Both Dullahan's and Drake's cases are disturbing for a number of reasons. But at the core, I am most troubled by loyal American citizens--who have spent their entire careers in the military or government service--being accused of espionage for mere association.

The government's arguments in the Drake case are so over the top that the judge in Drake's case, thankfully, is holding a public hearing on Monday in Baltimore. The government's premature demand for the names of Mr. Drake's expert witnesses is a transparent attempt to gain an unfair advantage over him: the government would have months of extra time to investigate the experts' backgrounds, which might reveal vulnerabilities in their opinions or experience that might not have otherwise been found; the government would have extra time to prepare cross-examinations for the experts; and the government would have extra time to consult with its own experts (without, of course, ever having to reveal their names to the defense.)

Now, if Drake's consulting experts later become testifying experts, the government will learn their names at that time, a provided for by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and ethics rules (I wrote the opinion on this issue while serving on the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee.)

With Mr. Dullahan and Mr. Drake, the government has reversed the usual presumption: it presumes these men guilty until proven innocent. It pulled their security clearances, rendering them unemployed and unemployable. The ridiculousness is highlighted by the fact that an estimated 854,000 people (nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C.) hold top-secret security clearances and the government admits that it cannot even keep track of them.

The icing on the cake of absurdity is that both Dullahan and Drake have spouses who work at the exact same agencies from which they were terminated. In Dullahan's case, the government's belief that he poses a grave threat to national security is particularly odd because his wife continues to work at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a supervisor with access to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. In Drake's case, it is ridiculous because he held the same top-level security clearance for 20 years, and it was only when he began complaining about the NSA that it was pulled.

Dullahan and Drake are being punished for their associations--in Drake's case with other rare, like-minded NSA employees who shared his concern that the NSA was engaging in gross fraud, abuse and illegality in its secret surveillance programs--a concern that proved to be true. Dullahan's likely sin: associating with some Soviet officers and a Soviet diplomat--20 years ago, which begs the question of why he was only terminated 18 months ago if he really posed a security risk.

This is McCarthyism. So you better think twice the next time you hang out with your friends who are Arab or Muslim, who are immigrants, whose first-language is not English, who are from Eastern bloc or Middle Eastern countries, or most significantly, who have disagreed with what the government is doing.