Nine months ago, we let you know that National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake had been struck by serious cancer. The generous responses provided a huge lift. And his health stabilized by summer. But the latest news is not good.

Tom has just told us that he’s in “a period of uncertainty regarding my health.” Although a PET scan in late August “did determine the good news that I was considered stable with respect to lymphoma, additional blood tests that I take monthly subsequently revealed that I was extremely low in iron and had a severely low white blood cell count. Turns out that the very expensive anti-cancer pill I took daily since mid-April of 2023 has negative side effects and one of them brought my white blood cell count down to dangerous levels -- compromising my immune system. Another side effect also developed where I increasingly experienced sudden and rapid increases in my heart rate that would last for hours.”

Tom explained that his oncologist “took me completely off the anti-cancer pill, prescribed a daily iron supplement, and my cardiologist prescribed a low dosage daily pill to reduce my heart palpitations. I now await a consult with NIH and their cancer unit as well as a consult with the University of Maryland Medical Center and their cancer specialists regarding alternative long-term treatment options. One option (if I qualify) is the ‘one-and-done’ CAR-T T-cell blood pheresis and infusion treatment, but it is very expensive with possible side effects that are most unpleasant and require staying at a special medical facility for up to two months.”

Ever since directly challenging widespread government surveillance, Tom has remained a beacon of truth-telling integrity. Here at the RootsAction Education Fund, we’ve been proud to work with him for many years. Now, along with sending you a new essay (below) that Tom has just written, we’re making an urgent appeal. Medical bills have piled up and essential drugs are expensive; he needs -- and deserves -- our help.

Click here to make a tax-deductible donation in support of Tom Drake and his vital work challenging government surveillance. Three-quarters of every dollar you donate will go directly to him, while the other quarter will help sustain RootsAction Education Fund’s work in support of “national security” whistleblowers and civil liberties.

As a top NSA executive a decade ago, Tom had nothing to gain -- and everything to lose -- by exposing the U.S. government’s secret assault on overall civil liberties and the Fourth Amendment in particular. Federal prosecutors threatened him with prison for the rest of his life. The bogus prosecution eventually collapsed, but not before Tom was banished from government employment, was deprived of a pension, and landed deeply in debt from huge legal fees.

We can help out now!

Below is an essay that Tom has just written to share with you.

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Can Democracy Survive in America?

By Thomas Drake

Must say that the news of late is grim and very disturbing. I did not find writing this essay pleasant at all, as the downsides of our often-execrable human condition make themselves known and all too real around the world. For example, I do fear the triggering of a much wider contagion of violence and conflict from just the latest front-page news coming out of the Middle East.

As I indicated in my last essay, the indictments of former president Donald Trump truly highlight the real and present danger that Trump and his confederates alone present for what remains and is left of the American form of democracy in this country. 

Trump’s egregious actions after the November 2020 election led to the credible felony allegations by the Department of Justice via special counsel Jack Smith that Trump literally plotted multiple schemes (including the outright attempt to preclude the vote counting of non-whites) for the purpose of undermining and subverting the peaceful transfer of power as part of a concerted coup plot to remain in power fraudulently and unlawfully. 

All of these egregious actions by Trump are a direct violation of the Constitution and the special oath he faithlessly cast aside while he was still President of the United States, and they make Nixon look like a piker in comparison. 

But these are not the only dangers to democracy America faces. The institutions of governance in the U.S. are coming apart at their critical seams and are under increasing strain as the traditional checks and balances against the abuse and excesses of power are eroded.
 
The stakes for democracy in the looming 2024 election season as expressed in the form of a Constitutional Republic are that high and also present a clear and present direct existential threat and danger to the Grand Experiment and the fate of the nation -- beyond even Trump’s concerted attempts and efforts to overturn the 2020 election including his incitement of the violent 6 January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

We are most fortunate that he did not succeed. He wanted to cling to power by hook or by crook, despite losing the election, in a mad rush to overthrow duly constituted government and replace it with a strong man fascistic autocratic form of retribution-driven government operating under his personal rule.

In essence, we enter a period of political nihilism in this country as the rule of law gives way to simply rule by abuse of raw power -- both elected and non-elected. Seems too many people are increasingly hardened and pulled into the practice of exclusionary extremism that totally nullifies any chance of compromise or cooperation for the greater common good.

Also seems that disinformation in the form of packaged and performative lies also increasingly dominates the social media landscape and makes it very difficult for even the discerning eye to tell the difference.

Too much of the rhetoric also abandons soft power and diplomacy — giving way to violence and even genocidal and ethnic cleansing pronouncements against the very roots of our precious humanity that we all share in common.

I think more violence and conflict are ripe in the absence of diplomacy in the near and intermediate future around the world — with just more tragedy and lives lost.

My fear is that the latest flare-up in the Middle East with the already staggering loss of life will turn the conflict into a conflagration difficult to contain. Enmity fills the air as innocents are slaughtered. And the conflict could easily get even more out of control.

What is clear is that we are increasingly in crisis and experiencing a dearth and even desert of competent and caring leadership where it matters, and instead experience the endless cycle of chronic war and conflict between peoples.

Instead of working to unify the human race, there are powers that prefer inequality based on political, economic and social factors to divide people. Why? All too clear that many crave and hang on to outmoded tribal and highly divisive modes of living characterized by antagonism, anger, and separation, where disinfotainment serves to only promote and foster these pathological distortions.

With democracy on the ballot, the mainstream media outlets too often treat these divisions as an endless soap opera and spectator sport instead of minding the real interests of the public and holding power to account. 

Too many in the political class have actually abandoned any pretense of governance and now embrace the disunion of division and rancor.

Are we approaching the event horizon of de-democracy in this country and on the very edge of entering a dystopian future and a twisted form of faux democracy increasingly characterized by dictocracy? 

We must say goodbye to the Big Lie, and face the hard realities instead of engaging in personality cults, performative politics and propaganda, while too many gaslight and grift America while also fanning the toxic flames of fascism and authoritarianism.

Perhaps modern systems of power have simply precluded better people from assuming the levers of power, with the unfortunate consequence that people hungry for power for power’s sake see power as simply the end and NOT the means to truly improve the lives of others.

As the rhymes of history haunt me, I am once again reminded that we have a former president who actually thinks that whatever action he takes is NOT against the law. We also have justices on the highest court in the land who bypass and ignore ethics and conflict-of-interest rules because they can. We have a Congress who protects their club and defends antiquated rules designed to limit the ability to hold crimes of government accountable, let alone fulfill their mandate to honor and uphold the Constitution as the Law of the Land, while finding ways to erode and nullify it. 

Corruption turns into the key incentive that justifies this massive abuse of power where the pursuit of power overrides any consideration for real democracy.

Again -- I urge people to not tune out, but tune in and influence the better amongst you to represent the higher aspirations of our own humanity, given all that is at stake. It is up to us to establish the future we wish and want to keep.

-- Thomas Drake

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PS from the RootsAction Education Fund:

Whether or not the rare whistleblowers at places like the NSA go to prison, a key official goal is to drive them close to the poverty line for the rest of their lives, deprived of pensions and rendered unemployable for all but low-paid jobs.

While Thomas Drake remains deeply in financial debt, we are in his debt -- morally, politically and ethically. We owe him so much because he stood up for civil liberties and human decency.

Let’s help repay that debt to Tom Drake, who exposed extreme mass surveillance by the NSA.

Living in what is supposed to be a democracy, we get vital information because of the courage of whistleblowers.

You can make a tax-deductible contribution in support of Tom Drake.

Thank you!

Please share on Facebook and Twitter.

Background:
>>  Jane Mayer, The New Yorker: Thomas Drake -- "The Secret Sharer"
>>  George Croner, Lawfare: “The FISA Section 702 Debate Intensifies”
>>  Charlie Savage, New York Times: “Security Agencies and Congress Brace for Fight Over Expiring Surveillance Law”
>>  Brookings: “A conversation with Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen on the reauthorization of FISA Section 702”
>>  Jesselyn Radack, The New York Times: “Whistleblowers Deserve Protection Not Prison”