<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Collage: Voice of Russia<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A former NSA codebreaker reveals that more than a decade ago, he tried to expose government spying on every day Americans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
William Binney, a codebreaking specialist whom the National Security Agency enlisted to help decipher electronic data to foil post-September 11 terror plots, recently told CBS Baltimore his attempt several years ago to protest the agency\u2019s abuse of its growing tech powers led only to personal heartache as the government pushed back against his vocal concern.<\/p>\n
William tells he blew the whistle long before anyone heard of Edward Snowden\u2013but no one would listen.<\/p>\n
Binney was brought in by the NSA after the World Trade Center attacks to help develop new software that could mine enormous amounts of cell phone and email data he believed the agency was collecting legally to target potential foreign terrorists. Binney and a small team created a computer program constantly scanning data from cell phones and emails aimed at finding terrorist activity.<\/p>\n
Binney maintains that Congress, for all its outrage over the Edward Snowden revelations, has for years failed to listen to other would-be whistleblowers who tried to effect change by legal means. \u201cThe government can\u2019t admit a mistake. They have to cover up everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The government thinks Binney overstepped the boundaries and possibly put the country at risk by coming forward and exposing some of the things he thought were wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re violating the foundation of this country. The thing that makes this country strong are the rights and freedoms that we have in the Constitution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Frustrated at the stonewalling, and unwilling to collude with the government in an endeavor he knew to be illegal and wrong, Binney resigned from his job.<\/p>\n
For his trouble, the FBI raided him in 2007 on suspicion that he had already divulged too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey pushed their way in with guns drawn and pushed my son out of the way and came upstairs and pointed guns at my wife and me. They took our computers and all the electronic equipment we had,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n