agents raided the home of kirk wiebe confiscating computer hard drives and business records and revoking the security security clearance for and that's a veteran that he had held since one thousand nine hundred sixty four we be it was not charged with any crime however thomas drake whose home was also rated was charged with multiple crimes including violation of the espionage act of one nine hundred seventeen eventually all those charges were dropped in two thousand and eleven since then drake has gone on to win multiple awards for his courage and blowing the whistle on the n.s.a. including the right in our prize for truth telling and the sam adams associates for integrity in intelligence and both he and kirk wiebe done tremendous work to inform all of us about the growing american surveillance state thomas drake we will john thank you for being with me tonight thank you ever since the first of all i'd like to talk about you. as a little bit if it's all right here thomas was back into the n.s.a. did you. know i was working in the industry and i was also a contractor at n.s.a. and i answe

whistleblowers kirk wiebe and thomas drake two men who were involved in exposing the n.s.a.'s illegal surveillance program known as the trail be laser project let's get back to it. thomas you were you were pointing out that there were illegal dimensions to this program that were unnecessary what were they why how did they come about and why were they on this is in short to my horror i discovered that if they had abandoned a twenty three year legal regime called the foreign intelligence surveillance act they completely bypass this from the dropped it overboard. an act was passed in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight largely because of the massive abuse even during the sixty's and seventy's against americans in violation of the constitution so i discovered to my horror. that is a was now an entirely different vehicle that i did not recognize as post nine eleven with the excuse of nine eleven found out that this program called stellar wind had been directly authorized by the white house in fact i remember talking with attorneys because of my concerns about the program he sa

special edition of the big picture recently i had the opportunity to speak with thomas drake and kirk wiebe both better whistleblowers who have revealed startling new information on the national security agency's use of domestic spying programs american citizens what was once the type of story reserved only for spy thriller movies suddenly become reality here in the united states and now our conversations with great minds with thomas drake and kirk will be.