Former NSA Codebreaker Tried To Expose Government Spying - No One Listened

A former NSA codebreaker reveals that more than a decade ago, he tried to expose government spying on every day Americans.

The Maryland man tells Mary Bubala he blew the whistle long before anyone heard of Edward Snowden–but no one would listen.

WJZ investigates his story and the price he paid.

Sept. 11, 2001 was the day that changed everything. After the attack, the government vowed to find a more sophisticated way to uncover terrorists’ plots.

William Binney was called on to help. A mathematician and codebreaker for decades, Binney commuted from his home in Severn to the National Security Agency in Fort Meade to work on top secret projects.

“We would map the relationships of everybody in the world,” Binney said.

After 9/11, Binney and a small team created a computer program constantly scanning data from cell phones and emails aimed at finding terrorist activity.

“The idea was how can you look into terabytes of data going by every minute and see what’s important in that data that you need to pull out to look at and analyze to figure out intentions, capabilities of potential enemies in the world,” he said. Read more >>