William Binney spent more than 30 years at the National Security Agency designing programs that enabled mass surveillance of foreign terrorists.
Weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Binney retired in disgust when he saw the agency using that technology to spy on every American.
Since then, he has agitated for reining in unconstitutional invasions of privacy. At first he worked behind the scenes. Binney decided to go public after his actions resulted not in reform but retaliation, including being accosted at gunpoint by an FBI agent raiding his Maryland house. He began telling his story to journalists in 2011, two years before the stunning revelations of NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Last week, Binney brought his warnings of a growing "totalitarian state" to an unlikely venue: the Bent Creek Golf Club in Eden Prairie, where about 80 Libertarians, antiwar activists and others gathered to hear from the second-best-known NSA whistleblower.
Wednesday's visit was a timely one. The day before, Congress had imposed the most significant limits on the federal government's surveillance power in more than 30 years. The USA Freedom Act, quickly signed by President Obama, introduces more accountability for the secret court that grants spying powers and restricted the NSA's collection of data from telephone companies.
Binney called it a "step in the right direction," but far short of what he thinks would make federal officials change their ways: "We'd have to put them in jail. That's the way to stop all this crap."
Binney, Snowden and other whistleblowers are heroes to those who have watched the growth of the surveillance state with alarm. In "Citizenfour," the 2014 documentary about how Snowden leaked NSA records to journalists, there's a scene of Binney arriving at the German parliament last year to testify about NSA spying. In Berlin, Binney got a celebrity's welcome, which he attributes to the still-fresh memories of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police.
Binney noted that he has never been invited to testify before Congress, although he regularly communicates with members and staffers on Capitol Hill. His long career with the NSA lends him credibility, not to mention a command of the many programs and policies that enable the NSA to capture vast quantities of Internet and telephone data.
