Trailblazer was a United States
National Security AgencyThe National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
(NSA) program intended to analyze data carried on communications networks like the internet. It was able to track communication methods such as cell phones and e-mail. It ran over budget, failed to accomplish several goals, and was cancelled.
Several whistleblowers complained about waste, fraud, and abuse in the program, and Congress and the NSA and
United States Department of DefenseThe United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
(DoD) inspector general's offices investigated it. It was shut down in 2006. The people who filed the Inspector General complaint were later raided by armed FBI agents. An NSA officer who helped with the report and also talked with a reporter about the project,
Thomas Andrews DrakeThomas Andrews Drake is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency , decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, linguist, management and leadership specialist, and whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that he 'mishandled'...
, was later charged under the
Espionage Act of 1917The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...
. His defenders claimed this was retaliation. The charges against him were later dropped, and he agreed to plead guilty to having committed a misdemeanor under the
Computer Fraud and Abuse ActThe Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a law passed by the United States Congress in 1986, intended to reduce cracking of computer systems and to address federal computer-related offenses...
, something that
Jesselyn RadackJesselyn Radack is a former ethics adviser to the United States Department of Justice who came to prominence as a whistleblower after she disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation committed an ethics violation in its interrogation of John Walker Lindh , without an attorney present, and...
of the
Government Accountability ProjectThe Government Accountability Project is a leading United States whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating of whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability...
(which helped represent him) called an "act of
civil disobedienceCivil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
".
Background
Trailblazer was chosen over a similar program named
ThinthreadThinThread is the name of a project that the United States National Security Agency engaged in during the 1990s, according to a May 17, 2006 article in the Baltimore Sun...
, a less costly project which had been designed with built in privacy protections for US citizens. Trailblazer was later linked to the
NSA electronic surveillance programAn electronic surveillance program, whose actual name is currently unknown, was implemented by the National Security Agency of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program which was in turn conducted under the overall umbrella...
and the
NSA warrantless surveillance controversyThe NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency as part of the war on terror...
.
In 2002 a consortium led by
Science Applications International CorporationSAIC is a FORTUNE 500 scientific, engineering and technology applications company headquartered in the United States with numerous federal, state, and private sector clients...
was chosen by the NSA to produce a technology demonstration platform in a contract worth $280 million. Project participants included
BoeingThe Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
,
Computer Sciences CorporationComputer Sciences Corporation is an American information technology and business services company headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, USA...
, and
Booz Allen HamiltonBooz Allen Hamilton Inc. , or more commonly Booz Allen, is an American public consulting firm headquartered in McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia, with 80 other offices throughout the United States. Ralph Shrader is its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The firm was founded by Edwin Booz in...
. The project was overseen by NSA Deputy Director
William B. Black, Jr.William B. Black, Jr. is the most recent former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency.-Early NSA career :Black joined the National Security Agency in 1959 as an operational linguist/analyst after three years in the Army. While employed at NSA, Mr...
, an NSA worker who had gone to SAIC, and then been re-hired back to NSA by NSA director Michael Hayden in 2000. SAIC had also hired a former NSA director to its management; Bobby Inman. SAIC also participated in the concept definition phase of Trailblazer.
The NSA Inspector General issued a report on Trailblazer that "discussed improperly based contract cost increases, non-conformance in the management of the Statement of Work, and excessive labor rates for contractor personnel."
In 2004 the DoD inspector general report criticized the program (please see the Whistleblowing section below). It said that the "NSA 'disregarded solutions to urgent national security needs'" and "that TRAILBLAZER was poorly executed and overly expensive...." Several contractors for the project were worried about cooperating with DoD's audit for fear of "management reprisal." The Director of NSA "nonconcurred" with several statements in the IG audit, and the report contains a discussion of those disagreements.
In 2005, NSA director Michael Hayden told a Senate hearing that the Trailblazer program was several hundred million dollars over budget and years behind schedule. In 2006 the program was shut down. Several anonymous NSA sources told Hosenball of Newsweek later on that the project was a "wasteful failure".
The new project, to replace Trailblazer, is called
TurbulenceTurbulence is a National Security Agency Information Technology project started circa 2005. It was developed in small, inexpensive "test" pieces rather than one grand plan like its failed predecessor, the Trailblazer Project. It also includes offensive cyber-warfare capabilities, like injecting...
.
Whistleblowing
According to a 2011
New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
article, in the early days of the project several NSA employees met with Diane S Roark, an NSA budget expert on the
House Intelligence CommitteeThe United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Mike Rogers. It is the primary committee in the U.S...
. They aired their grievances about Trailblazer. In response, NSA director Michael Hayden sent out a memo saying that “individuals, in a session with our congressional overseers, took a position in direct opposition to one that we had corporately decided to follow.... Actions contrary to our decisions will have a serious adverse effect on our efforts to transform N.S.A., and I cannot tolerate them."
In September 2002, several people filed a complaint with the Department of Defense Inspector General's (IG) office regarding problems with Trailblazer. Four of these were Roark (aforementioned), and ex-NSA workers Bill Binney, Wiebe, and Loomis, who had quit the agency over concerns about its allegedly illegal domestic spying. A major source for the report was NSA senior officer
Thomas Andrews DrakeThomas Andrews Drake is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency , decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, linguist, management and leadership specialist, and whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that he 'mishandled'...
. Drake had been complaining to his superiors for some time about problems at the agency, and about the superiority of ThinThread over Trailblazer, for example at protecting privacy. Drake gave info to DoD during its investigation of the matter. Roark also went to her boss at the House committee, Porter Goss, about problems, but was rebuffed. She also attempted to contact William Renquist, a Supreme Court justice.
Drake's own boss, Maureen Baginski, the third-highest officer at NSA, quit partly over concerns about the legality of its behavior.
In 2003, the NSA IG (not the DoD IG) had declared Trailblazer an expensive failure. It had cost more than $1 billion.
In 2005, the DoD Inspector General produced a report on the result of its investigation of the complaint of Roark and the others in 2002. This report was not released to the public, but it has been described as very negative. Mayer writes that it hastened the closure of Trailblazer, which was at the time in trouble from congress for being over budget.
In November 2005, Drake contacted Siobhan Gorman, a reporter of the Baltimore Sun. Gorman wrote several articles about problems at the NSA, including articles on Trailblazer. This series got her an award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
In 2005, President
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
ordered the
Federal Bureau of InvestigationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) to find whoever had disclosed information about the
NSA electronic surveillance programAn electronic surveillance program, whose actual name is currently unknown, was implemented by the National Security Agency of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program which was in turn conducted under the overall umbrella...
and its disclosure in the New York Times. Eventually this investigation led to the people who had filed the 2002 DoD Inspector General request, even though they had nothing to do with the New York Times disclosure. In 2007, the houses of Roark, Binney, and Wiebe were raided by armed FBI agents. According to Mayer, Binney claims the FBI pointed guns at the heads of himself and his wife. Wiebe said it reminded him of the Soviet Union. None of these people were ever charged with any crime. Drake was raided in November 2007 and his computers and documents were confiscated.
In 2010 Drake was indicted by the US Department of Justice on charges of obstructuing justice, providing false information, and violating the Espionage Act, part of President
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's crackdown on whistleblowers and "leakers". The government tried to get Roark to testify to a conspiracy, and made similar requests to Drake, offering him a plea bargain. They both refused.
In June 2011, the ten original charges against Drake were dropped, instead he pled guilty to a misdemeanor.
See also
- Russ Tice
Russell D. Tice is a former intelligence analyst for the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency...
- Thomas Tamm
Thomas Tamm is a former lawyer in the United States Department of Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review during the period in 2004 when senior Justice officials fought against the widening scope of warrantless NSA surveillance—and was the anonymous initial whistleblower to The...
- Thomas Andrews Drake
Thomas Andrews Drake is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency , decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, linguist, management and leadership specialist, and whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that he 'mishandled'...
- NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency as part of the war on terror...
- NSA electronic surveillance program
An electronic surveillance program, whose actual name is currently unknown, was implemented by the National Security Agency of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program which was in turn conducted under the overall umbrella...
- Information Awareness Office
The Information Awareness Office was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor terrorists and other asymmetric threats to national security,...
- NSA Call Database
The United States' National Security Agency maintains a database containing hundreds of billions of records of telephone calls made by U.S...
- Hepting v. AT&T
Hepting v. AT&T is a United States class action lawsuit filed in January 2006 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the telecommunications company AT&T, in which the EFF alleges that AT&T permitted and assisted the National Security Agency in unlawfully monitoring the communications of...
- Cabinet noir
Cabinet noir was the name given in France to the office where the letters of suspected persons were opened and read by public officials before being forwarded to their destination...
- Room 641A
Room 641A is an intercept facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, beginning in 2003. Room 641A is located in the SBC Communications building at 611 Folsom Street, San Francisco, three floors of which were occupied by AT&T before SBC purchased AT&T...
- ECHELON
ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement...
- Project Shamrock
Project SHAMROCK, considered to be the sister project for Project MINARET, was an espionage exercise that involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data entering into or exiting from the United States...
- Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act is a United States wiretapping law passed in 1994, during the presidency of Bill Clinton...
- Telecommunications data retention
In the field of telecommunications, data retention generally refers to the storage of call detail records of telephony and internet traffic and transaction data by governments and commercial organisations...
- Mass surveillance
Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof.Modern governments today commonly perform mass surveillance of their citizens, explaining that they believe that it is necessary to protect them from dangerous groups such as terrorists,...
- The First Circle
In the First Circle is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released in 1968. A fuller version of the book was published in English in 2009....
, Alexander Solzhenytsin
Gorman's Baltimore Sun series
- Little-known contractor has close ties with staff of NSA January 29, 2006
- System Error, January 29, 2006
- GAO head stymied in quest to audit anti-terror efforts, February 04, 2006
- Computer ills hinder NSA, February 26, 2006
- Freshly briefed lawmakers to question Hayden today, May 18, 2006, with Gwyneth K. Shaw
- Second-ranking NSA official forced out of job by director May 31, 2006