as he saw them he was charged under the espionage act but only last year the charges were dropped mr drake thank you very much for coming thanks for having me tell me about the program that you challenge to working with the national security agency the surveillance program what was its potential harm as you saw it there was the very large flagship program called trailblazer that was designed to catapult n.s.a. into the twenty first century to deal with the vast amounts of data being generated from the digital age given the massive fraud and abuse and it had created with the trial as a program as well as a super secret surveillance program they completely violated the constitution and the fourth amendment and in particular in particular the statute called the foreign intelligence surveillance act which was the first command at n.s.a. you did not violate americans privacy without a warrant under that statute in fact if you did they were criminal penalties for doing so and i found this out to my horror and and shock shortly after nine eleven . the n.s.a. had entered into a secret agreement wi

he blew the whistle on fraud and abuse with regards to the agency's secret surveillance program mr drake was charged under the espionage act watching what's happening now particular my case it's set it extraordinarily chilling message that anybody has a senior executive the government had a very high position to say. it sends an extraordinarily chilling message that if you speak out if you speak up we're going to hammer you and we're going to hammer you hard because look what we did to mr drake but after a public outcry last year the government dropped charges against thomas drake in exchange for him pleading guilty to a misdemeanor misuse of a government computer speaking truth to power is very dangerous and his world the power elites. those in charge they don't like dirty linen being aired they don't like the skeletons in the closet being seen. and they not only do they object to it they decide to turn it into criminal activity national security germ they say the government always has and always will leak information deliberately to advance their own interests and it's not all the curv

. >> reporter: as we told you, mr. drake was out spou wer two years ago -- power two years ago.lost it over the weekend this time and i suspect derek will be going to see him again in the not too distant future. >> you know what, pepco wants all of us to believe it is fighting the good fight to get the lights back on. but there are those out there arguing tonight that the power company unilaterally disarmed years ago. jim griffith leads the local ibe union which represents what is left of pepco's full-time line man. he dropped by wusa to tell us pepco used to keep more than 200 line repair people on staff. >> they retired. pepco didn't replace them. there were also some targeted servants programs in the early 2,000. they wanted to reduce the number of employees they had. and we're basically down to half of what we had about 15 years ago. >> okay. how much difference has that made, do you think, to pepco's ability to respond to an emergency like this? >> if we had more line man, they would be here. we wouldn't be waiting two and three days for crews from oklahoma to get here befo

mr. drake, let me start with you.t that appears to be moving forward threatens traps that's the wrong word, gives us the opportunity to open up this pandora's box of what the nsa is doing. do you think finally a court of law will force the nsa to be open with the public about what it has done? >> we hope so, but historically in these type of cases the government has hidden behind the state secrets clause. >> eliot: it's being challenged, and people are saying that interest is a court system designed for this, use that instead of claiming state secret. remind us what is the magnitude that we're talking about here? who has been the subject of this unconstitution surveillance, how fast do you think it is? >> essentially the entire country. i mean, this was decisions key decisions made shortly after 9/11 which began to rapidly turn the united states the equivalent of a foreign nation for electronic surveillance. >> eliot: enormous amounts of e-mail traffic was being absorbed recorded listened to and searched. kirk is this

. >> i think you could make those locaook cool, somebody like kanye west or drake. mrs. eliot used to wear balloon pants -- missy elliot. i'm barack obama and i approve this message. [romney singing]: oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves ofof grain, for r purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain, america, america, god shed his grace on thee, and crowned thy good, with brotherhood... >> ahead of 6:

mr. pickens doesn't go to the same bar as drake and his posse because it didn't end well for chris brown. the narrower point about transparency, in america, we fundamentally like people, men and women, who say what they mean and are not afraid to say it. number one. number two, on the transparency point, a lot of people are upset about the massive dollars that mr. adelson and others have donated to the super pacs. i kind of am comforted by the idea that well, at least i know exactly who's putting the money in. their name is on it, they're out there saying yeah, i'm not ashamed to make that kind of contribution to something i believe in, and that tells me hey, at least i know where the money's coming from. >> how about that, patricia, for the last word? tyler is saying basically some rich people are doing what the law does not require but are putting their name on it like i approve this message just because they care. others are hiding. >> i think the important question for these men and women is are you enlarging yourself, improving your image or reducing yourself. when john mccain is twe