.
When Binney heard the rumors, he was convinced that the new domestic-surveillance program employed components of Thin Thread: a bastardized version, stripped of privacy controls. "It was my brainchild," he said. "But they removed the protections... When you remove that, you can target anyone."
Binney expressed terrible remorse over the way some of his algorithms were used after 9/11... "I should apologize to the American people. It's violated everyone's rights. It can be used to eavesdrop on the whole world."
In the face of Roark telling him the NSA's domestic surveillance was unconstituional, the article details that Hayden told her he could count on a majority of "the nine votes:"
According to Roark's notes, Hayden told her that such a vote might even be 7-2 in his favor.
The hurbris and arrogance are stunning. The NSA Director claiming to have 7 Supreme Court justices in his pocket to support warrantless surveillance on Americans is a complete abdication of the oath Hayden took to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. We may never know whether or not Hayden really did have the seven votes as the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 effectively shut down all lawsuits on this issue.
The experts identify what the Drake prosecution is really about.
the case will "test whether intelligence officers can be convicted of violating the Espionage Act even if their intent is pure"
Even neo-conservative secrecy advocate Gabe Schoenfeld, whose far-flung idea it was to use the Espionage Act to prosecute leakers calls Obama's conduct "draconian:"
If Drake is convicted, in means the Espionage Law is an Official Secrets Act.
For those of you who recognize that Drake is not an enemy of the state, please sign the petition to demand oversight and stop his prosecution. You can also "like" the Save Tom Drake Facebook Page.
Jesselyn Radack is Homeland Security & Human Rights Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization. This post originally appeared in her Daily Kos column.
PsycheLeaks looks at the relationship between UK psychic Chris Robinson and indicted NSA whistleblower and former Senior Intelligence Official Thomas Drake. Other sources claim US National Security Agency inherited America's STAR GATE psychic spy program from CIA. Is there a link?
(STARpod.org / PsycheLeaks) -- When UK-based 'dream detective' psychic spy Christopher Robinson saw the news, it probably came as no surprise.
The man Robinson claims to have worked with in the United States for seven years, Thomas A. Drake, was revealed to be a Senior Intelligence Official with the National Security Agency. Drake is presently indicted under the espionage act. Robinson says he reported the use of planes as cruise missiles to an officer in London in 1999, and again in 2000 and 2001. Following the attacks on 9/11, Robinson claims to have been contacted by many representatives of US intelligence agencies, including, apparently, then NSA employee Thomas Drake.
"I only know about Tom's problems from the newspapers," says Robinson, "We have not met since May 2008...he never told me what department he worked with -- I don't know who introduced me." Robinson's claim of knowing Drake was confirmed by independent sources and writers. Robinson referenced Drake on Twitter as "the man I worked with" and has posted at the "Save Tom Drake" Facebook page.
Other sources have previously claimed that the NSA remains in the business of using psychics for intelligence collection. Declassified documents confirm the use of psychics by the American Intelligence Community since the 1960s. The most recent confirmed psychic spy program was run by the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1991 to 1995, under the nick-name STAR GATE.
The Justice Department case against Drake leaves open the question of whether or not Drake's involvement with Robinson was officially sanctioned. Several sources have identified John L. Petersen's The Arlington Institute, a think-tank that once identified former Director of Central Intelligence James R. Woolsey as a board member, as a focal point for psychic researchers with ties to intelligence agencies.
Laura Eisenhower Mahon, the great-granddaughter of President Eisenhower, also identified Mr. Petersen's associates with recruitment into an alleged deep black paranormal program. Ms. Eisenhower Mahon claims to have paranormal powers, which were allegedly of interest to persons networked by Mr. Petersen. Some of the information provided to Ms. Eisenhower Mahon, and her associate Ivy Linn, may have been intended to provide a smoke-screen cover story for real-world operations.
In 2010, Drake was indicted on multiple counts for his activities as a whistleblower. According to the indictment, Drake worked as a contractor for NSA from 1991 until late August 2001, when Drake was hired as an employee of the agency.
The same month Drake moved to the Signals Intelligence Directorate at NSA in Fort Meade, Maryland, Robinson came to the US to work with Dr. Gary E. R. Schwartz at the University of Arizona, to study his alleged ability to 'know the future' from dreams of impending terror attacks. According to Schwartz and Robinson, US authorities were notified about Robinson's on-going dreams of aircraft striking tall buildings, just prior to the 9/11 attacks. Robinson claims to have been contacted by an American Colonel immediately following the strike against the twin towers of the World Trade Center. As a senior NSA official, Drake held a TOP SECRET clearance and had access to NSA facilities, classified computer systems, and other information.
Robinson states that Drake never identified his NSA employer, and was never a source concerning any NSA-related paranormal research programs. The espionage indictment against Drake alleges that Drake illegally retained classified information and provided information about wasteful NSA spending to "Reporter A" -- identified elsewhere as Siobhan Gorman formerly of The Baltimore Sun -- in secret meetings arranged over the Internet. According to the indictment, Drake used Hushmail, an email service that securely encrypts messages. Drake, using an alias, emailed "Reporter A" that "someone we both knew referred me to you." In the message, Drake offered to "disclose information about NSA," with the condition that "Reporter A" create a Hushmail account as a secure communication line.
A similar message was received by STARstream Research in late 2006, following publication of several articles exposing Dr. Ron Pandolfi, a former CIA analyst then with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and his associate, Dr. Christopher Kit Green, a former senior CIA forensic analyst known for solving the Markov umbrella gun assassination in the 1970s.
In the Hushmail message received by STARstream Research, and recently posted on-line by PsycheLeaks, an offer is made to arrange for a clandestine meeting concerning "Mr. Axelrod," an alias used for the head of a secret 1970s black-operation in an out-of-print book by Ingo Swann, a psychic who worked with the CIA and DIA.
The message, signed by "someone you know," notes that "the degree to which you can keep this contact and what is being discussed private and to yourself will decide how much I will tell you."
For more about the government's paranormal efforts, see SPIES LIES and POLYGRAPH TAPE -- Knowing the Future: The UFO Spy Games Book. For more information, please visit STARpod.org.
Copyright (c) 2011 by STARstream Research / STARpod.org -- All rights reserved.
Is the American Intelligence Community still in the psychic espionage business? And why has NSA whistle-blower Thomas Drake been charged with espionage?
STARpod.org) -- I watched the CBS 60 Minutes story about NSA whistleblowers and the espionage case against former NSA official Thomas Drake with great interest.
60 Minutes asked a whistle-blower expert, Attorney Jesselyn Radack, why Drake would be charged under the Espionage Act for taking home -- but not disclosing -- classified information.
"That's a very good question," answered Radack, "The Espionage Act was a World War One law, passed in 1917, meant to go after spies, not whistle-blowers."
When asked if there was any evidence that Drake sought to harm the United States, Radack replied, "None, whatsoever."
My sources had already confirmed that Drake, who had held very high level positions in the Signals Intelligence Directorate at NSA, knew a psychic named Chris Robinson. And Robinson claimed to have worked with Drake to explore his psychic spying skills for seven years.
I also knew, based upon thousands of pages of declassified government documents -- covering a period from the 1960s to the mid-1990s -- that the entire US intelligence community had been enthralled with the use of psychic intelligence. The files proved that government interest in the use of the paranormal had extended all the way to the Joint Chiefs, where Drake had, as a Naval officer, analyzed intelligence for the Pentagon.
Was the post-9/11 US intelligence community back in the business of using psychic intelligence?
Author Jon Ronson seemed to think so, but his book -- The Men Who State at Goats -- seemed at best a superficial, if immensely entertaining investigation.
I had obtained CIA's STAR GATE files -- roughly 89,000 pages of government documentation -- and had managed to network with various researchers and government officials and consultants who were familiar with the old programs.
One of my contacts, the author Gus Russo, provided us with a source on NSA use of psychic intelligence. Russo's source confirmed that NSA had not only been in the psychic spying business, they had continued their research program following 9/11.
Russo's source told