An interesting addition to the Snowden story, just out today.
A former senior NSA official has come forward to AP's Ken Dilanian, basically making himself an after-the-fact whistleblower, to speak about what he saw as the breaking of a "sacrosanct" line at NSA. (Note: there are some typos in story, in the form of question marks, which I've noted.)
The 2009 dissent, led by a senior NSA official and embraced by others at the agency, prompted the Obama administration to consider, but ultimately abandon, a plan to stop gathering the records.
The secret internal debate has not been previously reported. The Senate on Tuesday rejected an administration proposal that would have curbed the program and left the records in the hands of telephone companies rather than the government. That would be an arrangement similar to the one the administration quietly rejected in 2009.
The former official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he didn't have permission to discuss a classified matter, said he knows of no evidence the program was used for anything other than its stated purpose ? [sic] to hunt for terrorism plots in the U.S. But he said he and others made the case that the collection of American records in bulk crossed a line that he and his colleagues had been taught was sacrosanct.
He said he also warned of a scandal if it should be disclosed that the NSA was storing records of private calls by Americans ? [sic] to psychiatrists, lovers and suicide hotlines, among other contacts.
(Edited minutes after publishing to fix attribution error:)
Steven Aftergood, an intelligence expert at the Federation of American Scientists, goes on to say this about Edward Snowden:
Since Snowden has cited government deception about the phone records collection as a key motivation, "It's possible that the entire Snowden leak might have been diverted" had the government curbed the program in 2009 or 2011, Aftergood said.
"This program was so at variance with the official position of the U.S. government," he said, "that it inspired its own unauthorized disclosure."
It "inspired its own unauthorized disclosure," IOW it inspired its own Edward Snowden.
Related note, regarding yesterday's vote on proposed reforms to NSA's bulk phone collection:
Ken Dilanian on Twitter.