NSA Whistlebower-- William Binney: Corruption in NSA, Lies About Snowden, Threats to Democracy

William Binney Was  Technical director of the world geopolitical and military analysis and reporting Group at NSA, and   was co-founder of the NSA SIGINT [Signals intelligence] Automation Research Center. 

Bill worked at NSA for 30 years, until 2001. Binney volunteered for military service during the Vietnam War, then finished his education and took a job with the NSA in  the early '70s. He left in 2001 and talks about why in the interview.

Rough Interview notes -- meant to tease you to listen to the audio interview.

Sig Int breaks into Com into and E-Int-- electronic intelligence

CIA did humInt Human intelligence. 

Picture Intelligence. 

near the end of your time you were at NSA you were working on".

       Thin Thread

How is that similar to what NSA does now. 

You don't feel that it's a good idea to create a giant haystack".

Why was  your approach better?

Is there a hoarding behavior aspect to this?

Stellar Wind in use since 2001

You became a whistleblower. What did you do and what happened?

2001 started doing bulk collection on US citizens.

Went to house intelligence committee to report how NSA was violating constitution and spying on US citizens.

FISA Court-- appointed by Chief Justice Roberts-- 

How is what NSA doing similar to a totalitarian state?

        I was very familiar with what KGB and STASI did in Soviet Union and East Germany.

Where does Obama fit into all of this?

So you decided to go to the House Intelligence committee

went to the senior staffer on the House Intelligence committee Diane Roark. She took it to the top. 

What does that mean-- ranking member of the house intelligence committee. 

minority chair-- was Nancy Pelosi Chair was Porter Goss

         they referred her to General Hayden, who told them to pay no attention. 

This was in 2001?

Can you explain a bit more why Pelosi could not put impeachment of George Bush on the table?

     She had already agreed.

So, only the co-chairs of the house and senate committees

Gang of eight-- co-chairs of intelligence committees and majority and minority leaders of house and senate. 

And it's particularly limited for covert operations?

Would you speculate that that's the kind of treatment that Ed Snowden would have gotten. 

If he'd done like did"

What would you say to Peter King?

What was your program costing NSA

Thin Thread

You described what sounds like rats nests of wires in the floors and 

And who was in charge of this?

I would imagine that to lead a tech heavy organization you'd need to have your head around technology. 

What are the corporations that NSA farms out work to?

SAIC, TRW, Booz Allen, CFC 

We're talking hundreds of thousands of employees. 

Decisions at NSA were made by the corporations. 

       

How would the money tree come to them if they were working as government employees?

And they get signing bonuses.

it sounds like it is an incredibly corrupt

Trail Blazer replaced by turbulence. 

Is there any system at NSA to prevent abuses of spending money?

How much is the NSA budget

         $10 billion plus $6-8 for military Sig-Int

Are there criminal operating at NSA? 

Would kind of people should be investigated by DOJ

are there areas of govt that are not audited

     Intelligence committee     

          $80-100 billion a year

Over half a trillion invested since 911

are law enforcement people in the US violating the constitution when they use NSA data?

Parallel construction substitutes

What would happen if a lawyer routinely asked if NSA data was used. 

Amnesty International vs Clapper

Solicitor General perjured to the Supreme court

Independent Investigator

NSA and the Borg Collective

You've learned the term Hive Mind

Sounds like the ultimate top down system. 

Tell us how NSA works with operating systems and browsers. 

More than 50,000 implants in the world. 

And the US has 80% of the technology for the internet.

You told me you're going to spend the rest of your life on this/

Do you see any ideological or party differences in the way this is being handled.