Bill Gertz has a story in today’s Washington Times that actually “broke ” almost two weeks ago; that a former NSA and DIA employee wrote a letter to the Chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee asking to testify about illegal surveillance activities of the federal government:

A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA.

“I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency,” Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times.

The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government.

Tice’s “whistleblowing” was accusing a fellow employee at the DIA of being an agent for China. What happened next is typical of what occurs in our intelligence agencies if you rock the boat; they go after your personal life.

He was ordered to take a psychiatric exam after which he was judged a “paranoid.” His clearance was yanked and he was given menial tasks like washing motor pool cars and working in the NSA warehouse. Eventually, he was fired, coincidentally or not, a week after testifying before Congress about persecution of whistleblowers and how they should be protected under the federal whistleblower statute.

Given the nature of his accusation against the employee and the fact that she continued to work there after the DIA investigated could mean any number of things. What it doesn’t mean is that the DIA is harboring a communist Chinese spy, something Mr. Rice insists is still the case.

Does this make him a paranoid loon? Well…you decide:

In April 2003, Tice sent an e-mail to the DIA agent handling his suspicions about a co-worker being a Chinese spy. He was prompted to do so by a news report about two FBI agents who were arrested for giving classified information to a Chinese double agent.

“At the time, I sent an e-mail to Mr. James (the person at DIA handling his complaint) questioning the competence of counterintelligence at FBI,” Tice wrote in a document submitted to the Inspector General. In the e-mail, he mentioned that he suspected that he was the subject of electronic monitoring.

Shortly after sending the e-mail, an NSA security officer ordered him to report for “a psychological evaluation” even though he had just gone through one nine months earlier. Tice believes James called NSA to ask them “to go after him” on their behalf.

The Defense Department psychologist concluded that Tice suffered from psychotic paranoia, according to Tice. “He did this even though he admitted that I did not show any of the normal indications of someone suffering from paranoia,” Tice wrote in a statement to the inspector general.

The culture in our intelligence agencies brooks no opposition so even though some of the things Mr. Tice himself describes sounds like a classic case of paranoia there is plenty of room for doubt. Then again, Mac’s Mind has some interesting information about why Mr. Tice’s clearance was revoked:

Word is that his security clearance (because he was misusing information and looking with unauthorized peeks into the co-worker’s background), was subsequently revoked – FOR CAUSE - or for those on the left – because he violated the terms of keeping a clearance. (HT: AJ Strata)

Having said that, it is unlikely that Tice would have any bombshells to deliver to the Committees. He says that these SAPS programs were “illegal and unconstitutional.” Now I’m sure Mr. Tice is a very smart fellow but I daresay he is neither a lawyer or a constitutional scholar which makes his charges ring a little hollow.

More importantly, why him and why now? My friend Clarice Feldman who is a frequent contributor at The American Thinker has some interesting information on that score. Apparently Tice is a member of a group called National Security Whistleblowers that sure has some familiar names:

Along with more familiar names like Daniel Ellsburg, you’ll see Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer on the list. You’ll also find Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson. These are members of VIPS, the group that encouraged intelligence agents to leak, shopped Wilson and his story (Johnson was in the agency with Plame and is close to her.) As I noted earlier here, they seem to have been behind much of the Plame/Wilson story. I smell the same public relations/media campaign .The same phony claims of maltreated government employees. If Tice was a source for Risen, and it’s not clear he was, the reporter was certainly casting a broad net. For as Mr. Gertz notes in his article:

“Mr. Tice said yesterday that he was not part of the intercept program.”

Now what would our old friends Johnson and McGovern be doing in a group of whistleblowers? Both of those men came to prominence after they left government. In fact, both of them have been out of government for several years.

Something stinks here. And Clarice agrees:

The only significant difference between the original Plame/Wilson scandal and the revival at NSA is that the same folks who moaned about a major intelligence breach that had to be punished when Valerie Wilson’s desk job at the CIA hit print are now openly supporting a leaker and claiming he is entitled to protections – even though he hasn’t gone through the channels established by law.

Could the Johnson-McGovern crew have recruited this hapless ex-NSA employee in another PR effort to try and discredit the Bush Administration? Pure speculation, of course. But a strange and curious case indeed.