As the US Congress prepared to pass the first reform of government surveillance programmes in a decade, two former enemies of the state were in reflective mood.

Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Drake are two whistleblowers who pre-date Edward Snowden. Ellsberg became famous worldwide for leaking the Pentagon papers, the top secret 7,000-page document detailing US strategy in south-east Asia from 1945 to 1967 and revealed the hidden scale of the Vietnam war, to the New York Times in 1971. Drake is a former NSA staffer who was charged under the Espionage Act in 2010 for handing documents that showed waste and inefficiencies at the heart of the agency’s surveillance programmes to a journalist at the Baltimore Sun.

“It’s in the right direction, but very minimal,” says Ellsberg, speaking in London 24 hours after the Senate forced a suspension of the NSA’s surveillance powers. “Someone described it in print as ‘historic baby steps’, and I think I’d go along with that. Babies do take first steps and that is very exciting.”

For Drake, who was also speaking in London on Monday, the vote is dramatic.

“This is the first time since 9/11 that any publicly known legislation has changed,” he says. “Mitch McConnell was unable as majority leader to push through what he wanted.”

The USA Freedom Act was passed by the Senate in a 67-32 vote on Tuesday, after it overwhelmingly cleared the House of Representatives. The act means telecom companies will assume responsibility of the NSA’s controversial phone record collection program.

Snowden, living in exile in Moscow, said the reforms to the agency’s surveillance methods were only a start, warning that many intrusive programs were still in operation.

“This vindicates Snowden, even if it’s only symbolic vindication,” says Drake.

“He is responsible for the Congress refusing to simply rubber stamp the program,” echoes Ellsberg.

Edward Snowden receives the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award. Thomas Drake is second from left. Photograph: Sunshinepress/Getty Images

For two men who have paid a high price for trying to stand up to the American government, the USA Freedom Act is more than a victory for the man who played a leading role in bringing it about. It’s also a victory for them, and the part they played in shifting the debate over whistleblowing.

With the Nixon administration determined to prosecute him, Ellsberg spent two years with the threat of spending the rest of his life in prison hanging over his head after he leaked the Pentagon papers.

Drake was dubbed a traitor, a turncoat and an enemy of the state during a four-year period which saw his home raided by the FBI, his passport revoked and his movements monitored by the NSA.

He was targeted aggressively by the Obama administration, which, since since entering office, has prosecuted nine individuals under the Espionage Act, three times more than all post-war presidents combined.

“I voted for Obama in 2008. He clearly saw the secrecy and the presidential prerogatives, he saw all that power and he liked what he saw and he wasn’t going to give it up,” says Drake. “I know he was personally aware of my case, and he became far more resistant and vindictive toward whistleblowers than even Bush had been.”

While the federal government was busy building a case against him, Drake wasn’t able to travel outside his home state. With his relationship with his family strained, his main contact with the outside came in when he was visited intermittently by friends, who would check in to see if he was okay.

His Republican father, bombarded with bulletins on his favourite channel, Fox News, each day, was conflicted about whether his son was in the right. And the whistleblower’s NSA-employed wife was angry that he had risked their family’s future without informing her.

“My marriage almost did not survive,” Drake tells me. “My youngest son, who was 12 years old when this happened, even said to me: ‘You must have done something pretty bad, Dad. What was it?’”

Having left his job, he found himself blacklisted from most forms of employment, until he got a job at an Apple store, where he continues to work part-time.

“When you’re a whistleblower, even your natural allies don’t want to touch you,” he said.

For Ellsberg, blowing the whistle also took its toll, though his family life stayed intact. Patricia Marx, his wife of 45 years, even helped him copy the papers before he sent them to the Times.

Having been a “cold war Democrat”, working in a sensible, establishment job at at the Rand Corporation, he transformed into a firm leftwinger.

“I had been a president’s man, but after witnessing the lying and deception of the executive, I no longer wanted to be a president’s man. I no longer wanted to advise the president,” he says. “It seemed they’d had pretty good advice in the past, and continued to take us into these endless wars.”



As for Drake, four years after the Obama administration dropped all charges against him, he is beginning to live a normal life.



“Everyday I wake up in the morning and I literally pinch myself, because, wow, I’m free,” he says.

For Ellsberg, the relief of avoiding prosecution is less acute. His mind is focused on the 2016 presidential election – though, as is the case with Drake, there is no party that would get his vote – his family and his immediate travel plans. He and Drake are off to Oslo the next day on a speaking tour organised by Expose Facts that will also take in Stockholm and Berlin.

“The USA Freedom Act is hardly any better than the Patriot Act, as it still violates a lot of our constitutional rights,” he warns, his mind firmly focused on the here and now. “But Snowden is to thank for this debate, even if he might never be able to come home.”