Former senior NSA official Thomas Drake gave an impassioned and angry speech about the degeneration of America from a free society into a fascist police state at the 2011 Sam Adams Award on November 21, 2011.
The event was hosted in Washington by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII), a group of former CIA officers who annually select "an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics," (Wikipedia).
Drake was recognized by the SAAII for protecting the public interest by whistleblowing about warrantless wiretapping and government fraud at the National Security Agency.
Jesselyn Radack, director of the Government Accountability Project, a top whistleblower protection organization, was a co-recipient of the 2011 SAAII award. Past recipients include Coleen Rowley and Sibel Edmonds of the FBI, Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, and British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray.
In his speech, Drake quoted leading abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, and said that the technology exists to make George Orwell's 1984 a 21st century reality.
Drake said that his fight against the government in post-9/11 America reminded him of his time in East Germany. He said, "I used to monitor East Germany when I flew a RC-135 during the latter part of the Cold War, an absolutely fascist state. Given what I've experienced over the past number of years I have a lot of bad memories."
No comments:
Post a Comment