"The place is almost completely corrupted."

The quote above comes from Tom Drake, NSA employee, and the place he is referring to is the NSA itself. The quote comes from the third page of a New York Times article, Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press, which discusses how the Obama administration is aggressively seeking to punish whistleblowers like Mr. Drake who voice their criticisms of government agencies to the press.

The article also mentions the competition between two surveillance projects, an older and allegedly more effective one entitled ThinThread, and a later faulty but implemented one entitled Trailblazer.


An article in Common Dreams, NSA Killed System That Sifted Phone Data Legally, describes the shelving of the ThinThread computer program which protected U.S. citizens privacy through encryption while according to testimony at the 9/11 Commission, also "could have identified the hijackers had it been in place before the attacks, according to an intelligence expert close to the commission."

Update: Copies of the articles in The Baltimore Sun which created much of the controversy can be found here on DOD Leaks.