Ex-NSA Leaker's Advice To Snowden: "Always Check Your Six"

"Be lawyered up to the max... find a place where it's going to be that much more difficult for the US to make arrangements for his return... and and always check your six," is the warning (advice) that Thomas Drake offers Edward Snowden, adding that, "it's now validation of this vast, now systemic, industrial-scale leviathan surveillance system."

As Reuters reports [9], Drake is one of the few people who understands from personal experience what the NSA Whistleblower is going through - the 56-year-old was prosecuted under the Espionage Act in 2010 for allegedly revealing classified information about the agency's sweeping warrantless wire-tapping program. The government later dropped all but a misdemeanor charge.

"Always make sure you know what's behind you," he adds, "when you offer up information about the dark side of the surveillance state they don't take too kindly to it." Drake, whose life was "essentially destroyed," is now a technical expert at an Apple store, but he still believes what he did was worth it, having no doubts: "Is freedom worth it? Is liberty worth it? Is not living in a surveillance society worth it? You've got to stand up and defend the rights and the freedoms that prevent that from actually happening."

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