Thomas Drake
speaker
874 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 11 Sep
Thomas Drake’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I remember confronting my supervisor, who was the number three person at NSA at the time.
I remember
going to the general counsel's office, saying, what are we doing?
We're violating the Constitution.
And you just basically being told you don't understand, Mr. Drake.
We just need the data.
And I'm saying, well, we're in violation.
If you're saying that the laws cannot keep up with the times in terms of the threat, go to Congress and change the law.
modify the law.
That's the mechanism in a constitutional republic by which you do that.
And he said, well, if we do that, they're going to say no.
And that's when the hair like stood up on the back of my neck.
And I said, we're going way, you know, we're blasting right through the guardrails.
And so I knew I could not remain silent.
I knew that if I did not say anything, that I would be basically supporting the subversion of the Constitution.
And you have to remember, I had taken an oath a number of times during my government military career.
Three times in the military, once at CIA, and now fifth time I'm taking the oath to support and defend the Constitution, and I would not violate my oath.
I was going to maintain absolute fidelity to that oath, the law of the land, literally the law of the land, and that no one, no agency, no person, no president was ever above the law.
And here, in secret, we're going to violate it because of a national security exemption, this massive exemption that was being applied.
So the vast power of NSA was quickly turned to spy on America.
Showing 161–180 of 874 · page 9 of 44
← Previous
Next →