In the late 1990s and early 2000s, NSA officials debated systems for processing rapidly expanding digital communications. Thomas A. Drake, a senior NSA technical executive, supported ThinThread because it was designed to incorporate privacy protections while collecting intelligence. In approximately 2000, NSA Director Michael Hayden selected the far more expensive Trailblazer program instead. By 2003, the NSA Inspector General reportedly judged Trailblazer an expensive failure costing more than $1 billion. A 2004 Defense Department Inspector General report, prompted by a 2002 complaint from congressional staffer Diane Roark and former NSA officials William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, and Ed Loomis, found serious flaws at the agency and contributed to restrictions on launching large projects.
Drake pursued internal reporting through NSA and Defense Department inspectors general and congressional intelligence committees, then communicated with Baltimore Sun reporter Siobhan Gorman about alleged waste, fraud, abuse, and surveillance concerns. After an FBI raid on his home in November 2007, a Baltimore grand jury indicted him in April 2010 under the Espionage Act and on obstruction and false-statements charges involving five retained documents. The prosecution sought to limit public discussion of whistleblowing and overclassification under the Classified Information Procedures Act. In June 2011, prosecutors dropped all 10 original charges and agreed not to seek imprisonment after Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor involving unauthorized computer use. Judge Richard Bennett later condemned the prosecution as “unconscionable.”
