In September 2002, he, along with
J. Kirk Wiebe and
Edward Loomis, asked the
U.S. Defense Department Inspector General (DoD IG) to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting "millions and millions of dollars" on
Trailblazer, a system intended to analyze mass collection of data carried on communications networks such as the Internet. Binney had been one of the inventors of an alternative system,
ThinThread, which was shelved when Trailblazer was chosen instead. Binney has also been publicly critical of the NSA for spying on U.S. citizens, saying of its expanded
surveillance after the
September 11, 2001 attacks that "it's better than anything that the
KGB, the
Stasi, or the
Gestapo and
SS ever had"
[12] as well as noting Trailblazer's ineffectiveness and unjustified high cost compared to the far less intrusive ThinThread.
[13] He was furious that the NSA hadn't uncovered the 9/11 plot and stated that intercepts it had collected but not analyzed likely would have garnered timely attention with his leaner more focused system.
[8]
After he left the NSA in 2001, Binney was one of several people investigated as part of an inquiry into a 2005
The New York Times exposé on the agency’s
warrantless eavesdropping program.[
citation needed] Binney was cleared of wrongdoing after three interviews with
FBI agents beginning in March 2007, but in early July 2007, in an unannounced, armed, early morning raid, a dozen agents armed with rifles appeared at his house, one of whom entered the bathroom and pointed his gun at Binney, who was taking a shower. The FBI confiscated a desktop computer, disks, and personal and business records.
[14] The NSA revoked his
security clearance, forcing him to close a business he ran with former colleagues at a loss of a reported $300,000 in annual income. The FBI raided the homes of Wiebe and Loomis, as well as
House Intelligence Committee staffer
Diane Roark, the same morning. Several months later the Bureau raided the home of then still active NSA executive
Thomas Andrews Drake who had also contacted DoD IG, but anonymously with confidentiality assured. The Assistant Inspector General,
John Crane, in charge of the
Whistleblower Program, suspecting his superiors provided confidential information to the
Justice Dept (DOJ), challenged them, was eventually forced from his position, and subsequently himself became a public whistleblower. The punitive treatment of Binney, Drake, and the other whistleblowers also led
Edward Snowden to go public with his revelations rather than report through the internal whistleblower program.
[15] In 2012, Binney and his co-plaintiffs went to federal court to retrieve the confiscated items.
[16]
