NSA whistleblower says Wikileaks founder in danger

'They have called for a death warrant...'

Former National Security Agency executive Thomas Andrews Drake told “Russia Today” that “clandestine elements” in the U.S. Government have called for a death warrant for Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks.

Mr. Andrews, who exposed certain NSA practices he called a “secret deal” between the ultra-secret eavesdropping agency and the White House to ignore legal requirements to obtain a search warrant before wiretapping and bugging American citizens inside the nation's borders following the 9/11 attacks, at one time faced charges of espionage.

He now claims that Mr. Assange, who has released millions of purloined classified government documents stolen by military, civilian and such radical hackers as “Anonymous,” including secret State Department cables and sensitive CIA e-mails between private contractors and the agency, is the subject of a secret Grand Jury indictment.

“They are extremely angry...According to press reports, there has been a secret Grand Jury and maybe a secret indictment..They want him put away. There are those at high levels in this country – they have called for a death warrant.”(click here to read an earlier report)

Author-activist David Swanson echoed Mr. Andrews' suspicions, telling the network that he believes that if British authorities apprehend Mr. Assange where he is seeking asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, he will be extradited to Sweden where he faces charges of sexual assault.

He said the U.S. has “very much blurred the line beween law enforcement and war,” and that the government “has issued a secret closed indictment and pressured other governments in Britain and Sweden to ship Julian Assange to the U.S.”

The ultimate penalty for espionage against the U.S. is death.