NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake Exposes the Truth Behind Surveillance and Corruption

Change Agents with Andy Stumpf

IRONCLAD

Society & Culture

4.8 • 607 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s episode, Andy sits down with Thomas Drake—a former senior executive at the NSA, Air Force veteran, software expert, whistleblower. While at the NSA, Drake exposed serious issues including multi-billion-dollar fraud, intelligence failures, and a secret post-9/11 mass surveillance program. He supported the use of ThinThread, a cost-effective and privacy-protecting tool, but it was rejected in favor of Trailblazer—a more expensive program lacking privacy safeguards. In 2005, Drake anonymously shared unclassified information about NSA misconduct with a journalist. In 2010, he was charged with 10 felony counts under the Espionage Act but the case collapsed, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. That same year, he received the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling. Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original Watch Change Agents: Black Project, a 4 part mini series, weekly on Tuesdays or Binge all 4 episodes of now by becoming a member on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmK3k1U3D3fqPZWcnAaa-Vg/join. Sponsors: Firecracker Farm Use code IRONCLAD to get 15% off your first order at https://firecracker.farm/ MTNTOUGH Go to ⁠https://mtntough.com⁠ and enter code CHANGEAGENTS to receive 40% OFF - a savings of about $100 off your MTNTOUGH+ annual subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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