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When Bill Binney, former NSA analyst and head of the anti-terror ThinThread metadata program sits in front of you and says he is not afraid of the government, you have to admire him. A wheel-chair-bound U.S. serviceman who rose in the ranks of intelligence to work in top-secret NSA programs, Binney created ThinThread prior to September 11, 2001, and says it mathematically broke down all phone communications anywhere in the world without any infringement on Constitutional rights. Identities were protected, except in suspected terrorism cases, and the program was self-running. More important, it worked.

In A Good American, the new documentary from executive producer Oliver Stone and director Friedrich Moser, audiences are taken on a tense and frightening ride through Binney and his colleagues experience developing and deploying ThinThread in tests, only to see its funding pulled just weeks before 9/11 in favor of an expensive and ineffective but job-creating program called TrailBlazer, which the NSA preferred. Binney contends that ThinThread would have identified the terrorists who planned and executed the 9/11 terror attacks, thereby preventing them from occurring. Understandably, he remains disappointed and angry about this, all these years later.

The docu-thriller is a candid portrait of how exploding information in the digital age found government agencies both behind the technology of terrorism and struggling to keep current. When Binney and his small team developed ThinThread, it was an effort to help the NSA be attentive to the code-breaking needs of the modern era. ThinThread represented a home run for intelligence: Itwas highly effective at sorting data and protecting privacy, two huge challenges of working with large amounts of small bits of information. But when ThinThreads plug was pulled, Binney and his team challenged their NSA bosses, and in the process found themselves at odds with the U.S. government and in a complex web of lies and corruption. Thus, when Binney said he remains unafraid of possible repercussions or retaliation tied to the films thesis, its not hard to believe. What else can they do to me? he asks. Theyve already tried everything to stop me.

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WATCH: The real beautiful mind belongs to Bill Binney, NSA whistleblower and metadata czar - Salon

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the National Security Agency, has announced he will retire this spring, the agency confirmed to CyberScoop Friday.

Ledgett, 59, has been deputy director the agencys top civilian since January 2014, when he succeeded Chris Inglis. Prior to that, according to his official biography,He led the NSA Media Leaks Task Force responsible for integrating and overseeing the totality of NSAs efforts surrounding the Ed Snowden megaleaks.

Ledgett joined the NSAin 1988 and and rose to be, during 2012-13, director of the agencysThreat Operations Center, the famed NTOC. Before that, he served a a stint 2010-12 in various posts in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including being the the first national intelligence manager for cyber.

He is a recipient of the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal and was for a time an instructor andand course developer at the National Cryptologic School.

It has been anticipated that he would retire in 2017 and he decided the time is right this spring after nearly 40 years of service to the nation, the agency said in an emailed statement.

Last year, Ledgett presented a gloomy picture of the connected future, warning about the dangers of the Internet of Things. Hetoldthe U.S. Chamber of Commerces 5th Annual Cybersecurity Summit that theconnection to our networks of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, ofinternet-connecteddevices that come from multiple vendors and havediffering software and hardware upgrade paths without a coherent security plan means that there are vulnerabilities[created]in those networks.

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NSA's No. 2, its top civilian, will retire shortly - Cyberscoop - CyberScoop

Richard Ledgett became deputy director in 2014 after spending a year leading the investigation of Edward Snowdens surveillance leaks. | AP Photo

By Eric Geller

02/03/17 06:27 PM EST

Updated 02/03/17 06:06 PM EST

The No. 2 official at the NSA will soon leave his post, the agency confirmed today.

NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett has announced his plans to retire in the spring, an NSA spokesman told POLITICO.

Story Continued Below

It has been anticipated that he would retire in 2017 and he decided the time is right this spring after nearly 40 years of service to the nation, spokesman Michael Halbig said in an email.

The agency did not explain the timing of Ledgett's decision, including whether it is related to the advent of the Trump administration.

Ledgett became deputy director in 2014 after spending a year leading the investigation of Edward Snowdens surveillance leaks. Prior to that, he headed the agencys Threat Operations Center from 2012 to 2013.

Ledgett joined the NSA in 1988.

April Doss, who served as associate general counsel for intelligence law at the NSA from 2003 to 2016, said Ledgetts departure would be keenly felt at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., and throughout Washington.

I am surprised to hear that hes stepping down, she said. Its going to be a huge loss for the intelligence community.

After Snowdens leaks sent the NSA scrambling to respond, Ledgett became one of the public faces of its public-relations operation.

He granted a rare interview to CBSs 60 Minutes to discuss the secretive agencys mission and even appeared remotely at a TED conference a few days after Snowden did the same.

Susan Hennessey, a former NSA attorney, "it's hard to know what to make" of Ledgett's departure.

"Certainly, Ledgett has been a sort of 'canary in the coal mine' for people concerned about NSA under [President] Donald Trump," she told POLITICO in an email. "He is universally recognized as someone who has served with a great deal of integrity. So the fact that he was the deputy director was some reassurance; nothing bad was going to happen on his watch."

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NSA deputy director resigning this spring - Politico

Bill Binney resigned from the NSA in October 2001, after 30 years with the agency where he was viewed as one of their best analysts: he quit because he believed that Bush-appointed leaders in the Agency had chosen to respond to the challenge of electronic communications by building out illegal, indiscriminate mass-surveillance programs that left the country vulnerable to terrorists while diverting billions to private contractors with political connections.

After his resignation, Binney and his fellow whistleblowers faced retaliation from the NSA, as the agency prevented him from getting work as a private intelligence contractor and eventually staged a guns-drawn dawn raid on his home.

Binney has been a sharp, articulate, deeply knowledgeable critic of mass electronic surveillance ever since, refusing to be intimidated by the NSA despite the risks to himself.

In "A Good American," a new documentary that goes into widespread release today, director Freidrich Moser tells Binney's story from his early days as an intelligence analyst during the Vietnam War to his service as a codebreaker during the Cold War to his visionary program for conducting electronic surveillance with an emphasis on privacy and the rule of law. Binney and his fellow whistleblowers tell the story of how General Michael Hayden, then head of the NSA, sidelined their proposals in favor of a multibillion-dollar boondoggle called Trailblazer, which collapsed without ever shipping -- and how Hayden and his team refused to allow NSA analysts to work in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, literally locking them out of the building while they plotted ways to shift the blame for intelligence failures and use the attacks to build private, well-funded permanent civil service empires.

Oliver Stone called it a "prequel to Snowden," and that's true in more ways than one. Snowden cited the persecution of Binney as part of his rationale for taking his concerns to the press, rather than NSA channels.

Moser's documentary is riveting, enraging, and beautifully crafted, and it tells an important story. You can watch it today.

A Good American

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A Good American: a documentary about Bill Binney, an NSA ... - Boing Boing

Globalnews.ca

Former NSA/CIA director: Trump's travel ban an 'abomination' Globalnews.ca The former head of the NSA and CIA says an executive order on immigration signed by President Donald Trump last week is an abomination, and it won't make America or its allies any safer. Gen. Michael Hayden, in Ottawa on Thursday for a conference at ...

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Former NSA/CIA director: Trump's travel ban an 'abomination' - Globalnews.ca