Edward Snowden NSA disclosures in 2013, Tice was asked during an interview on All In with Chris Hayes, "What was your experience in trying to blow the whistle from inside the NSA? And does it make you understand why Snowden might have done what he did?" Tice replied, Asked in June 2013 by The Guardian to comment on the early revelations about phone data collection by the NSA, Tice said: "What is going on is much larger and more systemic than anything anyone has ever suspected or imagined ... I figured it would probably be about 2015 [before the NSA had] the computer capacity ... to collect all digital communications word for word ... But I think I'm wrong. I think they have it right now." Later during the summer of 2013 Tice alleged that during his employment with the NSA, the agency had a program that targeted the phone and computer conversations, word for word, of members of Congress, the Supreme Court, Admirals and Generals, and that the NSA had wiretapped Barack Obama while he was a Senate candidate, saying he had seen and held papers ordering such actions. Tice claimed the surveillance extended to lawyers and law firms, judges (one of whom, Samuel Alito "is now sitting on the Supreme Court ... two are former FISA court judges"), State Department officials, people "in the executive service that were part of the White House", antiwar groups, US companies and banking and financial firms that do international business, NGOs and humanitarian groups such as the Red Cross, and antiwar civil rights groups. In his opinion, this 'wide-ranging' surveillance could offer intelligence agencies 'unthinkable power to blackmail their opponents'. Tice said he was "worried that the intelligence community now has sway over what is going on". See also Hepting v. AT&T Room 641A William Binney and Diane Roark John Crane Perry Fellwock References External links Analysts of the Defense Intelligence Agency Analysts of the National Security Agency American whistleblowers 1961 births Living people