The transcript of the following interview was exclusively arranged for Asia Times Online. An audio file of the interview is published at the German financial web site „Die Metallwoche“ here.

Thomas Drake, born 1957, is a former senior executive at the US National Security Agency who blew the whistle on a multi-billion dollar program fraud and cover up as well as the NSA‘s secret unlawful surveillance program. (..)

LS: Well, again, some kind of crack version. Is PRISM & Co. just the tip of the iceberg for example in comparison to the DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] project Total Information Awareness, respectively Trusted Information Environment?

TD: Well, let‘s be reasonable. The Total Information Awareness environment never disappeared. There was a lot of push back, but it was, it went deeper into the shadows, and unfortunately this is typically the way it happens. When a secret program is exposed, particularly that kind of a program, post-9/11 it just goes deeper, and so Prism is one aspect of total information awareness.