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Thomas Drake
May 11, 2019
1:00 to 4:00 pm
The Ice House
Berkeley Springs, WV 25411
(Registration: $45)
The Hope and Promise of Life
In the face of extraordinary, systemic, ongoing change in almost every area of life, courageous whistle-blower Tom Drake brings a personal, first-hand perspective of how the freedoms most all Americans have taken for granted have been eliminated by powerful government agencies which threaten the very essence of the principles upon which America was built. Very few people in the world are able to illuminate the inner workings of the surveillance state like Drake is able to.
From his deeply personal and professional experience as a human being and as former senior executive with the National Security Agency (NSA), Tom Drake comes to TransitionTalks to address how, shortly after 9/11, he witnessed massive fraud and abuse, as well as a vast government mass surveillance program involving widespread violations of the Constitution and our privacy rights. He will highlight how he was turned into an Enemy of the State and charged with crimes of state under the Espionage Act for reporting crimes committed by the state. He will also discuss what it really meant to face down many decades in prison and keep his precious freedoms and individual liberties.
Tom will share the extraordinary charges brought against him as an American exposing government wrongdoing and illegalities and why his ordeal is symptomatic of the rising power of the national security state since 9/11 and its direct assaults on freedom of speech (including speaking truth to and about power), association, thought, innovation, and privacy. He will bring Orwells 1984 alive and what it was like to live in such a dystopian world on a very personal level and why he is now so dedicated to the defense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all of us.
But there is also hope and promise as we all live on an extraordinary planet called Earth swirling through time and space in a huge place we call the Universe. Drawing deeply from his own unique background and life-altering events, Mr. Drake will lead a discussion delving more deeply into what really matters in the sublime miracle of life and the phenomena of our unique human beingness as the heart of our existence with a look beyond the horizon placing linear and non-linear events, technology, people, governments and society in a larger context while finding the meaning and the living connections within us, and making sense of them as the future called tomorrow manifests into the present of today and explore a key question we all face: What future do we want to meet, greet and keep?
Come hear and meet this extraordinarily courageous and principled man!
Thomas Drake is a former senior executive at the National Security Agency where he blew the whistle on massive multi-billion dollar fraud, waste and abuse; the widespread violations of the rights of citizens through secret mass surveillance programs after 9/11; and critical 9/11 intelligence failures. As retaliation and reprisal, the Obama Administration indicted Drake in 2010 in a signature criminal case as the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg charged with espionage, turning him into an Enemy of the State. Drake faced 35 years in prison, for keeping allegiance to his oath to support and defend the US Constitution and the inalienable rights and freedoms of citizens. In 2011, the US governments case against him collapsed and he went free in a plea deal. The US joint DoJ/DNI National Insider Threat Task Force recently labeled Mr. Drake self-radicalized. He is the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Truth Telling Prize, 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. He is now dedicated to the defense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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LocationIce House Theatre (View)
Mercer & Independence Streets
Berkeley Springs, WV 25411
United States
Categories
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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