News you may have missed #732 (interview edition)

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Interview with H. Keith Melton. A well written interview with H. Keith Melton, one of the world’s best-known intelligence historians, who describes himself as “a historical consultant within the US intelligence community”. Melton has been a guest lecturer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Joint Military Intelligence College. He also says he is “an ongoing adviser to other US intelligence agencies”.
►►Interview with editor of Eye Spy magazine. An extensive interview with Mark Birdsall, editor of the only independent publication dedicated to espionage and intelligence. He shares the story behind the magazine, his take on the current state of espionage and security, and on global security issues. Among other things, Birdsall says that some claim Eye Spy is “a government organ, [while] others an attempt to glean information that should not be published”. He also states that “it has taken a decade of hard work for the title to get recognition in some intelligence circles”.
►►Interview with NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. Drake began his NSA career as a contractor in 1991, and formally joined the Agency in 2001, working until 2008 in the Agency’s Signals Intelligence and Engineering directorates. The US government took Drake to court, accusing him of leaking secrets about the NSA to a journalist. But the judge in his case, Richard D. Bennett, refused to sentence him to prison, recognizing that his genuine intention in leaking the secrets was to expose mismanagement at the NSA.