Apparently the embarrassment of the completely failed prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake for alleged mishandling of classified information has not stopped the government from refusing to return the whistleblowers' property in what is shaping up to be yet another bizarre venture into NSA's absurd assertions of secrecy. Last week the Baltimore Sun reported on a lawsuit filed by whistleblowers (former NSA employees Drake, William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, Edward Loomis and former congressional staffer Diane Roark) to recoup property seized in retaliatory FBI raids of the whistleblowers' homes. The raids were 4 years ago--in 2007 - and the case against Drake ended months ago--in June 2011, yet:
"When asked why they have not returned the property," the court motion says, "the FBI responds that it has been waiting for months for the NSA to provide the FBI with its policy regarding this matter."
The NSA must not have a policy on what to do with "evidence" collected in retaliatory raids after failed criminal investigations targeting whistleblowers. There is no logical reason why the government needs to keep the whistleblowers' personal property.
The Justice Department did not offer a logical reason - or any reason. DoJ refused to comment for The Sun story, but one former federal prosecutor speculated on the possible reason for retaining the property:
Andrew C. White, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Baltimore, said that "if a computer contains classified information or contraband, the FBI will not return it. … The federal government does not have to bring criminal charges to keep the property."
As if the government would have simply decided not to charge the whistleblowers had it actually found "classified information or contraband." Any cursory review of the Drake case would reveal that the government attempted to put Drake in prison for decades using the antiquated Espionage Act, but was forced to drop all felony charges and accused three other whistleblowers of conspiracy (Binney, Wiebe, Roark), but never charged them. The failed Drake prosecution was based upon five supposedly classified documents, all of which had be retroactively classified after the raid on Drake's home, two of which appeared on the NSA Intranet, others that were protected whistleblowing disclosures, and one of which was officially declassified two months after Drake's indictment. Even the classification czar under George W. Bush, J. William Leonard, spoke out against the prosecution, writing that:
Every 6-year-old knows what a secret is. But apparently our nation's national security establishment does not . . . the classified information Drake was charged with having possessed illegally . . . never should have been classified in the first place.
The property the whistleblowers are hoping to get back:
. . . Wiebe, said the FBI returned four of his computers but still has two, taken from his bedroom and recreation room. He said they contain old photos of his ancestors from Ireland and of his parents from Indiana, along with family recipes for fish chowder from Scotland.
Is it really necessary to retain Wiebe's family photos and fish chowder recipe? Hasn't the government put these whistleblowers though enough? In Judge Richard D. Bennett's words, the government put Drake though "four years of hell."