Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 29 July
6:15 PM - 7:45 PM
What does it mean to be a whistleblower in the 21st century?
When Edward Snowden released thousands of classified documents in June last year, information he acquired while working as an NSA contractor, he could not have foreseen it would be the biggest intelligence leak since the Pentagon Papers, affecting governments all over the world.
While he remains busy in an undisclosed location somewhere in Russia, one of his lawyers, Jesselyn Radack, and former NSA crypto-linguist, Thomas Drake, are visiting Australia to discuss the issues which surround the Snowden case. What does it tell us about freedom, the individual and the state? And what do we need to understand about privacy, free speech and security in our times?
Join host Sally Warhaft with Thomas Drake, whose own story inspired Edward Snowden to act on his conscience, and Jesselyn Radack, Director of National Security and Human Rights with the Government Accountability Project (GAP), for this special edition of the Fifth Estate in partnership with Blueprint for Free Speech and the Centre for Advancing Journalism.
Featuring
Jesselyn Radack
Jesselyn Radack is a lawyer for both Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake. She was previously an ethics advisor to the US Department of Justice where she became a whistleblower after discovering that the FBI had violated ethical standards and then the Department of Justice had tried to cover it up. She is the Director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project, the most prominent whistleblowing support NGO in the US.
She was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2013’, and was one of 100 worldwide figures pictured in ‘Justice: Faces of the Human Rights Revolution’.
She is a visiting Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Council of Independent Colleges. She has been honoured with the ‘Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award’ (2011) and the ‘Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence’ (2009).
Thomas Drake
Thomas Drake is a former senior executive and technical director for software engineering at the National Security Agency, where he blew the whistle on massive multi-billion dollar fraud, waste and abuse, the failure of 9/11, as well as the widespread violations of the rights of citizens through secret mass surveillance programs after 9/11.
He is the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Truth Telling Prize, and a joint recipient with Jesselyn Radack of the 2011 Sam Adams Associates Integrity in Intelligence Award and the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award.
As a material witness he provided documented evidence for two 9/11 congressional investigations and a Department of Defence IG audit and investigation over several years before going to the press with what he knew.
Starting in 2006, Drake was targeted under a massive criminal investigation launched in late 2005 by the Department of Justice and experienced extensive electronic and physical surveillance. As retaliation and reprisal, the Obama administration indicted Drake in 2010 as the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg charged with espionage, facing 35 years in prison and turning him into an Enemy of the State for his oath to support and defend the US Constitution.
In 2011, the government’s case against him collapsed and he went free in a plea deal when the 10 felony counts were dropped in exchange for a misdemeanour under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for exceeding authorised use of a government computer with no jail time or fine.
He was also a visiting professor of behavioural science, teaching strategic leadership and information strategies at the National Defence University with the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
In a previous industry career, Drake was a certified software test engineer engaged in specialised code analysis, software archaeology, security, team dynamics, agile coding practice and development as well as IT, systems and software management. His first computer was an eight-bit Atari 800.
He is now dedicated to the defence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Sally Warhaft
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...