"Part of the purpose of doing what they've been doing for the last several years, is to destroy you," the ex-NSA mathematician and decorated Navy veteran Thomas Drake says in [the film] Silenced. [...]
f you become a whistleblower, "You have to mortgage your house, you have to empty your bank accounts," Drake says. The only work he could find, eventually, was as an Apple store clerk. Though every single one of the major charges were eventually dropped—following a piece on Drake in the New Yorker and a 60 Minutes segment, it should be noted—the toll of his whistleblowing was clear. Drake estimated that the charges had cost him over a million dollars in legal fees and lost work. He was ostracized and condemned by his peers. It was emotionally devastating, too; the charges, Drake implies, led to a painful separation with his wife.