I’ve blogged before about Margaret Newsham, who was dismissed in 1984 (30 years ago) from Lockheed Martin, where she was working on the Echelon global espionage system, a project kept secret even from the US government, since it was completely unconstitutional. In other words, it was a project of the corporate overlords of the government and the intelligence services, a product of the “shadow state” as it were, not of the day-light government.
While Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Snowden and Mr. Napolitano hold forth with no mention of thirty years of whistle-blowers, I would like to salute Margaret Newsham, for her enormous personal sacrifices for the sake of the truth and the common good. Here is an excerpt from a 1999 interview she gave to a Danish newspaper:
From “I sold my life to Big Brother”:
” The government didn’t really know what was happening or what the many billions were actually being used for. And I felt very loyal both to the government and to the American Constitution, which was constantly being infringed. The world of espionage was also called ‘The Black World’ because most of the operations were carried out in secrecy, beyond any control.”
Since her dismissal, Margaret Newsham has been under heavy pressure, because her case against Lockheed Martin could mean that an open court case would shed light on the NSA’s ‘black projects’. Among other things, the case deals with swindling for more than 10 billion DKK (ca. 1.4 billion USD), and for the time being, her lawyer has provided her with legal assistance that is the equivalent of 140 million DKK (ca. 20 million USD).
PREMATURE DEATHS The case has had a fatal effect on her health. Since ’84 she has had seizure that left her totally paralyzed, survived a cardiac arrest, and on top of everything else is suffering from cancer. Today, she lives on borrowed time and suffers from high blood pressure.
“It didn’t help any when my husband asked for a divorce after I had survived my cardiac arrest. He is chief of security at Lockheed Martin and has also been under a lot of pressure. He was grossly harassed because of his affiliation with me,” Newsham says.
She lives alone now and has struggled to maintain contact with her three children and six grandchildren. Today, she lives in a quiet Las Vegas suburb. Not even her neighbors know about her past.
“NSA’s activities have not only affected me, but also my former espionage colleagues at Lockheed. Nearly half of the people I worked with on clandestine projects are either dead or mortally ill today. For example, my former boss on the Echelon project, Robert Looper, died prematurely of heart failure, and Kay Nickerson, who worked on developing the Stealth bomber, died of brain damage.”