A former National Security Agency employee who was charged with leaking classified information has brokered a plea deal just days before his trial was set to begin. Thomas Drake pleaded guilty to a minor misdemeanor charge, and will face no jail time. Had he been convicted of the ten felony counts he was indicted for in April under the 1917 Espionage Act, he could have served over 30 years in prison. Drake pleaded guilty to misusing a government computer to share classified information with someone not authorized to receive that information. Jane Mayer, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals,” speaks with us about this recent news on the case.
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