Thomas Andrews Drake

Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that Drake mishandled documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. Drake's defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.

On June 9, 2011, all 10 original charges against him were dropped. Drake rejected several deals because he refused to "plea bargain with the truth". He eventually pled to one misdemeanor count for exceeding authorized use of a computer;Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, who helped represent him, called it an act of "civil disobedience."

Biography

Drake's father was a World War II veteran and his mother a secretary for Pearl S. Buck. He entered the U.S. Air Force in 1979, becoming an Airborne Voice Processing Specialist, with a fluency in German, and went on ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions. It was in that capacity that he encountered the surveillance state of East Germany and the Stasi, which informed his worldview and to which he compares developments in the United States since the September 11 attacks. Drake left the Air Force in 1989. He was also in the U.S. Navy, where he analyzed intelligence for the National Military Joint Intelligence Center. According to the Washington Post, he also at one time worked with the CIA. In 1989 Drake began work as an NSA contractor, evaluating software. As a contractor, he worked on projects like JACKPOT and LIBRARIAN, becoming an expert in the quality-testing of software and working on a system for measuring the quality of computer code at the NSA. Drake also continued his academic studies.

Thomas Drake

Thomas Drake may refer to:

See also

Tom Drake

Tom Drake (August 5, 1918 – August 11, 1982), born Alfred Sinclair Alderdice in Brooklyn, New York, was an American actor. Drake made films starting in 1940 and continuing until the mid-1970s, and also made TV acting appearances.

Drake was excused from serving in World War II due to heart problems. Despite this limitation, he did act in British naval training films. He got his break after starring in the 1942 Broadway smash Janie, after which he was signed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After a number of films, Drake co-starred with Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) as John Truett, the boy next door. He appeared in more than forty films in all, including Mrs. Parkington (1944), The Green Years (1946), as composer Richard Rodgers in the biography Words and Music (1948), and, in a role at the opposite end of the character spectrum from John Truett, as the leader of a gang of criminals in Warlock (1959). He also had a minor role in the movie The Singing Nun (1966), playing Ed Sullivan's producer Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Drake

A drake is a male duck. By different roots drake is also another word for dragon. Drake (capitalised) may refer to:

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National Security Agency

The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence organization of the United States government, responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes – a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). NSA is concurrently charged with protection of U.S. government communications and information systems against penetration and network warfare. Although many of NSA's programs rely on "passive" electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through active clandestine means, among which are physically bugging electronic systems and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software. Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in a large number of countries across the globe, where its Special Collection Service (SCS) inserts eavesdropping devices in difficult-to-reach places. SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering".