in turn will talk about our own stories and our own role in this war that has been going on in which journalists have been the saving grace for a number of us. and they have also been all too willing to cooperate with the government in other cases. so with that, i will pass it back to bob. >> i thought you were going to go much longer. [laughter] >> i can.

>> what impressed me so much about your own work and you were a whistleblower is when john walker lynde from marin county, california was caught up with the taliban. i looked at this guy's story and picture in the paper and he had been beaten and tortured. without feeling any sympathy for what was involved in all of this, i taught, if there is a -- i thought, you know, if there is a tradition of everyone deserves a legal defense and a tradition that due process applies universally, this was the guy that was going to challenge that tradition. what i find so amazing about your career is that, in the justice department, you decided that he deserved legal representation. why don't you tell us a little bit about that case and how it entered your justice department career. >> i worked at the justice department as the ethics advisor. i happened to be on duty the day

that i got a call that we had captured our first prisoner in the afghanistan war, john walker lindh, quickly dubbed the american taliban. i was told unambiguously that he had a lawyer and the criminal division wanted to know about the ethical propriety of interrogating john walker lindh without his attorney. my office got that kind of question all the time. that was routine bread-and-butter question. and i advised, no, you cannot question and interrogate someone if they are represented by counsel. meanwhile, there was the famous trophy photo of him, naked, blindfolded, gagged, and with epithets written all over him. it very much foreshadowed what later happened at abu ghraib. clearly, this was an individual who was being tortured so i am under a gag order and cannot go into that aspect of it too much.

but suffice it to say the fbi ignored my advice, interrogated john walker lindh anyway and then wanted to know what to do. so at that point, i said, not to worry, you can see a lot the off the interrogation and use it for national security and intelligence purposes but not for criminal prosecution. which is exactly what the justice department turned around and did. again, i didn't say anything. there is a press conference held by the attorney general announcing the charges against him and a reporter, one of you, asked, hey, it looks like he's being mistreated here. this photo, he looks like he's been tortured. what happened? and the attorney general said that his rights had been carefully scrupulously guarded. , i knew it was a lie but i didn't do anything. he had another press conference

two weeks later. john ashcroft liked press conferences. during that press conference, another astute reporter asked i thought he had legal counsel. and the attorney general said, if we were aware that he had a lawyer, he would have been provided that lawyer. again, a complete lie. but i didn't act or do anything. it was the prerogative of the attorney general to say what he wanted to. however, the criminal prosecution continued and i inadvertently learned from the prosecutor that there has been a federal court order for all justice department correspondence related to john walker lindh's interrogation and he said that he had two of my e-mails. i was immediately concerned because no one had told me about the court order, which discovery

orders go far and wide within the justice department. and i knew that i had written way more than two e-mails. being a naïve 29-year-old, i went and checked the hardcopy files because back then we kept everything in analog form as opposed to digital because we barely had the internet in 2001. and when i checked the hardcopy file, my heart sank. there were only a couple of pieces of paper in what has been a inch-thick file. i consulted with a colleague of mine who had been with the department for 25 years and he said very matter-of-factly this file has been purged. that was inconceivable to me because the department was simultaneously prosecuting

arthur anderson and enron for destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice. i wasn't sure what to do but i knew i couldn't be a part of this. i called tech support and i was able to resurrect more than a dozen of the e-mails, including the ones that documented the f -- the fbi committing an ethics violation in the interrogation of john walker lindh and i given -- gave them to my boss and i said i don't know what is going on here but i'm not going to be a part of this and i resigned. i thought that was the end of this ordeal for me. but the criminal prosecution continued and there was a suppression hearing coming up. the key to john walker lindh's case was the validity of the confession he gave during the interrogation i had advised against. and i heard the justice

department continue to say that they never thought he had a lawyer. which said to me that the justice department didn't turn over the e-mails. i didn't think they would have the temerity to make a statement like that, that he never had a lawyer, if my e-mails had reached the court. i tried to get copies of my e-mail. i had taken home a copy in case they disappeared again. i try to get them to the judge, but i no longer worked with the department and no longer had standing. and this weighed on me a lot because someone might die and face the death penalty because i hadn't turned over information or the information i tried to turn over didn't reach the court. i struggled with this. one morning, i saw michael isikoff who was with "newsweek" repeating the party line that he

never had counsel and i picked up the phone and called him and said, yes, he did and i have the e-mails to prove it. i gave the e-mails to michael isikoff and he wrote an article which quickly settled with john walker lindh pleading guilty to two minor and mistreated infractions. -- two minor administrative infractions. again i thought my part in this , was over. but i didn't realize that by going to the press i was unleashing the full force of the entire executive branch. and when i say that, i mean that i was put under one of the first federal criminal leak investigations. in reality, there is no such crime as leaking. i was referred to the state bars at which i am licensed as an attorney. and for good measure, i was put on the no-fly list. after that and many years in the

wilderness fighting this, i decided to dedicate the rest of my life to representing whistleblowers. i knew when they would come in and say you'll never believe what the government is doing to me i could look them in the eye and say, yes, i can. so i was representing whistleblowers. usually, the retaliation was getting fired or transferred, demoted, having your security clearance pulled. that kind of thing. but then one day i read about a man named thomas drake, who from everything i could tell by the article had gone through every conceivable internal channel to blow the whistle at nsa and was being indicted under the espionage act, which is the most serious charge that can be leveled against an american. and right now, while i thought

case was a tom's one-off, it wasn't. it has turned into a brutal war against whistleblowers that include espionage, act, prosecutions more than any president before obama and more than all presidents combined against people who are not spies but are accused of mishandling, allegedly, classified information and this implicates journalists because you are in every single indictment in these cases. >> great. did we agree that you will go next? ok. let me introduce an old friend, daniel ellsberg. when thomas spoke earlier he , mentioned daniel ellsberg as setting the marker for whistleblowing and such cases. and influencing him.

most of the time when i am influencing dan, i get it wrong. well-known person i know and he never gets anything wrong i think when i met you, i thought of u.s. sort -- i thought you were sort of a conservative originally. because you had been not only in favor of the vietnam war, you actually participated. you've been in the press corps and the marines before that and in the defense department and so forth. and we were having this argument in this country over whether this war ahead any sense, -- made any sense whether it was , justified and i wrote a pamphlet called how the u.s. got involved in vietnam and it was based on what i could find in interviews and so forth. and then lo and behold, we had , the pentagon papers. the pentagon papers settled those debates. basically, if we think of democracy being based on an informed citizenry, we had no way of knowing what was really going on in our name because it was all classified.

but the pentagon had decided to do a study of what this war was all about. and this study, which daniel ellsberg revealed, and tony russo, first of people in government and they will tell you all about it, and then to newspapers. it really was a lesson to me and -- in what this is all about, the people's right to know. because what this was was nothing more than an honest history. it was writing history. it was information used to make intelligent decisions that ended up being an event causing 3.5 million indochinese to die as well as over 59,000 american soldiers. so, here you have this horrendous development. there is a defense department study that says that what we are being told about this is bogus and this guy releases those

documents and now he's considered something of a hero even in establishment circles because they used him to say snowden is the bad guy, ellsberg is the good guy. but i remember at the time when he was on trial at the federal building in downtown l.a. and it looked like they were going to put him away for a real long time. daniel ellsberg was a figure getting much less support than he deserved at that time. much did you learn from the pentagon papers. it had a lot of material in it that wasn't into the pentagon papers. you had more than they had in many ways about the origins. on the other hand, you had quite a bit that was in the pentagon papers. inside, top secret when did you inside, top-secret. when was your study, 1965? >> i went to vietnam in 64 and 65.

the study was published by robert hutchins center for the -- >> which year did he go out? >> 66. 65, 65. but when i delivered my study, there was justice douglas, henry luce, the establishment organization. and this goes to how you. -- this goes to how you prove something. they all told me, you are full of it. this couldn't possibly be. and they all have their friends. the public debate was always a loser because we were not given the information that was validated. that is what you supply. >> people on the left like bob at that time had been saying when it came out, this is not news to us. this is what we have been saying. to a large extent, that was true but they were not being heard and those who heard them like myself had to ask can this be true? who are these guys? what do they know? they are not insiders. it was so different from what we the presidentwhat

was saying, what the motive was, what the aims were, what we were doing. it was so different, it was arduous -- it was hard to believe. by the time i read your piece, which i would not have seen it in vietnam. i was in vietnam from 1965 to 1967. by that time, i was ready to believe having been there for two years. and i remember thinking, if i had read this before, in 1964 or 1965 when you were working on it, i never would have gone to vietnam. had i read in 1965, i think my reaction would have been can this be true? what is this? what the pentagon papers showed was that people inside were not saying something different from what the radicals were saying. they were saying much the same. they were saying totally differently in the public. in other words, they were lying. they knew they were lying.

and actually to some degree, , some of them showed particular -- a good deal of realism about what was happening in vietnam contrary to the impression they were giving. i remember one of the joe pfeiffer cartoons. said, i knewnels this and johnson did not know it? and you knew it and you knew it. how could johnson not know this? the answer is he did know it. he was just lying to us when he said that he didn't. the implication is the government is able to keep secrets very well. and the secret they kept was what they were up to, what they thought be prospects were, what they thought the costs were pretty much. they were simply lying about it and they were able to keep secret the fact that they did know that much about it and that the prospects were as bad as they actually were. it's hard to believe that they

could have gotten us into vietnam specifically had that information been made available in 1965. there are two ways that might have happened. bob scheer putting it out in a pamphlet probably doesn't do it. you have to think of somebody else. or i could have put it up. i was just a staffer in the pentagon, but i had the documents in my safe at the time in 1964-1965. had i put them out at that time, i actually believe that it was very unlikely that johnson could have escalated the war in 1965 and 1966 the way he did because he had a senate that was very skeptical of it, that was like , could notlied to believe he was lying to them about his intentions as blatantly as in fact he was. and there was no whistleblower and i wasn't one.

center morris was one of the ones who voted against giving the -- senator morris was one of the ones who voted against the hitting the president the blank check told me in 1971, when i , put them out, if you had given this information to me on the committee on foreign relations committee in 1964, the resolution would have never gotten out of committee. and if they had brought it to the floor directly for a vote, he would have lost. and at the time when he first told me that, well, they would have found another excuse. to be sure, that resolution was a set of lies. in fact, we had not been attacked and he got a declaration of war out of it. but they would have found something us to get it. -- something else to get it. but when i thought later, what if i put out everything that was in my safe about the planning for escalation that was going on before the election or during the election campaign when his

rival, senator on reserve, general goldwater was a senator on the foreign relations committee was saying we should escalate and the president was saying we seek no wider war and a safe full of documents planning a war as soon as the election was carried out. could johnson have gone ahead? i don't think so. hundreds,y i, but maybe a dozen people at least had access to those documents. anyone of us could have avoided that war. if we had told the truth, knowing the president was lying at that time, to the congress and the campaign. asked me orne anybody else. nobody in the press was really pressing what's the truth behind this thing?

they were not looking critically at what the president was saying. there weren't to my knowledge, to this day, making an effort that was rebuffed somehow to get the truth about what was happening. and the upshot of that, the meaning is to this day, we don't have nearly as many whistleblowers as we could and should have. how many would that be? bob suggested to me earlier, practically anyone who had that documentation would have realize that the constitution was being thwarted and violated. congress should decide whether we go to war or not, unless we were immediately attacked. which we claimed to be, and that was a lie. later in the year, when the escalation occurred, they weren't even pretending there had been an attack on the united states. yet we were moving ahead, lying to congress, fairly unconstitutional. each one of us in the executive

branch a taken an oath, the same one i'm sure is the same with you, tom, which is to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and i think we all at that time, my colleagues and i, all violated that oath. i don't think we even asked ourselves what would it mean to obey the oath? what would it mean to disobey the oath? it didn't come up. we were beyond the constitution. we worked for the president. and it was a war. to be sure, it was a war he decided what we should have, which wasn't especially but it was al, trend ever since harry truman took us to war in korea which was not constitutional. we had the president take us to libya and say it was a war. we were killing, but not dying. so that was not a war.

ok, what i am saying is whistleblowers have the ability to avert a disastrous, hopeless, bloody war and not only that one. iraq could have been stopped that way by anyone of a thousand people who knew what we were getting into. not one of whom told the truth. nor did any -- actually, there were in that particular case, unlike vietnam, a couple of reporters, walter pincus and few others, some dissenters talking about the lack of evidence for wmd's. but the leaks, the top seek it -- the top secret leaks to judith miller and michael gordon that there were wmd's, that there were cylinders and dealings to get yellowcake for

saddam, that was all over the front page of "the new york ," and that got us into the war. so the reporters in washington failed across the board on iraq in exactly the same way they had failed years before on vietnam. and the people in the government all failed to carry out their oath to the constitution all without any exception known to me except for a two anonymous ones. the government can keep secrets, does keep secrets, even when thousands of people know them and know that they are critical to a deadly war going on. and given its ability to keep secrets, then the incentives to refrain from crimes, lies is pretty much eroded. without accountability, they can go ahead and they do.

and the price of that is wars like vietnam and iraq. leaks toctually, it is others about the military resistance to nuclear weapons and other attacks on iran that i began leaking in 2006 and leaked again about syria this week, about false flag operations in syria done with the support of the turkish government about the serum gas -- sarin gas in syria. , we areo those leaks not in syria right now. we need a lot more of them and we need a lot more effort by the press to look for them and dig them up. >> i want to pick up on that. the fact of the matter is we get most of our news on national security, foreign policy from leaks. >> true.

we get false stories. you get plenty of false stories. >> you mentioned judy miller. leaks that are not comfortable to the government or what the government is pushing. i want to address this to thomas drake. you have been in those official circles. what i wonder, in those circles -- let me get the background. you spent time in the air force and the navy, but one of the interesting experiences you had is you were in east germany so you became familiar with the horrors of the official propaganda system. the stasi and so forth. you understand the need of information for a free society been in the have not unlike snowden, you are a contractor but then you rose to a high official position. surely, living in washington, as

you do, you are probably aware. we had lunch today. i remember when i was reporting for "the l.a. times and the development of a star wars system, i think it just goes to the point i was on tsa or a southwest airlines, a plane going from l.a. to san jose but and edward teller -- maybe not known to all of our students, but he was the father behind the instrumentals very in getting ronald reagan to support star wars. they were going to have an x-ray laser. he said, where you going and i said i am going to the stanford arms-control program. he said make sure sid tells you about the great results we had on the cottage test. we got lazing. true, that would be

the biggest change in the military balance. it was the thing that any enemy would want to know. and here he is telling me, a suspect character that no one should trust, right? telling me the result of this test. the very name of the test had to be secret. the very result, so forth. so i went to the office control and i managed -- i mention this to sid and he said i cannot talk about this because it is of the highest confidentially out. what is interesting about thomas drake is that it was a very important story but it was boring from a kind of cops and robbers or national security thing. it really has to do, if i understand it correctly, with efficient c, wasted resources, and an important issue of privacy as well.

but the nsa had developed a system with a very brilliant fellow who had developed a system for a thin thread that would allow you to go through information but in a selective way still preserving privacy. this was after 9/11, very important. before 9/11, it could have been used to good effect instead, they rejected that system and went for an enormously expensive system that has never worked and has a bludgeoning effect. >> this was really the thing that turned you into a whistleblower, isn't that true? >> in part, yes. he don't wake up one morning and decide to be a whistleblower. it is not a profession you would

normally seek. i don't remember going to my high school counselor and saying, hey, i want to be a whistleblower. it just wasn't on the list. i grew up in vermont. as a very young teenager, i witnessed seniors earning their draft cards in the back lot of the high school. i was 14. and i remember that because dan ellsberg was a key individual in my understanding of what can go wrong with your own government. my cynical way getting as a young adult took place in the 1970's. pentagon papers leaked by dan ellsberg. sy hersh, me lie, and all of that meant. the horror of vietnam as a continue to unfold. watergate. woodward and bernstein. think about -- that is where they got their beginnings and their fame, to sit that way, in terms of reporting.

it was a really cool profession to be in. then i saw a president of the united states resign from office. yet when i became eyewitness to just a few short decades later -- in fact, in reality, it was only about twice six years later -- makes the nixon era look tame by comparison. government. the real truth here is what i was confronted by. in terms of what the government chose to do -- no public debate, no need for the public to know -- and fat, they were doing everything to keep us away from the public. so what do you do? my colleagues resigned from the agency that i work with. and i chose to stay on and fight. i made a conscious choice that i would fight them from within because that moment of truth set into motion my whistleblowing within the system for a number of years and then ultimately

leading to a choice to go to the press with what i knew. and here is where i looked at dan ellsberg in terms of living history. back during the nixon which i ultimately have to confront after 9/11, what is happening to our country, that it is our cornerstone of who we are as amendment -- as americans. if we don't have the first amendment, everything else becomes propaganda. information control by the government. it is important to note that vietnam's lessons were learned quite well by those in power. they actually said in a book published about this that, if we ever find ourselves in conflict

of this nature in the future, we have to control the message. because the fact remains that vietnam was really the first television war during it was brought right into the living rooms of america. they got to see it all played out over a number of that backdrop. we also have to remember something else. because history is really important here, especially for the profession you are looking to go into. because you are reporting on the news, you can't understand the news without understanding the history. and one of the things that becomes so seminal in your understanding about that period is that there were congressional hearings. just look up the church and type

committing meetings. detailing, cataloging a whole series of violations by the government. but i am not here to give you a litany of all those violations and all that wrongdoing. one of the things that came out during the 1970's, which is often forgotten by the apologists of the national security state in the post-9/11 era, is that nsa and the cia and the fbi were routinely violating the rights of americans with impunity. nsa formed the deepest of secrecy not by congress but by the virtue of a presidential signature in 1952. a military organization headed by a three-star general now a four-star general. it had been routinely violating the rights of americans on a program called operation shamrock, the first mass

surveillance program, truth be told. all telexes coming into the united states and exiting the united states were routinely elected and copied and given to the nsa. and guess who was providing them under the greatest secrecy? the very corporations like rca global, for example, as well as several others, just turning this over to the government. total violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution. i'm saying all this -- look up operation minaret. nsa using its extraordinary power back in the 1960's and 70's to spy on americans that

they didn't like, that posed threats to the state, were activists, dissenters, journalists and reporters. providing in the public interest critical information about what was going on inside the government, finding themselves on the other end of an nsa surveilling them with the technology of that day. i say all that because a lot of reforms were instituted in the 1970's, including something called the foreign intelligence surveillance act passed under the carter administration. also establishing to standing committees on intelligence to provide oversight so it wouldn't get out of hand as was demonstrated before -- by all of these disclosures. daniel ellsberg, turning over the pentagon papers in the public interest because the american people have the right to know what their government was doing in their name. now, accelerate to 9/11. i'll ask the question

rhetorically, what were you doing on 9/11? for many in this room, including my own son who is 18 and a freshman at virginia wesleyan -- 9/11, he doesn't remember the spring i 11 world. the only world he actually knows is what occurred after 9/11. some of us actually remember nine -- 9-10. some of us would like to return to 9/10. my first job was 9/11. i did not know when i was sitting in the legislative affairs office listening to my immediate supervisor attempt to explain why nsa needed billions of dollars to meet the challenges of the digital age, a program that i actually blew the whistle -- i didn't know what was about to happen while i was in that room.

and while i was in that room, both towers were hit and then the pentagon shortly thereafter. and yet that was a trigger event. almost 3000 people were murdered. it was a trigger event in which i am going to say this in the strongest possible language. it was the reality of what i confronted, the horror of what i confronted that my own government unchained itself on the constitution. a silent coup against the constitution, placing itself, granting itself authority to engage in emergency powers -- emergency powers. we've been operating in that mode ever since. truth be told. and he serious of -- and a series of decisions were made. we have to remember 9/11 was fundamentally a failure but it was used to cut is the government is too big to fail --

it was used as an excuse to engage in a whole series of the committees and -- series of activities and operations that are total violations of what we actually stood for. necessary. none of it was necessary. the very best of american ingenuity had already been ready to go. well before 9/11. we never have to go to the dark side as vice president cheney himself said on public broadcast television five days after 9/11. so what did i confront? within days of 9/11, the power of nsa being turned on the united states, full power. nsa was supposed to do for intelligence. but apparently, the united states was now a foreign nation for all intents and purposes.

my moment of truth occurred three weeks after 9/11 when i confronted a lead attorney in the nsa in the office of general counsel. i said what are we doing? it's the prime directive that you do not spy on americans without a warrant. and now we are just separating ourselves from the fourth amendment? there is an entire directive, a regime in which i was fundamentally accountable and had been ever since i was in the military, flying reconnaissance. there were procedures involved. all of this was tossed out. i wasn't just looking at the wheels coming off this thing called the constitutional republic. i was actually looking at an entirely new vehicle that i did not recognize, an alien form of government.

remember, i had taken the oath four times to defend the constitution. now i witnessed a subversion of the constitution and 9/11 was a trigger for billions and billions of dollars being poured into nsa. failure was really profitable. and fact, my immediate supervisor, as we went around the complex attempting to console the workforce, they knew that we had failed the nation. they knew that we were also responsible for not keeping people out of harms way. just read the preamble of the constitution, the two is possibilities of the government, provide for the public defense.

9/11 was a gift to nsa. we will get all the money we want and then some. and congress really provided link checks to nsa for the next several years. so that was fraud, waste and abuse. then i discovered there was critical intelligence that had been kept by nsa and never shared with the rest of the government. the real truth here is what i was confronted by. in terms of what the government chose to do -- no public debate, no need for the public to know -- and fat, they were doing everything to keep us away from the public. so what do you do? my colleagues resigned from the agency that i work with. and i chose to stay on and fight. i made a conscious choice that i would fight them from within because that moment of truth set into motion my whistleblowing within the system for a number of years and then ultimately

leading to a choice to go to the press with what i knew. and here is where i looked at dan ellsberg in terms of living history. back during the nixon administration, the president actually had said that, if the president says it's ok, it's legal. here is what the leading nsa attorney told me. you don't understand, this program is all legal. it was approved by the white house. as soon as i heard that, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. we are the executive agent for the program. it was a dragnet surveillance program. you cannot understand snowden.

you cannot understand any of the disclosures to date without understanding the foundation of those surveillance programs. so i went through all channels. i ended of the a material witness for 29/11 investigations. i gave them thousands of pages of material evidence and i wish i had actually kept that evidence. and and i have talked about this, just like he shared with you that he wished he had exposed the pentagon papers years earlier. it might have stopped the war, may have prevented it from occurring. so a material witness for two 9/11, no investigations. all of the evidence was censored and suppressed. the only evidence that i had any contact, material contact is the fact that i was interviewed. there are people right now, for

a number of years, trying to track down where did all of my material witness evidence, both verbal and in documented form and up? and everybody is playing dumb. i wonder why. because buried in there are things i is closed publicly later. buried in there is the reality of the foundational programs of which you have been hearing so much about june 23. -- june 2013. thank you ed snowden. buried in there is the evidence of nsa having critical intelligence that could have prevented, stopped 9/11. nsa conveniently said how kinsey meant it was for nsa to hide behind the fbi and the nsa.

let them take the hit. this is the stark reality of our government turning into something other than what it is supposed to do. and as i recall from the nixon era, the cover-up is often worse than the crime. i am eyewitness to high crimes and misdemeanors and they are all covering it up and billions are being spent because it was a really big failure so it chased a lot of money. none of this needed to happen. the very best technology had already been developed. the fact is i discovered when i was the executive program manager, we were actually able to look at the critical or the critical database at nsa and discovered pre-and post-9/11 intelligence, information that had never been shared, 'had never been shared, information they didn't even

know they had. and in thread fundamentally protected the fourth amendment rights. so i went through all this -- noah the program they did adopt it as they took a portion of thin thread and without any controls at all, no fourth amendment controls, everything was just taken. all phone numbers, e-mail a dress is coming internet usage. watching all the disclosures from edward snowden, i'm aware there is far more that has been going on inside the government than what edward snowden has disclosed. truth again be told. this is really, really disturbing knowledge in history about our own government.

trailblazer was launched to great fanfare a year and a half before 9/11 ostensibly as a flagship program to deal with the digital age. nsa was going deaf. it was literally being drowned in all this data. they were in violation of the federal acquisition regulations. they decided to buy the solution, not make it. it had already been made. look up eisenhower's farewell speech before kennedy became president in 1961. i get all the way to 2005. this is -- there is a new

director of nsa. there is a final report from the department of defense. i was a material witness on that as well. umpteen thousands of evidence pages given to them on all that was going on with thin thread and trailblazer. i wrote a letter to general alexander, my final whistleblowing at nsa. i lost my job. i ended up in an office that had no responsibility and know many and nobody reporting to me. i ended up at the national defense university and i made a fateful decision. in 2005, it is important to summarize for you what actually took lace in terms of press reporting. it was fundamental to beginning to unravel precisely what the government had been doing in such deep state secrets all those many years since 9/11. james rise in, eric lichtblau -- they held onto this for 14 months, blockbuster article revealing for the first time the existence of the so-called the terrorist surveillance program.

they launched a criminal leak investigation to find the source of that article. my new when they launched the investigation that i would become a rhyme target because the set -- a prime target because the set of people who knew about the surveillance program was a sword nearly small. and debbie -- and because i had been executive manager on thin thread, although it had been completely shut down -- anybody watch indiana jones? just imagine thin thread, which is really software -- remember that famous picture in the end in the first indiana jones movie where the box going into the government warehouse? that's the last time i saw thin thread.

the digital warehouse, indiana jones warehouse. so i knew that i would be a target of the government in this investigation. it was reported -- i am going to keep emphasizing how absolutely crucial the press is in ultimately revealing the truths, even the most disturbing of truths about our own government. reporting in 2010 that this criminal leak investigation apparently was so crucial to the government to find out who had provided information about the secret surveillance program to the new york times at they put five full-time prosecutors on it and 25 full-time agents. i can tell you from my own ordeal that they actually borrowed agents from the mole hunter unit, which is the elite spy hunting unit in the fbi. that is how serious they were about finding the sources

no. they thought i was one of them. this happens and it is early 2006. i knew and i had always known that there was this third rail option. the third rail option that you never touched the nsa. you never say anything if you work for nsa. especially to the public. especially, especially to the reporters and especially if it is not preauthorized. i knew i would commit on administrative i alicia and. -- violation. i knew that i could be easily, easily placed under investigation for leaking classified. that i knew. i chose to go anonymously to a reporter and share with this reporter from the baltimore sun who had been writing a series of articles on nsa what i knew.

about the intel cover-up, the failure and abuse, and the secret surveillance programs. i was placed under direct investigation in the spring of 2006. i know that because they were trying everything they could to get into my computers at home. my colleagues, former colleagues, as well as the person who had been the nsa oversight manager and staff are on the committee, they were raided in july 2007 by teams of agents.

i was unceremoniously rated myself. the nightmare had begun. they thought that i was the leaker to the new york times. it was no evidence. because there was no evidence, that meant that i had done it. remember, the absence of evidence -- so, i am target number one. during my cooperative period with the fbi, they are now saying that i had gone to the reporter with all this stuff. they were accusing me of having gone to the new york times. they asked me very specific questions of what i shared with orders -- reporters. not about the fraud and abuse, but about the secret surveillance programs stop they were hyper about protecting that program. everything that ensued since. in april 2008, just imagine yourselves looking across the table from a chief prosecutor and being threatened with the following statement: mr. drake, how would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison? unless you cooperate with our

investigation -- i said i will not plea bargain with the truth. i cut off all contact with the fbi. in terms of cooperating with them. i hired a private attorney and spent a lot of money over the next three years. i was charged in secret. in march 2010, then i was publicly indicted in april 2010. i faced 35 years in prison and five counts of under the espionage act. now i am on the front page of every leading newspaper in the nation. it was extraordinarily rare. i was the first whistleblower since daniel ellsberg was charged with espionage. no attorney would represent me pro bono.

those who are willing to do so, the firm said that they would have to leave. we had government officials, senior contracting officials that we represent. conflict of interest. i was declared indigent before the court. i had federal public defenders appointed to provide my defense. now you are wondering what happened because i am here, and obviously i'm speaking to you as a free human being. i am extraordinarily fortunate. i cannot say that for the others charged with espionage under the obama administration. administration. i was exhibit number one. they want to make me the example. because you are charged with espionage, there is no public interest in defending you.

your charge like a spy. in fact, the government said that i was worse than a spy. not only was i an enemy from the state, i endangered many american soldiers. i would have their blood on my hands. the level of classification of the documents i had given and retained for the purpose of disclosure to a reporter cause exceptionally grave damage, the highest level of damage, to the united states. it was a really dark corner. i knew i could not prevail in the federal court system. i knew i would have to find a way to influence the court of public opinion and i knew that that would require me to engage the press, not just mainstream media, but alternative press. it was crucial that the truth about my case it out there.

you would think that organizations like the aclu would have come to my defense in a minute. they did not. the only organization that actually stuck with me the whole time was the government accountability project. why is that? when your charge of espionage, and i even had family members say that i must've done something. why would the government charge of espionage? i was reminded of daniel ellsberg, the first american charge of espionage for non-spy activities. i remember that. there is an extraordinary human being sitting next to me on my left. she wrote an amazingly powerful op-ed in the l.a. times.

go read it. speaking of the press, i read that and i realized that here was finally, a few short days after i was so publicly indicted, and the supervising official of the criminal prosecution against me have made very public statements -- i read that article and i knew that she got the case. she recognized crucial distinctions between leaking, which is not the public interest, and whistleblowing, which is. i contacted her, and other her extraordinary leadership, she defended me in the court of public opinion when no one else would. she engage the press and the full story has not been revealed.

we are writing a book, but we cannot find a publisher. it will detail all of this. there is much year beyond what i shared with you. for the next 14 months, i withstood the best that the department of justice had to throw against me. it was an extraordinary prosecutor doing everything he could to paint me into a dark corner. they, themselves, were strategically leaking certain information to the mainstream press about my case. after all is said and done, i did plead out on my terms. they dropped the felony counts to a misdemeanor. that was for exceeding authorized use of a government computer. that was my act of civil disobedience not involving any classified information.

that was the truth of my case. it did not matter. i was free. do you know what it means to be free? it means an awful lot. the press was instrumental in my case. they were providing in the front and the background, critical information. it was about this case and what it represents. she got and then got early on that this was more than just somebody who apparently violated the espionage act. this was really the obama administration far beyond the bush administration. they were sending the most

chilling messages. it was actually a laser bleeding -- you focus using me as the cut up to say, press, we are onto to you. we know who your sources are. one thing i did not tell you, and this is not come out fully either, there was a special secret program at nsa after 9/11. it was originally known as first for -- fruits. it was meant to spy on journalists and reporters. find your sources. if we can freeze at your source, guess what? we have the mainstream media reporters in our back pocket. we give them privileged access to hear. >> just so we don't get too despairing here, tell them what the judge. >> 14 months later, the case collapses on the evil public trial.

for history, that was scheduled for june 13, 2011. the 40th anniversary to the date of the publication of the pentagon papers. dan ellsberg himself had already made planes -- plans to fight in baltimore and stand on the steps of the federal district courthouse in downtown baltimore and give civic lessons on why what was going on inside the court was so important to the nation. he had the perspective. he knew that this was really serious stuff. the government prevailed in my case -- that would really set back precedent. i knew that. this was not just about me. it was about the future of the first amendment and the future

of that extraordinary experiment launched over 225 years ago called the constitution. the judge during the sentencing, the judge -- the chief prosecutor continued to make his case. in spite of the sentencing. it was agreed upon. he said, this is unconscionable. it does not pass the smell test. you put mr. drake through four years of hell. we had an american revolution. you not take 2.5 years to find a way to indict un-american. -- an american. >> he was a bush appointee? >> he was a bush appointee.

i actually came out of the courthouse and said hey, there is a third branch of government. >> we are going to run at of time for this session. can we get questions? has anybody got a question? over there on the side. we will try to get you involved. >> hello? >> hello. my name is karen. i work at annenberg. i think you have sufficiently scared all of the journalism students who wanted to be investigative reporters. my question to you is twofold. how is a journalist -- how do you assure a source that they will not be elegant if, the journalists are being spied onto their phones, computers, laptops. how do you do that? if reporters cannot do that, if they cannot protect their sources, have abdicated their role? i will take a stab at that.

a big step in protecting sources, which hardly any journalists are taking, is using these encryption. have any people in here using encryption? i see three hands. encryption should be a requirement for journalists, particularly if you are dealing with high-level sources. >> you realize how astounding this is? the logical, get the facts, encrypt your material so your own government will not destroy up. that is an astounding statement. i agree with you, but think about it. these people have all taken a vow. everyone in the room has voted for obama. right? >> i campaigned for and contributed to obama. this is not an anti-obama -- >> is astounding that that is the advice you would give.

that is what young journalist you to hear. they must learn encryption. >> you have to to protect your sources. >> you are not protecting it from the stasi, from stalin, you are protecting it from obama. >> that is correct. >> that is the day and age in which we live. >> there other things you can do. in terms of protecting my clients, i joke about using drug dealer tactics, but paying cash, throwaway cell phones, encryption, underground parking garages. >> they have video cameras now. you have to be careful. >> seriously, source protection has become a huge issue. we see whistleblowers being from in jail and prosecuted for espionage.

there is no guarantee. you could certainly take her cautions. the other one is the level of whistleblowers that i represent, are you willing to go to jail? are you willing to go to jail for your source? that is why there are fewer than 10 reporters in this country who i take my whistleblowers to. one reporter is facing jail. he is facing jail for not testifying against a source, another whistleblower who is being prosecuted for espionage named jeff sterling. >> questions? >> we are talking about whistleblowers. i will speak really loud. [inaudible] >> 10 folks just line up again microphones? >> hello.

you are all whistleblowers. we kind of touched on journalism and my question is, the logical progression, first you approach the whistleblower and then you talk about people being prosecuted for refusing to testify. is the logical progression then -- what is happening? there's a threat to prosecute journalists for espionage? is that something that is a possibility in this day and age? can you expand on that? >> i can say that i think the effort against julian assange and that jury is still going as

far as i know, they say that they do not have a sealed indictment. they may or may not have one. they are going after him as a transition case. some journalists like bill keller of the new york times say that he is not a journalist in any way i can recognize. they are cutting themselves loose from him. i think even bill keller drew back from that position and said that he should not be prosecuted. he realized that julian assange would simply be a test case. they would go after him. what is the status of that? it has gone up to the supreme court. >> he one in the district court. they recognized reporters'privilege. a ruled against them in the district court and their petitioning before the supreme court. on julian assange, in the bradley manning court-martial, which the new york times did not

discuss until they were chastised by the public editor, there was a pivotal moment where the judge asked the prosecution is chelsea manning had gone to the new york times rather than wikileaks, would you be bringing this case? you could hear a pin drop. you could hear the wheels spinning. the prosecutors did not know how to answer stop they said yes. that means that in your times is just as vulnerable -- the new york times is just as vulnerable. >> that is still a source. that is still chelsea manning. the movement is definitely to move in the direction of going after the press directly. i think word leaked out around a

verizon case. they are saying that testimony is critical. that is why they have to demand to find a source. they are confident now with the electronic surveillance that they do. they don't really need to go after anyone so directly. they feel that they can find the source. it is just circumstantial evidence of who called who and what time. that is how they got a guilty plea out of him -- stephen can from the state department. he pled guilty that he had given information to a guy named rosen. the key thing there was to get the exact metadata of when he had called rosen. they put the screws on him that they would give him a higher sentence if he did not come up with a guilty plea. the press has not yet been trekked the prosecuted. but these various cases may

succeed. there's every reason to think that that will be the next out. >> the director of national intelligence said that people were aiding and abetting and conspiring. anyone who is helping snowden in any kind of way, that would include the lawyers. they could be subject to criminal penalty. that is an incredibly frightening place to be in. >> i was just wondering, what do you guys think makes a good whistleblower? a lot do it out of retaliation. how do you avoid prosecution? >> shallots to know what makes a good whistleblower. >> the most amazing thing is -- and we have discussed this before, it is not that you guys have dealt with this, that should be the norm. the amazing thing is, where are all the other people?

the public is being spied on, how many people knew what was going on in the nsa? >> several dozen. >> where the hell are they? where are the several thousand who knew that their neighbors and everyone else were all being spied on? >> they are just following orders. >> rifle. decisions are made by people above them. >> your question, if i understand it, is how do we get more people like you? is that it? >> president obama says that he wants -- there is an easy solution. meaningful whistleblower protection. people like edward snowden have someplace to go.

the whistleblower protection laws, including the enhancement act and the executive order that snowden could have used specifically exempts national security and intelligence whistleblowers. the people you would most want to hear from. those people are completely unprotected. >> edward snowden, to answer your question, is someone who i always hoped would come forward. i thought that he would stand on my shoulders. he would come out with a much larger set of documentation. i have some hope, because edward snowden did come forward, that there are others who may come

forward as well. >> i am not a whistleblower, but i think they do not want to cheat their unborn. the courage that it takes to be a whistleblower, they are too humble to say that. my question is, can you explain if you see a correlation between activism -- hacktivists and whistleblowing? that you are all a product of the digital age. that is all edward snowden has known. there is a clear confluence between being hacktivists who are dedicated to making information for a and those who are in the inside of his government institutions and corporations, coming out and disclosing information. one of the advantage that they have is that they are very much masters in their own domain of

technology. it is one of the things that i have laid down in her talent you. we need better encryption. people are not just losing their jobs, they are being incarcerated and ending up in prison. any number of others, these are all examples. the government is deliberately going after them. they are targeting individuals to send a much larger message to anyone who dares come forward.

what are they really shutting down? they are shutting down the free flow of information that informs the public with what is going on. >> lately, they are over processing in the hacktivist community. the way they are using the espionage act to go over whistleblowers. it can be seen through the war on whistleblowing and hacktivists. they were also seeking to find a way for 35 years -- once he committed suicide, they said they would have settled for three months.

over prosecution is completely set. they want to make an example of people like that. they just don't feel to other day, and i cannot get into the details of that, but it is a major heavy-handed charges. he had been so overcharged. >> i'm humbled to be in the presence of the three of you. thank you. correct it is important to remind you all -- >> i want to ask a question. you have been presented as the anti-snowden. you were the good guy. you are willing to go to jail. 150 years. you were prepared for that. as it turns out, the judge was offered a bribe by the nixon administration and the head of the fbi, who knows where that case would have acted up?

nixon overreached. he fixed the judge. i remember being in the court when that happened. why didn't snowden do that? you are a lawyer. you are presented as a good guy. you were in your house when the fbi broken. you have five kids and you worked at an apple store, trying to support your family. take your medicine. be prepared to go to jail for 100 years, knowing damn well that that is not what we teach people. you are snowden's lawyer. what is your view? >> my view is that it speaks volumes that the only safe way to blow the whistle right now if you are a national security or intelligence and have that level of information, the only safe way is to blow the whistle from

another country. that is a sorry state of affairs for this country to be in. my other nsa whistleblowers, right after snowden revealed himself, they had a press conference to say that they understood why he had to go to another country to make those disclosures. in terms of penalties -- >> snowden, i believe, he looked at these examples, he looked at chelsea manning, he looked at julian assange, and he realized that he had to be out of the country if he was going to put up this amount of information and be able to tell what he had done and why he had done it and to comment as he has been doing. 40 years ago, i was able to speak. i was out on bail throughout my trial. i was able to speak to demonstrations and lectures and this and that. there is not a chance in the world that snowden would have been allowed to do that.

he knew it from looking at chelsea manning. he would be in an isolation cell for the rest of his life. no journalist to this day, 3.5 years after this came out, no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. no journalist has spoken to chelsea manning. not in four years. we know nothing. they will not. they are not allowed to speed her in prison. snowden had to be out of the country. he learned from that. he learns that you have to put out current documents. one reason and he was saying earlier, what makes a whistleblower? it is pretty hard to do. we have all been saying that there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of people who knew the secrets and knew the truth, but many of those, perhaps most of them, knew that this involved life or death matters on which major lies were being told.

the truth could make a big difference. they did not speak out. i think we have to change the culture, the secrecy, change the benefit of the doubt that if given wrongly to politicians in terms of what the public should know and should not know to allow to even think that for example, whistleblowers -- people in charge should be the last word on what is going on. it represents a culpable ignorance, unless you are 16 years old. if you have lived there any of these things, these people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. behind the veil of secrecy, it is extremely bad and this asterisk policymaking. without accountability.

we learned that from the pentagon papers and from snowden. if we got be a rock papers, which we still do not have, but there have been a number of leaks. the decision-making is very bad. it is not only criminal, stupid, and ignorant to a large extent, it is not subjected to a larger debate, even within the government. not to congress or with the public. the reason that the constitution is not indeed obsolete, it was a good idea then and it is still a good idea, it has to be defended against people, starting with two presidents and their minions, and many people in the press, who after 9/11, we have a new kind of threat here.

the common -- the constitution was not suited to this threat. we need a different form of government. nixon said, if the president does it, it is not illegal. we have no choice but to leave it up to him to tell us what to do. what we get with that type of judgment is the judgment that george the third had during the american revolution. you get vietnam, iraq, and much more seriously, the possibility to this day, outrageously, of nuclear winter. there are forces on both sides. they have no excuse whatsoever for existing now, and putting the entire world in jeopardy. you have a great deal of information about the climate than what they have yet told. that is why one man left the government recently. he was being found and squashed at nine thousands 1988, trying to warn us about what was coming with the climate.

we need more oversight, we need independent branches, and we need whistleblowers. one thing that would change in this culture, for example, -- i was complaining to bob about the title of this talk. it is called patriots were traders? -- traders -- traitors? not too many people have the opportunity to defend themselves against being traitors. not many people think, thank you for the chance to explain to my fellow countrymen that i am not a traitor, despite all appearances. a lot of people gave me that

opportunity 40 years ago. i was thinking, why am i so sensitive to that title at this point in my life? it made me realize that it took me back 40 years. i identify snowden. completely. i identify with chelsea manning, even with all the differences in our background and our personalities and whatever. i identify with her very strongly. they go over the same trajectory that i do. they did what i would have done. when it is patriots are traders, -- or traitors, i realize i have to explain why i am not a traitor. i've been saying for three years now that chelsea manning and now snowden are no more traders -- traitors and i am. and i am not. to make that very clear. it has taken me back 40 years. i got over fearing that question all the time.

i feared it a lot at the beginning. reporters were asking, how does it feel to be regarded as a traitor. by the way, i was not charged in court. it happens that the constitution narrows the legal definition of traitor very significantly. under george the third, all the signers of the declaration of independence were traitors. five of the more hanged out of the 56 as traitors. they all could have been hanged if they had been found. this quality that they were born into, they discovered a different loyalty, a higher loyalty to a country that had not existed. it was a large country with a constitutional basis, a bill of rights, and the notion that you could not criminalize telling

the truth about the government. that was the country they decided they were loyal to. and they were traitors to the others. i remember the first time someone called me a traitor. it was in 1971. i had just been indicted. i found myself on a program out on bail. somebody at the table, there were three of this -- asked, said, well, you are a traitor. i was so startled by this and i looked at the moderator. and i said, do you invite traitors onto your program? i took off the microphone and left. i was not going to sit there and discuss whether i was a traitor or not. the camera followed me out of the room. all the way out. people at my trial said, don't do that. that was a mistake. it doesn't look at -- good.

for me that it was very cool and too hot. i disappeared. to answer the question about being a traitor, there is nothing pleasant about it. the fact is, if you are not willing to be called names, like week -- weak --millions of people have died in vietnam and in iraq. that is mainly because democrats, my party, were unwilling to be called names. they knew they were false and slanderous. names like week, unmanly, unpatriotic. we got communism and we fund terrorism. -- weak on communism and weak on terrorism. snowden said that there are things worth dying for.

the truth is that most people narrow that. unless they are in the military, or conceivably in policeman or fireman where it is taken for granted that with a team and acting on authority and doing your function, you should risk your life. then people do it. they are very courageous. you see in combat, the scourge is all around. it is the same people. you put a commander in civilian clothes, and others like that, and you put them in a situation where they would risk their career or their clearance or their job or their marriage and children's education. serious risks. rather than take any risk at all

for strangers, people who are not on the team, you have to conclude that most people are willing to see nearly any amount of harm done to other people to avoid that risk without lifting a finger. if we can recognize that edward snowden and chelsea manning are doing essential jobs, one that we need a great deal more with the help of journalists, journalists have to be probing for that and looking for that. they have to be encouraging that. we do not have democracy. it is what our founders risked their lives for. we have something worse and dangerous. it is up to you and your sources. after 9/11, this argument -- the fact is that most people in the world live in a nation that has

had tragedy as big as 9/11 or greater. r sanders -- our founders actually fixed -- faced for greater risks. they would be found hanging from some train. they put these very provisions in the constitution that these other people after 9/11 wanted to throw out. they did not guarantee free press because they thought the press would always be on their side. they did not guarantee any of these rights thinking that they would be angry. the message that is interesting, how we teach history, and i have said this before, if anybody reads george washington's farewell address to his country, there is some incredible indictment of what he calls -- pretended patriotism. george washington. you can refer to eisenhower and other great general -- another great general, who warns about

the military-industrial complex and the loss of civil restraint. you want to make one statement about the whistleblowers. you mentioned the gulf of tonkin. a decent man, william fulbright, went to the gulf of tonkin resolution to stop it meant that we were now in this issue. 20 years after the fact, and this was a fact known by many whistleblowers, there had never been a second gulf of tonkin attack. it was a phony. we were not given those documents until 20 years after. they were not present. an american ship had been fired on the high seas. therefore, we had to go to war. our own government, all of these people, when we got these documents, we realized that there had not been an attack.

i forget this exchange that we had, but when i got these documents, i was at the l.a. times. i went to tom johnson, a marvelous guy, i have great respect for him. i went to him, and i said, you were in the white house. did you know this? he was in this white house. we are talking about the doubles out there. i am not saying they knew every detail. but going along to get along, not challenging, not becoming a whistleblower, when there had to be many people -- those two that i mentioned, they really knew. there were plenty of people. when i finally interviewed about it, they said, how did you get that? well, the government released it. it just came out.

i was thinking that myself, but they never told us. your basic question is, what is the meaning of this democratic experiment if you can be lied to with such impunity? there is no restraint. it is not a marginal issue. it is the ballgame. i thank you for this panel. it is really great. after 9/11, we went through a couple changes psychologically. there was this issue of following orders. technologically, with the internet and smartphones, espionage change. the nature of espionage also change bureaucratically. from there it seems that the problems that these panel has clearly identified -- i would like to ask, how would that frame of mind, did the fourth and 50 state ketchup?

-- the fourth and fifth esate tate can catch up? how can they effect change customer -- effect change? class it would be glad to speak to that. in terms of what the fourth estate can do to stop -- it is a multipart question. what whistleblowers can do to try to stop the current state of affairs. for me, i feel that much of the decade following 9/11 at least in the mainstream media, a lot of journalists were behaving as government lapdogs, rather than government lapdogs -- watchdogs. i get very frustrated when a journalist says, i cannot hit the government to heart in public he could i will lose my source. that is a very real issue. after the wiretapping story, one

reporter had his press credentials pulled. to really be a true journalist, i think you need to be able to value your civilian sources as much as your government sources. you would not just be a stenographer who copies down government talking points. >> i have a thought on that. let me try it on you too. >> my question is basically, the problems that have arisen in terms of these infringements on personal liberty in the name of espionage and intelligence-gathering relate to changes in tech knowledge he with 9/11. the psychological changes that you identify. it is great to the problem, but iran -- i am asking you what you see as potential solutions to these problems. >> at the strategic level, you

have to find -- finds the government out of the chains of the constitution. just because they have advanced in technology, that does not mean they get a free pass. that is not true at all. the constitution is more than flexible enough to accommodate all aspects of society. it is about individual rights. real intelligence has largely disappeared because it is so easy to collect everything and sort it out later. that puts the paradigm. when you are faced with decisions being made in secret, it does not matter. the technology is a means to an end. you have to protect. it is the same. it is one of your effects. you have it as an individual. if they choose to say it is not protected, the technology does

not make it easier. it is simply enabling a choice. that is the choice that violates as an american you as a person. it violates your rights. where did they get off getting away is that? they choose to do so. it is a catch-22. who will stop us? i absolutely resist that mindset. i read is the notion that somehow they are the ultimate protector. it does not matter what your sovereign rights are. doesn't trump everything? i was going to say this, but i will say it now. the traders of your country met in secret in philadelphia to hammer out the constitution of the united states. they made a pact that nothing would come out except madison took notes. in 1843, they were published.

we have documented evidence of what the base took place -- debates took place. benjamin franklin exited the building. history has recorded that a woman reporter came up to him and said, what did you do in there? he reportedly responded saying there is a public if you can keep it. they knew there were no guarantees. an executive with do their darndest to centralize power and gain unto themselves what they thought they could take. they bound down the executive as hard as they could and may congress the central portion of our three part government. what happened after 9/11? the technology here -- we have horses and carriages that in the 18th century.

that is not matter. it is a living constitution in that regard. it is an idea of how to govern ourselves. the constitution is under suspicion. the same question i asked the lawyers at nsa. the same question i asked congress when i go to them of my disclosure. they are saying it does not work. there is a constitutional means to change a law. you know what they told me? they said, they will say no. if we go to congress, they will say no. they will say no. you said a republic -- have we kept it? the answer is no. no, we have not kept it. since 2001, we have in effect unelected monarchy.

it means that it is a country in which the president doesn't and it is legal. that is the attitude. that was the attitude of and advisor to george w. bush. essentially, there are no limits on presidential power except those that he chooses to put on himself. obama, following bush, decriminalize torture. that is as you legal and criminal as anything can be under international law. there are a number of laws that we are sworn to investigate and follow up with if there's any credible charge. obama has not chosen to investigate or indict any higher up for that process of torture.

take right now. the 6000 page -- >> the torture report. >> 6000 pages and their are doing now, in a way it is worthwhile to see this argument go on. we will see where obama comes out on it. they assented to him for declassification. obviously, that report should not have been leaked. -- should have been leaked. it should be leaked right now. we need not to understand what it is reputed to have revealed. there was no necessity for this torture. there was no effect. far from being essential, it did not contribute in any case to preventing terror attacks. why does that matter?

it is illegal. it is unconstitutional. the whole issue was put before the public. the constitution is obsolete. it was overtaken. we have a state of emergency now. it has been formally declared. obama has reinstated it several times in office. how many people actually knew that in this office that obama has formally stated that we are in a state of emergency? how many people knew that? let me see your hands. don't be shy. i see 45. how many did not know? what is the state of the press if it has not made you aware that we are living in a state of emergency. what does that imply? what regulations does that mean? the house member of the committee over homeland security at precisely that question.

there are classified annexes. can we see those? the answer was no. they are classified. we have the chairman of the house committee on homeland security to extract the for those. no, they were not able to get them. this is not a constitutional republic. if the report says, as it does, and it is 6000 pages, that this was not necessary. in other words, it is criminal, it is not justified by necessity. it cannot be necessary for did not work at all. therefore, it is criminal. absolutely criminal. as some people want to

decriminalize marijuana, obama has effectively decriminalize torture. how can the next president ring prosecutions for torture? >> it does remind me that anybody -- does anybody listen to jackson browne? one of my favorite songs. there is a lot of pretenders. on the chair, there are no pretenders. we are extraordinarily fortunate. we never ended up in prison. there are whistleblowers in prison right now. there are whistleblowers these in prison right now. there are hacktivists already in prison and facing prison. that is the reality in this country.

here is another truth. the two biggest scandals of the bush administration was secret surveillance and torture. the only two people investigated and prosecuted and indicted and convicted of torture and surveillance are myself and one other person. he is currently serving 30 months in a federal penitentiary in pennsylvania. why? because he actually blew the whistle is a former cia agent. it was about state-sponsored torture. the name of a torque for. he's in prison. those who authorized the program, those who approve the program, those who implement the program, those who manage the world torture program have

immunity. secret surveillance. i am the only one prosecuting and indicted. i had nothing to do with surveillance. i resisted with everything i had. they had all of those who authorize surveillance and approve surveillance -- they all have immunity. in fact, if i had committed surveillance -- if i had engaged in surveillance, i would not have been prosecuted. if the other man had tortured, he would not be in prison today. what does that tell you? the press has been complicit in the war crimes any wrongdoing and the suspension of the constitution since 9/11. it is high time. you are faced with the stark reality that you are going to be in this. you need to question this.

question authority. you need to question everything. especially question authority. how else do we know what is going on without being informed? this is a fundamental and some suggest, the fatal flaw, of any democracy, no matter what form it takes. it is ultimately about keeping the public informed. the public has the responsibility to inform themselves. what is the primary means by which we do that? he pressed. -- the press. the ultimate question that we have to face and that must be asked is what is the future, given that there is no guarantee, what future do we want to keep? >> we will end, but i do not have the courage not to call my wife. [laughter] i want to call her, as she started the book festival and she did an important book with the mother of pat tillman. when you talk about that?

>> how much time do you have? >> i watched you for two years reading that. >> i read 3000 pages of investigative documents. they were so full of holes. government documents that were so full of holes, you can drive a humvee through it. we came away with no satisfaction at all about how pat tillman was killed and what the circumstances were. to this day, i still talk to her every week. i see what else we can do. it has been very frustrating. i have two quick things. one is that first of all, you have inspired so many young people. you have inspired me and i was a lifelong journalist. you have inspired a lot of young people. before we go, i hope that you can tell the 99% of the people how to do encryption. my real question, how to do encryption -- my real question is, how can you actually put the genie back in the bottle?

dennis kucinich was in congress and it was before edward snowden, before any of these revelations. he was part of a group of congress numbers. members. you have the cia, you have the fbi, why do you need this? is it possible to accomplish that with all of these revelations? stillope it's -- i believe it is possible to rein in the national security surveillance state that we are becoming. if i did not believe that, i would not be out on the lecture circuit every weekend talking to students like you. i would have given up. so i guess i still believe that we can recover our democracy from the police state that has become. in terms of encryption, i am not

a technologist. pgp.i used how to use pretty good privacy. you can install it as an app, and put it on your computer. that is one of many encryption mechanisms. tour, tails, others get more sophisticated but pgp is a pretty basic encryption that is not too difficult to learn and does not take long to learn. parties whereto people can teach you this. that is what they do in other countries. i do believe every journalist should know how to use basic encryption. >> there is, i am on the board with edward snowden of another group called the press foundation. if you look at press freedom foundation.org, trevor -- and

others have made available now encryption methods for journalists like those at wikileaks which can be picked up free and used. they will walk you through it. soy have secure drops, people can blow the whistle to news outlets in a secure way. so i think tech can actually really help in this endeavor. >> while you are doing that, you should get the wording of the fourth amendment, carry it in your pocket and pass it out to people to remind them that we have other means of protecting our privacy. sandy was so instrumental. i want to thank the government accountability project. a lot of people really helped, great annenberg support, both in journalism. the school is really great. in having this conference. do you have some closing remarks? >> i wanted to ask one question.

and i want to echo what you just said, bo. b. we thank you for coming. it is going to go on tomorrow with the institute of politics at the tudor center at 11:30. room 227. but i wanted to ask one question. there was a piece a few months ago in the new york review of books by david cole in which he made a distinction in his opinion, citing others, that all leakers are not the same. he basically defended snowden but was more critical of assange and manning. this is what he said in his piece. he said while some specific warlocks and cables may have legal go -- revealed a contract without a disproportionate harm to public severalmanning's

hundred thousand documents was not narrowly tailored. he said the leaked state department cables outed many individuals who put themselves a considerable risk. i just want to ask you, do you think that there are distinctions to be made? are there time where leaks should not be made? i dowould say, obviously, not think source -- i do not think all secret should be out there. i think sources and methods should be kept secret. nuclear design information, troop mates, things like that. the problem with the argument e is that a lot of whistleblowers are accused of over disclosing or undergoes closing -- under disclosing. he did not give enough information about swiss bank secrecy. chelsea manning gave way too much information. legally, the law does not turn on the quantum of how much information you disclosed. it turns on whether or not the discloser had a reasonable leave

that what he or she saw te,denced, fraud, wasite, abuse or illegality. i think cole misses the point. we can agree that is the collateral murder video al one was definitely whistle blowing. theerms of the phantom harm government talked about as one of the few people actually did go to the parts of his court-martial that i could, her court-martial now. and the government cry again. the way they are with snowden. when it came time for the government to produce a damage assessment, the judge gave them numerous opportunities, and they could produce not a single damage assessment. >> it is funny when you mentioned, i made this distinction earlier about leakers and whistleblowers.

my wife. i used to be called a leaker. my wife hated that. she thought it made me sounding confident. had to get used to that --she thought it made me sound nent.ti are there legitimate secrets that should not be told? we mentioned earlier, gibbering valerie plame's name. you mentioned that. it was not just unnecessary. it was not just whistleblowing. that is not the only thing. it was wrong. it should not have been leaked. i cannot imagine doing that. anybody think i knew who would give the name of a covert agent who is doing something worthwhile, which is not true of all cia agents. she was running anti-proliferation efforts which were endangered by putting up that name. that is an example