That brings me to my annual end-of-year column, in which I award the "Freeby" to a person who has furthered the cause of civil liberties in some significant or courageous way.
This year's deserving recipient is Thomas Tamm, the former Justice Department lawyer who disclosed that the National Security Agency was engaging in warrantless domestic spying. His heroic deed took place in the spring of 2004, when Tamm contacted a reporter for The New York Times on a subway pay phone with the blockbuster information that the Bush administration was wiretapping people inside the United States without first obtaining warrants.
In a recent report in Newsweek, Tamm reveals his identity and describes why he disclosed the administration's misdeeds.
Tamm was fed up with what he saw as a trashing of our constitutional heritage. In addition to learning about the shadowy eavesdropping program that bypassed the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — a court set up specifically to oversee sensitive national security spying operations — Tamm was also made privy to classified CIA cables that described the rendition program, where suspects were sent to other countries for abusive interrogations.
He'd had enough. "This is not what the Department of Justice is all about," Tamm told MSNBC.
It is no surprise that there have been tragic personal consequences for the 56-year-old since the New York Times story on the NSA spying program finally appeared in December 2005. Tamm has lost his job at the Justice Department and is facing potential prosecution.
So why not? Tyrants always target the press. 
