{"id":74307,"date":"2016-05-30T12:02:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T11:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=74307"},"modified":"2016-05-28T16:54:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T15:54:41","slug":"how-the-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/how-the-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Pentagon Punished NSA Whistleblowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Long before Edward Snowden went public, John Crane was a top Pentagon official fighting to protect NSA whistleblowers. Instead their lives were ruined \u2013 and so was his.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2016\/may\/22\/snowden-whistleblower-protections-john-crane\" >Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by Pentagon source<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/video\/2016\/may\/22\/pentagon-government-whistleblower-thomas-drake-edward-snowden-video\" >Exclusive: Pentagon source goes on record against whistleblower program<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_74308\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-74308\" class=\"wp-image-74308\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette-1024x614.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration by Nathalie Lees\" width=\"700\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette-768x461.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-74308\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration by Nathalie Lees<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>22 May 2016 &#8211; <\/em>By now, almost everyone knows what <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/edward-snowden\" >Edward Snowden<\/a> did. He leaked top-secret documents revealing that the National Security Agency was spying on hundreds of millions of people across the world, collecting the phone calls and emails of virtually everyone on Earth who used a mobile phone or the internet. When this newspaper began publishing the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/the-nsa-files\" >NSA documents<\/a> in June 2013, it ignited a fierce political debate that continues to this day \u2013 about government surveillance, but also about the morality, legality and civic value of whistleblowing.<\/p>\n<p>But if you want to know why <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/jun\/09\/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance\" >Snowden did it<\/a>, and the way he did it, you have to know the stories of two other men.<\/p>\n<p>The first is Thomas Drake, who blew the whistle on the very same NSA activities 10 years before Snowden did. Drake was a much higher-ranking <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/nsa\" >NSA<\/a> official than Snowden, and he obeyed US whistleblower laws, raising his concerns through official channels. And he got crushed.<\/p>\n<p>Drake was fired, arrested at dawn by gun-wielding FBI agents, stripped of his security clearance, charged with crimes that could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life, and all but ruined financially and professionally. The only job he could find afterwards was working in an Apple store in suburban Washington, where he remains today. Adding insult to injury, his warnings about the dangers of the NSA\u2019s surveillance programme were largely ignored.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government spent many years trying to break me, and the more I resisted, the nastier they got,\u201d Drake told me.<\/p>\n<p>Drake\u2019s story has since been told \u2013 and in fact, it had a profound impact on Snowden, who told an interviewer in 2015 that: \u201cIt\u2019s fair to say that if there hadn\u2019t been a Thomas Drake, there wouldn\u2019t have been an <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/edward-snowden\" >Edward Snowden<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But there is another man whose story has never been told before, who is speaking out publicly for the first time here. His name is John Crane, and he was a senior official in the Department of Defense who fought to provide fair treatment for whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake \u2013 until Crane himself was forced out of his job and became a whistleblower as well.<\/p>\n<p>His testimony reveals a crucial new chapter in the Snowden story \u2013 and Crane\u2019s failed battle to protect earlier whistleblowers should now make it very clear that Snowden had good reasons to go public with his revelations.<\/p>\n<p>During dozens of hours of interviews, Crane told me how senior Defense Department officials repeatedly broke the law to persecute Drake. First, he alleged, they revealed Drake\u2019s identity to the Justice Department; then they withheld (and perhaps destroyed) evidence after Drake was indicted; finally, they lied about all this to a federal judge.<\/p>\n<p>The supreme irony? In their zeal to punish Drake, these Pentagon officials unwittingly taught Snowden how to evade their clutches when the 29-year-old NSA contract employee blew the whistle himself. Snowden was unaware of the hidden machinations inside the Pentagon that undid Drake, but the outcome of those machinations \u2013 Drake\u2019s arrest, indictment and persecution \u2013 sent an unmistakable message: raising concerns within the system promised doom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cName one whistleblower from the intelligence community whose disclosures led to real change \u2013 overturning laws, ending policies \u2013 who didn\u2019t face retaliation as a result. The protections just aren\u2019t there,\u201d Snowden told the Guardian this week. \u201cThe sad reality of today\u2019s policies is that going to the inspector general with evidence of truly serious wrongdoing is often a mistake. Going to the press involves serious risks, but at least you\u2019ve got a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Snowden saw what had happened to Drake and other whistleblowers like him. The key to Snowden\u2019s effectiveness, according to Thomas Devine, the legal director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), was that he practised \u201ccivil disobedience\u201d rather than \u201clawful\u201d whistleblowing. (GAP, a non-profit group in Washington, DC, that defends whistleblowers, has represented Snowden, Drake and Crane.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNone of the lawful whistleblowers who tried to expose the government\u2019s warrantless surveillance \u2013 and Drake was far from the only one who tried \u2013 had any success,\u201d Devine told me. \u201cThey came forward and made their charges, but the government just said, \u2018They\u2019re lying, they\u2019re paranoid, we\u2019re not doing those things.\u2019 And the whistleblowers couldn\u2019t prove their case because the government had classified all the evidence. Whereas Snowden <em>took the evidence with him<\/em>, so when the government issued its usual denials, he could produce document after document showing that they were lying. That is civil disobedience whistleblowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cThe sad reality is that going to the inspector general with evidence of truly serious wrongdoing is often a mistake.\u201d &#8212; Edward Snowden <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Crane, a solidly built Virginia resident with flecks of grey in a neatly trimmed chinstrap beard, understood Snowden\u2019s decision to break the rules \u2013 but lamented it. \u201cSomeone like Snowden should not have felt the need to harm himself just to do the right thing,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n<p>Crane\u2019s testimony is not simply a clue to Snowden\u2019s motivations and methods: if his allegations are confirmed in court, they could put current and former senior Pentagon officials in jail. (Official investigations are quietly under way.)<\/p>\n<p>But Crane\u2019s account has even larger ramifications: it repudiates the position on Snowden taken by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton \u2013 who both maintain that Snowden should have raised his concerns through official channels because US whistleblower law would have protected him.<\/p>\n<p>By the time Snowden went public in 2013, Crane had spent years fighting a losing battle inside the Pentagon to provide whistleblowers the legal protections to which they were entitled. He took his responsibilities so seriously, and clashed with his superiors so often, that he carried copies of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and the US constitution in his breast pocket and pulled them out during office conflicts.<\/p>\n<p>Crane\u2019s attorneys at GAP \u2013 who were used to working with all types of government and corporate whistleblowers \u2013 were baffled by him: in their experience, most senior government officials cared little for whistleblowers\u2019 rights. So what motivated Crane to keep fighting for the rights of whistleblowers inside the Pentagon, even as his superiors grew increasingly hostile and eventually forced him to resign?<\/p>\n<p>To hear Crane tell it, the courage to stand up and fight runs in his family. He never forgot the story he heard as a child, about his own grandfather, a German army officer who once faced down Adolf Hitler at gunpoint \u2013 on the night the future Fuhrer first tried to take over Germany.<\/p>\n<p>**********<\/p>\n<p>A former press aide to Republican members of Congress, John Crane was hired by the Inspector General\u2019s office of the Department of Defense in 1988. Within US government agencies, an inspector general serves as a kind of judge and police chief. The IG, as the inspector general is known, is charged with making sure a given agency is operating according to the law \u2013 obeying rules and regulations, spending money as authorised by Congress. \u201cIn the IG\u2019s office, we were the guys with the white hats,\u201d Crane said.<\/p>\n<p>By 2004 Crane had been promoted to assistant inspector general. At the age of 48, his responsibilities included supervising the whistleblower unit at the Department of Defense, as well as handling all whistleblower allegations arising from the department\u2019s two million employees (by far the largest workforce in the US government), in some cases including allegations originating in the NSA and other intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_74309\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/thomas-drake-nsa-whistleblower.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-74309\" class=\"wp-image-74309\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/thomas-drake-nsa-whistleblower.jpg\" alt=\"Thomas Drake, NSA whistleblower, in a still from the Robert Greenwald documentary War on Whistleblowers. Photograph: Robert Greenwald for the Guardian\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/thomas-drake-nsa-whistleblower.jpg 880w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/thomas-drake-nsa-whistleblower-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/thomas-drake-nsa-whistleblower-768x461.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-74309\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thomas Drake, NSA whistleblower, in a still from the Robert Greenwald documentary War on Whistleblowers. Photograph: Robert Greenwald for the Guardian<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By this time, Thomas Drake had proceeded well down the path that would eventually connect him with Crane. Drake\u2019s first day as a fully fledged employee of the National Security Agency was 11 September 2001. Although the NSA would balloon in size and budget as the US responded to the September 11 attacks, the agency already ranked as the largest, most lavishly funded spy organisation on Earth. Created in 1952, the NSA was the government\u2019s code-breaker and all-hearing global \u201cear\u201d. The NSA intercepted the communications of foreign governments and individuals and translated this raw intelligence into information usable by the CIA, the FBI and kindred government agencies.<\/p>\n<p>Drake, a father of five, had worked for the NSA for 12 years as a private-sector contractor. Now, as a staff member proper, he reported directly to the NSA\u2019s third highest ranking official, Maureen Baginski; she headed the NSA\u2019s largest division, the Signals Intelligence Directorate, which was responsible for the interception of phone calls and other communications.<\/p>\n<p>Tall, sombre, intense, Drake was a championship chess player in high school whose gift for mathematics, computers and languages made him a natural for foreign eavesdropping and the cryptographic and linguistic skills it required. During the cold war, he worked for air force intelligence, monitoring the communications of East Germany\u2019s infamous secret police, the Stasi.<\/p>\n<p>Within weeks of the September 11 attacks, Drake was assigned to prepare the NSA\u2019s postmortem on the disaster. Congress, the news media and the public were demanding answers: what had gone wrong at the NSA and other federal agencies to allow Osama bin Laden\u2019s operatives to conduct such a devastating attack?<\/p>\n<p>As Drake interviewed NSA colleagues and scoured the agency\u2019s records, he came across information that horrified him. It appeared that the NSA \u2013 even before September 11 \u2013 had secretly revised its scope of operations to expand its powers.<\/p>\n<p>Since its inception, the NSA had been strictly forbidden from eavesdropping on domestic communications. Drake\u2019s investigation persuaded him that the NSA was now violating this restriction by collecting information on communications within as well as outside of the United States. And it was doing so without obtaining legally required court orders.<\/p>\n<p>A straight arrow since high school \u2013 he once gave the police the names of classmates he suspected of selling pot \u2013 Drake told me he felt compelled to act. \u201cI took an oath to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>To Drake, the President\u2019s Surveillance Program, as it was known inside the George W Bush administration, recalled the mindset of the Stasi. \u201cYou don\u2019t spend year after year listening to a police state without being affected, you just don\u2019t,\u201d he told me. \u201cI remember saying to myself, \u2018Wow, I don\u2019t want this to happen in our country!\u2019 How could you live in a society where you always have to be looking over your shoulders, not knowing who you could trust, even in your own family?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>A straight arrow since high school \u2013 Drake once gave the police the names of classmates he suspected of selling pot<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Drake\u2019s descent into a nightmare of persecution at the hands of his own government began innocently. Having uncovered evidence of apparently illegal behaviour, he did what his military training and US whistleblower law instructed: he reported the information up the chain of command. Beginning in early 2002, he shared his concerns first with a small number of high-ranking NSA officials, then with the appropriate members of Congress and staff at the oversight committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>Drake spent countless hours in these sessions but eventually came to the conclusion that no one in a position of authority wanted to hear what he was saying. When he told his boss, Baginski, that the NSA\u2019s expanded surveillance following 9\/11 seemed legally dubious, she reportedly told him to drop the issue: the White House had ruled otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>************<\/p>\n<p>John Crane first heard about Thomas Drake when Crane and his colleagues at the Pentagon\u2019s Office of the Inspector General received a whistleblower complaint in September 2002. The complaint alleged that the NSA was backing an approach to electronic surveillance that was both financially and constitutionally irresponsible. The complaint was signed by three former NSA officials, William Binney, Kirk Wiebe and Edward Loomis, and a former senior Congressional staffer, Diane Roark. Drake also endorsed the complaint \u2013 but because he, unlike the other four, had not yet retired from government service, he asked that his name be kept anonymous, even in a document that was supposed to be treated confidentially within the government.<\/p>\n<p>Binney, Wiebe, Loomis and Roark shared Drake\u2019s concerns about the constitutional implications of warrantless mass surveillance, but their complaint focused on two other issues.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Drake eventually came to the conclusion that no one in a position of authority wanted to hear what he was saying<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first was financial. The whistleblowers contended that the NSA\u2019s surveillance programme, codenamed Trailblazer, was a shameful waste of $3.8 billion \u2013 it had been more effective at channelling taxpayer dollars to corporate contractors than at protecting the homeland.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the whistleblowers warned that Trailblazer actually made the US less secure. They acknowledged that Trailblazer had vastly expanded the amount of electronic communications NSA collected. But this avalanche of raw data was too much \u2013 it left NSA\u2019s analysts struggling to distinguish the vital from the trivial and thus liable to miss key clues.<\/p>\n<p>Drake had discovered a shocking example while researching his postmortem report on the September 11 attacks. Months beforehand, the NSA had come into possession of a telephone number in San Diego that was used by two of the hijackers who later crashed planes into the World Trade Center. But the NSA did not act on this finding.<\/p>\n<p>As Drake later told the NSA expert James Bamford, the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2015\/07\/21\/missed-calls-nsa-terrorism-osama-bin-laden-mihdhar\/\" >NSA intercepted seven phone calls<\/a> between this San Diego phone number and an al-Qaida \u201csafe house\u201d in Yemen. Drake found a record of the seven calls buried in an NSA database.<\/p>\n<p>US officials had long known that the Yemen safe house was the operational hub through which Bin Laden, from a cave in Afghanistan, ordered attacks. Seven phone calls to such a hub from the same phone number was obviously suspicious. Yet the NSA took no action \u2013 the information had apparently been overlooked.<\/p>\n<p>The NSA whistleblowers first sent their complaint to the inspector general of the NSA, who ruled against them. So they went up the bureaucratic ladder, filing the complaint with the Department of Defense inspector general. There, Crane and his staff \u201csubstantially affirmed\u201d the complaint \u2013 in other words, their own investigation concluded that the NSA whistleblowers\u2019 charges were probably on target.<\/p>\n<p>In the course of their investigation, Crane and his colleagues in the inspector general\u2019s office also affirmed the whistleblowers\u2019 allegation that the Bush administration\u2019s surveillance programme violated the fourth amendment of the US constitution by collecting Americans\u2019 phone and internet communications without a warrant. \u201cWe were concerned about these constitutional issues even before we investigated their complaint,\u201d Crane told me. \u201cWe had received other whistleblower filings that flagged the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In line with standard procedure, these investigative findings were relayed to the House and Senate committees overseeing the NSA \u2013 and this helped nudge Congress to end funding for the Trailblazer programme. But for the NSA whistleblowers, this apparent victory was the beginning of a dark saga that would change their lives for ever.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_74310\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette2.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-74310\" class=\"wp-image-74310\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette2-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration by Nathalie Lees\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette2-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette2-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/pentagon-whistlblower-interconnected-marionette2.jpg 880w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-74310\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration by Nathalie Lees<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>**********<\/p>\n<p>The Bush administration\u2019s mass surveillance efforts were partly exposed in December 2005, when the New York Times published a front page article by reporters <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/12\/16\/politics\/bush-lets-us-spy-on-callers-without-courts.html\" >James Risen and Eric Lichtblau<\/a>, which revealed that the NSA was monitoring international phone calls and emails of some people in the US without obtaining warrants.<\/p>\n<p>Eight years later, that story would be dwarfed by Snowden\u2019s revelations. But at the time, the Bush White House was furious \u2013 and they were determined to find and punish whoever had leaked the details to the New York Times.<\/p>\n<p>According to Crane, his superiors inside the Pentagon\u2019s Inspector General\u2019s office were eager to help. Henry Shelley, the general counsel \u2013 the office\u2019s top lawyer \u2013 urged that the IG office should tell the FBI agents investigating the Times leak about Drake and the other NSA whistleblowers.<\/p>\n<p>After all, the NSA whistleblowers\u2019 recent complaint had objected to the same surveillance practices described in the Times article \u2013 which made them logical suspects in the leak. Crane objected strenuously. Informing anyone \u2013 much less FBI investigators \u2013 of a whistleblower\u2019s name was illegal.<\/p>\n<p>After debating the matter at a formal meeting in the personal office of the inspector general, Shelley and Crane continued arguing in the hallway outside. \u201cI reached into my breast pocket and pulled out my copy of the Whistleblower Protection Act,\u201d Crane recalled. \u201cI was concerned that Henry was violating the law. Our voices weren\u2019t raised, but the conversation was, I would say, very intense and agitated. Henry [replied] that he was the general counsel, the general counsel was in charge of handling things with the Justice Department and he would do things his way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Henry Shelley declined my repeated requests for an interview. In an email, he told me, \u201cI am confident when this matter is fully resolved no wrongdoing on my behalf will be identified.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There the disagreement between Crane and Shelley stalled. Or so it seemed until 18 months later. On the morning of 26 July, 2007, FBI agents with guns drawn stormed the houses of Binney, Wiebe, Loomis and Roark. Binney was towelling off after a shower when agents accosted him; he and his wife suddenly found themselves with guns aimed directly between their eyes, the retired NSA man recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Crane smelled a rat. The investigation that his staff had conducted into the whistleblowers\u2019 complaint had been highly classified: very few people could have known their names, and they would have been inside the IG\u2019s office. After the raids, Crane confronted Shelley and demanded to know whether the IG\u2019s office had given the names to the FBI. Shelley refused to discuss the matter, Crane says.<\/p>\n<p>The battle soon escalated. Four months later, FBI agents stormed Drake\u2019s house in an early morning raid, as his family watched in shock.<\/p>\n<p>After Drake was indicted in 2010, his lawyers filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain documents related to the investigation Crane\u2019s office had conducted into the claims of the NSA whistleblowers. According to Crane, he was ordered by his superiors in the IG\u2019s office to delay releasing any documents \u2013 which could have exonerated Drake \u2013 until after the trial, which was expected to take place later in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Crane alleges that he was ordered to do so by Shelley and Lynne Halbrooks \u2013 who had recently been named the principal deputy inspector general (in other words, the second-highest ranking official in the IG\u2019s office). Crane protested but lost this skirmish as well. (Halbrooks did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.)<\/p>\n<p>In December 2010, nearly five years after the Pentagon\u2019s inspector general\u2019s office had apparently given Drake\u2019s name to FBI investigators, Drake\u2019s lawyers filed a complaint with the inspector general, alleging that Drake had been punished in retaliation for his whistleblowing. According to their complaint, the crimes Drake had been charged with were \u201cbased in part, or entirely, on information that Mr Drake provided to the [Pentagon] IG\u201d during its investigation of the NSA whistleblowers.<\/p>\n<p>Crane was at once alarmed and revolted. The complaint from Drake\u2019s lawyers seemed to confirm his suspicion that someone in the IG\u2019s office had illegally fingered Drake to the FBI. Worse, the indictment filed against Drake had unmistakable similarities to the confidential testimony Drake had given to Crane\u2019s staff \u2013 suggesting that someone in the IG\u2019s office had not simply given Drake\u2019s name to the FBI, but shared his entire testimony, an utter violation of law.<\/p>\n<p>Drake\u2019s complaint demanded investigation, Crane told Halbrooks. But Halbrooks, joined by Shelley, allegedly rejected Crane\u2019s demand. She added that Crane wasn\u2019t being a \u201cgood team player\u201d and if he didn\u2019t shape up, she would make life difficult for him.<\/p>\n<p>But there was even worse to come. As Drake\u2019s trial approached in the spring of 2011, Crane knew that the law required the IG\u2019s office to answer the retaliation complaint filed by Drake\u2019s lawyers. But, Crane says, Shelley now informed him it would be impossible to respond \u2013 because the relevant documents had been destroyed<strong>. <\/strong>Lower level staff \u201cfucked up\u201d, Crane said Shelley told him: they had shredded the documents in a supposedly routine purge of the IG\u2019s vast stores of confidential material.<\/p>\n<p>Crane could not believe his ears. \u201cI told Henry that destruction of documents under such circumstances was, as he knew, a very serious matter and could lead to the inspector general being accused of obstructing a criminal investigation.\u201d Shelley replied, according to Crane, that it didn\u2019t have to be a problem if everyone was a good team player.<\/p>\n<p>On 15 February, 2011, Shelley and Halbrooks sent the judge in the Drake case a letter that repeated the excuse given to Crane: the requested documents had been destroyed, by mistake, during a routine purge. This routine purge, the letter assured Judge Richard D Bennett, took place before Drake was indicted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLynne and Henry had frozen me out by then, so I had no input into their letter to Judge Bennett,\u201d Crane said. \u201cSo they ended up lying to a judge in a criminal case, which of course is a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With Drake adamantly resisting prosecutors\u2019 pressure to make a plea deal \u2013 \u201cI won\u2019t bargain with the truth,\u201d he declared \u2013 the government eventually withdrew most of its charges against him. Afterwards, the judge blasted the government\u2019s conduct. It was \u201cextraordinary\u201d, he said, that the government barged into Drake\u2019s home, indicted him, but then dropped the case on the eve of trial as if it wasn\u2019t a big deal after all. \u201cI find that unconscionable,\u201d Bennett added. \u201cUnconscionable. It is at the very root of what this country was founded on \u2026 It was one of the most fundamental things in the bill of rights, that this country was not to be exposed to people knocking on the door with government authority and coming into their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>**********<\/p>\n<p>When John Crane put his career on the line by standing up for legal treatment of Pentagon whistleblowers, he was following a moral code laid down 80 years before by his German grandfather. Crane grew up in suburban Virginia, but he spent nearly every summer in Germany with his mother\u2019s extended family. During these summer sojourns, Crane heard countless times about the moment when his grandfather confronted Hitler. His mother and his grandmother both told the story, and the moral never changed. \u201cOne must always try to do the right thing, even when there are risks,\u201d Crane recalled being instructed. \u201cAnd should someone do the right thing, there can of course be consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Crane\u2019s grandfather was days shy of turning 40 on the night of Hitler\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/nov\/09\/hitler-adolf-coup-bavaria-munich-government-german-1923\" >\u201cBeer Hall Putsch\u201d<\/a>, 8 November, 1923. Plotting to overthrow the Weimar Republic, Hitler and 600 armed members of his fledgling Nazi party surrounded a beer hall in Munich where the governor of Bavaria, Gustav von Kahr, was addressing a large crowd. The rebels burst into the hall, hoping to kidnap Von Kahr and march on Berlin. After his men unveiled a machine gun hidden in the upstairs gallery, Hitler fired his pistol into the air and shouted, \u201cThe national revolution has begun!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>During summer sojourns, Crane heard countless times about the moment when his grandfather confronted Hitler<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Crane\u2019s grandfather, G\u00fcnther R\u00fcdel, was in the hall as part of his military duties, R\u00fcdel recalled in an eight-page, single-spaced, typewritten affidavit that provides a minute-by-minute eyewitness account of the putsch. (R\u00fcdel was later a government witness in the trial that sentenced Hitler to five years in prison, though he was not called to testify.)<\/p>\n<p>The son of a prominent German general, R\u00fcdel had served with distinction in the first world war, earning two Iron Crosses. By 1923, he was serving as chief political aide to General Otto von Lossow, the German army\u2019s highest official in Bavaria. As such, R\u00fcdel was the chief liaison between Von Lossow and Von Kahr and privy to the two men\u2019s many dealings with Hitler. Suspecting that Hitler and his followers were planning a coup, Lossow and R\u00fcdel had forced their way into the beer hall to monitor developments. The head of Bavaria\u2019s state police, Hans Ritter von Seisser, was also there, accompanied by a bodyguard. R\u00fcdel was standing with Lossow and Von Seisser when armed men burst into the hall, with Hitler in the lead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHitler, with pistol held high, escorted on right and left by armed men, his tunic stained with beer, stormed through the hall towards the podium,\u201d R\u00fcdel wrote in his affidavit. \u201cWhen he was directly in front of us, police chief Von Seisser\u2019s adjutant gripped [but did not unsheath] his sword. Hitler immediately aimed his pistol at the man\u2019s chest. I shouted, \u2018Mr Hitler, in this way you will never liberate Germany.\u2019 Hitler hesitated, lowered his pistol and pushed his way between us to the podium.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the surrounding chaos, Hitler\u2019s men tried to force Von Kahr, Lossow and Von Seisser to join the coup, but their uprising soon fizzled. A few days later, Hitler was arrested and charged with treason. He served a year in jail, where he wrote his autobiography, Mein Kampf.<\/p>\n<p>**********<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are now becoming a police state,\u201d Diane Roark said in a 2014 television interview. Referring to herself and the other NSA whistleblowers, she added, \u201cWe are the canaries in the coal mine. We never did anything wrong. All we did was oppose this programme. And for that, they just ran over us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re saying, \u2018We\u2019re doing this to protect you,\u2019\u201d Roark\u2019s fellow whistleblower William Binney told me. \u201cI will tell you that that\u2019s exactly what the Nazis said in Special Order 48 in 1933 \u2013 we\u2019re doing this to protect you. And that\u2019s how they got rid of all of their political opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These are strong statements \u2013 comparing the actions of the US government to Nazi Germany, warning of an emerging \u201cpolice state\u201d \u2013 so it\u2019s worth remembering who made them. The NSA whistleblowers were not leftwing peace nuts. They had spent their professional lives inside the US intelligence apparatus \u2013 devoted, they thought, to the protection of the homeland and defence of the constitution.<\/p>\n<p>They were political conservatives, highly educated, respectful of evidence, careful with words. And they were saying, on the basis of personal experience, that the US government was being run by people who were willing to break the law and bend the state\u2019s awesome powers to their own ends. They were saying that laws and technologies had secretly been put in place that threatened to overturn the democratic governance Americans took for granted and shrink their liberties to a vanishing point. And they were saying that something needed to be done about all this before it was too late.<\/p>\n<p>In Washington, top government officials and politicians still insist that the true villain is Edward Snowden. Former CIA director James Woolsey has called for Snowden to be \u201changed by the neck until he\u2019s dead, rather than merely electrocuted\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats are less bloodthirsty, but no more forgiving. President Obama and Hillary Clinton argue that Snowden broke the law when he should have trusted it. \u201cHe could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower,\u201d Clinton said in the first Democratic presidential debate last October. \u201cHe could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tell that to Thomas Drake. Tell it, for that matter, to John Crane.<\/p>\n<p>Halbrooks forced Crane to resign his post in January 2013. After leaving the Pentagon, Crane made his way to the Government Accountability Project, where the erstwhile protector of whistleblowers became a whistleblower himself.<\/p>\n<p>Crane filed a complaint against Shelley and Halbrooks, detailing many more alleged misdeeds than reported in this article. The Office of Special Counsel, the US agency charged with investigating such matters, concluded in March of 2016 that there was a \u201csubstantial likelihood\u201d that Crane\u2019s accusations were well-founded. The OSC\u2019s choice of the term \u201csubstantial likelihood\u201d was telling. It could have ruled there was merely a \u201creasonable belief\u201d Crane\u2019s charges were true, in which case no further action would have been required. By finding instead that there was a \u201csubstantial likelihood\u201d, the OSC triggered a process that legally required secretary of defense Ashton Carter to organise a fresh investigation of Crane\u2019s allegations. Because no federal agency is allowed to investigate itself, that inquiry is being conducted by the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p>Incredible as it may sound, Crane aims to get his old job back. His attorney, Devine, thinks that is a fantasy. In Devine\u2019s view, the problems facing whistleblowers are systemic \u2013 and the system does not forgive, especially someone who has exposed the system\u2019s corruption as devastatingly as Crane has done.<\/p>\n<p>To Crane, however, it is a simple matter of right and wrong. It was not he who broke the law; it was his superiors. Therefore it is not he who should pay the price but they.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want to see the system work properly,\u201d he says. \u201cI know the system can fail \u2013 world war two, Nazi Germany \u2013 but I also know that you need to do what is right. Because the government is so powerful, you need to have it run efficiently and honestly and according to the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are the odds the system will work properly in your case?\u201d I asked Crane.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not giving you odds,\u201d he replies with a chuckle. \u201cThis is just something that I have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>______________________________________<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is adapted from Mark Hertsgaard\u2019s new book<\/em>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/skyhorsepublishing.com\/titles\/416-9781510703377-bravehearts\/\" >Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden<\/a> <em>(Hot Books\/Skyhorse)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2016\/may\/22\/how-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers\" >Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long before Edward Snowden went public, John Crane was a top Pentagon official fighting to protect NSA whistleblowers. Instead their lives were ruined \u2013 and so was his.<br \/>\n\u2022\tSnowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by Pentagon source<br \/>\n\u2022\tExclusive: Pentagon source goes on record against whistleblower program<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}