Bush FBI sent 18 armored agents to search my house, wiretap whistleblower says
Published: June 5, 2009
Updated 8 months ago
The Bush Administration’s FBI sent 18 agents in body armor to the home of a man who revealed details of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, according to a little-noticed account of the whistleblower published Thursday.
Thomas Tamm, a former Justice Department lawyer in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, revealed details of the wiretapping program to the New York Times in 2004. In 2007, FBI agents raided his Potomac, Maryland home.
Tamm wasn’t there. His college-aged son, wife and young daughter were — but their father had never told them of his leak to the Times.
“They asked me questions like ‘Are there any secret rooms or compartments in the house’?” Terry Tamm, his son, told Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff last December. “Or did we have a safe? They asked us if any New York Times reporters had been to the house. We had no idea why any of this was happening.”
Thomas Tamm.
Tamm spoke Thursday at the final panel of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference. He said the agents who raided his home were well-armed.
“They were all wearing body armor, they were all well armed,” he told the audience, according to Wired. “They asked my kids if we had any secret rooms in the house … or whether I had any weapons. They were in my house for over seven hours.”
“I’m sure before that time my phone was listened to,” Tamm added. My wife “will never feel the same in my house … She really felt that her security had been victimized.”
Tamm also expressed frustration that the Times took more than a year to publish a story on the program (Bush administration officials convinced the paper to withhold the story, which they’d known about since before the 2004 election).
“Their editors would not publish the story,” Tamm remarked. “They waited until December 2005 to publish it. So for a year, I’m sitting here going, I know I’ve revealed what they say is secret information. I wonder what will happen to me?”
After the 2007 raid, Justice Department prosecutors tried to convince Tamm to plead guilty to revealing classified information. He refused. To date, he’s had a criminal indictment hanging over his head — but authorities have yet to charge him with a crime.
He could be charged with disclosure of information harmful to “the national defense” or “communications intelligence” — both of which might involve sentences of up to ten years in prison.
Now that President Obama has taken office, however, Tamm seems more likely to elude jail. Prosecutors told the Bush lawyer-cum-whistleblower last year that they’d delay a decision on whether to charge him until this year. It’s unknown whether the Justice Department will continue to pursue a criminal charge.
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Any doubts that the program was about WH/cheney enemies lists and not national security? Sure makes the case that DEMS on the Hill were also watched/listened to closely by cheney. Explains a lot.
J. Edgar would have been so envious of cheney’s toys for acquiring data to enable blackmailing anyone who could be of use or a threat to him.
It is every citizens responsiblity to report crime! This man should not be charged with a crime for revealing illegal activities! Don’t kill the messenger!
Maybe that’s why it’s been said, “The MEDIA is the fourth branch of government.” So where is the New York Times now?
What I would like to know is if the government is still engaging in warrentless wiretapping. Is all the “let’s move on” rhetoric just a ploy to make everyone forget about the lawless behavior of our government and to fool everyone into allowing it to continue under Obama.
Is there any question that the NY TIMES is not a newspaper, but a sounding board for the Establishment? Their logo should be the Hammer and Cicle since they are the State News Service. They own the Boston Globe so that newspaper isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.
Well Bush couldn’t allow any of there VERY illegal activity to leak out,,
The 2 men,,a Timm and Tamm,,hmm
I think one T man exposed the NSA,there spying and collecting data..
I think the Tamm man is exposing spying and technologies…
Any MK Ultra type technologies ?
Read up on the Congressional hearings in the 70’s,,more CIA corruption.
I bet it all leads to AT&T,,,
What did Bush work hard to protect, AT&T..
FBI Director Mueller during Congressional hearings,,”You may not want to investigate AT&T,,,it’s a pandora’s box,,
“A box which all human ills escaped,,”
Am I suprised that bushco used the FBI as a private terrorist cell? No! The used plenty of other government agencies as private terrorist cells also.
“He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”
- Proverb
The Bible: Matthew 26:52: Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
People need to ask Obama every day: Why the FUCK are the Bush criminals still walking around free?
They better not go after this man. He is just a messenger of the truth. The real crooks are the ones who implemented the illegal programs of domestic spying. Those are the people (Bush, Cheney, and their enablers) that should be tried and convicted.
Carlos Slim has said the American media is the fourth branch of Mexico’s government. That’s why he lent money to the NYT and they then did a hit piece on Peter Brimelow, Vdare, Buchanan etc. as nativist, etc.
Not a word mentioned in this article as to whether the FBI ever had a search warrant to enter the whistleblower’s home.
“sneak and peak” searches are permitted under the PATRIOT ACT without a warrant. < read that again!
That is why it was sort of important that the zombies read the act before they PATRIOTICALLY voted to approve it….
so what else is new?
what’s funny are the rethugs and conservatives calling obama a socialist, when the bush years were more like totalitarian fascism-gestapo/communism-kgb than anything else before.
In this country it takes courage to do the right thing. Mr. Tamm is a hero.
People in power do bad things. Someone snitches on the people in power who did bad things. People in power use that power to charge the snitch with a crime for reporting on bad things done by the people in power who didn’t want the people our of power to know about bad things they did.
I think Dr. Seuss or Rube Goldberg could have done a lot with this. They’re both dead, unfortunately.
The only way we will ever see the truth behing all of this is to keep the pressure on Obama and AG Holder to start indicting the Bush criminals.
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Just another example of the Bush police state. This guy should be given a medal, not have charges hanging over his head…..what they were doing (and probably are still doing) was illegal. The govt is supposed to protect whistleblowers aren’t they?
In the future you will never hear of these incidences since the offending person will be just “disappeared” and that will be that.
There is no rule of law. There is only rule by dictator.
Compare this FBI response to how the FBI responded to Scott Roeder’s act of vandalism the day before he killed Dr. George Tiller.
The FBI office responded after Dr. Tiller’s murder that, following being notified of Roeder’s illegal act on Saturday, they couldn’t do anything until a grand jury was convened. Dr. tiller was assassinated the next day, on Sunday, at his church.
The FBI could have at least put Roeder under surveillance, as they probably would have done if informed about someone being a possible al Qaeda religious fundamentalist terrorist.
This makes me think that any FBI agents hired during the corrupt and criminal Bush administration had to pass the right-wing’s “religious litmus test,” especially regarding abortions, just like Monica Goodling at the DOJ applied a “religious litmus test” while conducting interviews of other DOJ hires during this period.
Thus, someone at the FBI field office dropped the ball before Dr. Tiller was murdered just like top officials in the “faith-based” Bush administration dropped the ball before 9/11.
It’s all part of the same pattern. A corrupt, criminal, conservative pattern.
The fact that a newspaper of EITHER “side” would withhold such a vital piece of information is just unbelievable. It’s their JOB to tell us what the gov’t is dong so that we can hold them accountable in the only way we supposedly have, which is to vote them out. And to say that “it’s too political” is pure BS. EVERYTHING is political. It’s how we deal with each other, regardless of situation.
Without an honest and free press, we have NOTHING as a country. SO I guess that is it, we can just pack it up and go back to our respective countries of origin. There is NO America left, anymore. It was a nice experiment, but it’s over. Money and corruption have been allowed to destroy it’s once great promise.
What happened under W and Cheney was nothing short of completely criminal, it should be dealt with in an appropriate way. EVERYTHING should be investigated, and jail time dished out to those who broke the law. That is what happens to US if we dare do anything even slightly illegal, why the hell should these scum get off scot free for breaking every law they could get their hands on?
This man should be considered a hero. one who stood up for what was right and legal. He should be given a medal of freedom, as if that meant anything anymore after W giving it to Tenet. He is what an America really is, one who does the right thing even at the possible expense of his own life.
But like I said, America is over, now, so God only knows what will happen to him. I wish him luck.
There goes Thomas Jefferson turning over in his grave again!
The more we know, the less we “believe”.
The debate goes on. National security or the right to privacy? We all need to sacrifice in order to have security. However the thought of people having complete blind faith in the system is scary. The people at top are just looking out for themselves. Sometimes the pawns (like this guy) need to make a stand.
http://www.chesstechnique.com
why did bush send 18 armored agents
to the home of a legal whistleblower?
because he loves freedom.
in the bush/cheney dictionary
“freedom” means death.
that’s why they brought “freedom”
to all those people in iraq.
p.s. freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
-Kris Kristofferson
p.p.s don’t let the bastards get you down. (read lyrics)
I’m sure they accidentally got him mixed up with the person that ratted out Valerie Plame .