JR: Yeah. When I first got subpoenaed, the Bush administration was out there...or actually after our NSA stories came out and then the other stuff came out with my book, the White House called me and said our work was shameful and a disgrace, and lots of supporters of the administration went on television and said I should be in jail and I was a traitor or a spy; and then the Obama administration continued the same legal attack -- they said I'd been reckless in my reporting.
Rob: Reckless, eh?
JR: Yeah, so it's...but at this point, I kind of look at that as a badge of honor.
Rob: A badge of honor...yeah. So It's frustrating because I agree, I think that when they attack you like that it is a sign that you're doing the right thing, and it's as you tell the students that this is what...I would imagine that's what you're most proud of...or among the things you're most proud of -- I mean it's an indicator that you're on the right track.
JR: Yeah, yeah...I mean if they ignore your stories then, you know, that's no fun -- you'd much rather have them react.
Rob: Alright, so let me move on a little bit. Well I should jump in...I've kind of gone out of the order of my notes here, but along this theme, when you're talking about the NSA and how they went after Bill Binney and Thomas Drake and Rourke and the others, you described the then head of the NSA Hayden as being at war with congress. Can you talk about that?
JR: Yeah, well it was interesting...what I get into in that chapter, The War on Truth, is kind of the prequel to the whole fight over the NSA domestic spying program. In the years before 9/11, Bill Binney was -- and some of these other people who he was working with -- we're all trying to help the NSA deal with a new internet. And one of the biggest problems the NSA had in the 1990s was that they were still focused on spying...traditional spying on Cold War targets, and they saw their mission as eavesdropping on, like military communications of major countries, like the Russians or Chinese, and so they had a kind of a traditional approach that they would...could monitor or tap into big, old radio or microwave or other kinds of cables, where you could hear secret communications among foreign governments; and so the NSA, when the internet first arose...first began to develop, they kind of were dismissive of it -- they thought you know this is an open communications. Why should we....our targets are always the secret, closed communications of foreign governments and armies...why should we care much about the internet? -- and it took a while for the NSA to begin to realize, wait a second, we've got to figure out about this internet thing; and Binney...that was one of the things Binney was trying to do -- he was in kind of the NSA's Skunkworks, where there were doing experimental stuff in the 90s, he and a few other guys developed some new software technology and new computer technology to help collect and analyze very rapidly internet and metadata and it was something that the NSA, at first thought, raised too many legal questions whether or not you could use this without actually spying on Americans. They thought that his technology would capture too much of American communications, which at the time the NSA realized 'that's illegal, we shouldn't be doing that.' And so Binney's programs were shelved by the lawyers at the NSA before 9/11 -- they said 'these are too risky, we don't want to listen in on Americans.' Binney would argue...Binney kept arguing with them, 'no, we have ways to make sure that Americans aren't listened to, we've stripped anything from the United States so that the analysts can't see it,' and the lawyers said, 'no, no it's too risky.'
And then after 9/11 what they essentially did was they...the lawyers and the NSA management had a 180 degree change of heart, and without telling Binney they basically stripped out his...they took his program, which was a pilot project which had never gotten off the ground, and stripped out all the protections that he had put in himself on American communications, and then made it all operational.
So it was like they had this monster in the basement chained up where they weren't using it and then they unleashed it, and turned it into a Frankenstein....and that's really what happened after 9/11. And so that was, to me, a really interesting look at at these personalities...like Binney had been saying 'you guys got to use this stuff because this will help with our understanding of new internet/online and cell phone and telephone communications,' and they said 'no, no, no'....even though he had put these protections on, and then they changed completely and took off all the protections and unleashed the whole thing; and that was the start of the new NSA domestic spying program.
Rob: And actually, I believe Binney felt that if this had been used prior to 9/11 it could have prevented it.
JR: Yeah, yeah...yeah, he and Tom Drake are convinced of that. And one of the things that...what had happened also at the same time...Diane Roark, before 9/11, had been doing oversight of the NSA and she heard from Binney and a bunch of other people about how screwed up the NSAs reaction to the internet was and she was beginning to ask a lot of questions about how the NSA was dealing with the growth of the internet; and she was asking so many questions that Hayden got really mad because he realized that Binney was probably the one who was talking to her, and called Binney in on the carpet and basically ended his career; and then put out a message to the workforce about a year before 9/11 saying, you know, you can't have unauthorized talks with congress -- making it clear that congress was the enemy of the NSA.
Rob: Now I have to ask you this question because it kind of looms in the face of this story -- was Roark your source? Now I wouldn't blame you if you give me a Kay Hagan 'I'm not going to tell you if I voted for Obama' answer. But (laughs)...
JR: (Laughs) No, she was not our source. No, Binney and Roark and Drake and Ed Loomis and Kirk Wiebe all got [Inaudible 0:37:28] from the NSA or from the House. They had their houses raided by the FBI because the FBI thought they were our sources, but they weren't, and they had never leaked to the press. And then, you know, the odd...the thing is...the irony is that the FBI raided Tom Drake's house because they thought he was our source. And it was only after Drake....you know, when he was meeting with the FBI he told them how the only reporter I ever talked to was the Baltimore Sun about this other story about contract abuse; and then they used that against him and went after him for that, which was not the reason they had raided his house -- they raided his house because they thought he was our source.
Rob: Okay. So next...a couple questions here. Now the thing that got you in trouble was talking about NSA and Operation Merlin, which was an idiotic idea where they basically tried to give bad, flawed reactor designs to the Iranians through a Russian and the Russian basically gave it to them with a letter saying what was wrong with them.
JR: Right.
Rob: And the NSA story...it was basically...did the part that you wrote about in 2006, did that include Binney and Drake too? I didn't read that article that you wrote I'm so sorry to say.
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