Ex-CIA Agent, Whistleblower John Kiriakou Sentenced to Prison While Torturers He Exposed Walk Free

So I'm not 100% familiar with this case, so I'm sure many ATS members will be able to provide more context, but to me this is just wrong.

It's a shame what whistle blowers are being put through by attempting to shed light on the wrongs our governments commit.

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou speaks out just days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, becoming the first CIA official to face jail time for any reason relating to the U.S. torture program. Under a plea deal, Kiriakou admitted to a single count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by revealing the identity of a covert officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. Supporters say Kiriakou is being unfairly targeted for having been the first CIA official to publicly confirm and detail the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding.

An interesting interview.

~Tenth

Its a sad day in America when those who commit war crimes walk free, and those who try to expose said crimes are locked up.

Originally posted by benrl
Its a sad day in America when those who commit war crimes walk free, and those who try to expose said crimes are locked up.

It seems most days are sad in America nowadays.

reply to post by benrl


A sad day indeed.

Perhaps it's high time a discussion about whistle blower rights be had at the national level. I would think the electorate would understand that those who come out of the woodwork to discuss crimes against the people should be protected.

~Tenth

The question is, what are we going to do about it? Sit and lament about it on an internet forum, and go back to our daily lives?

What enables these kinds of immoral things to happen is people's fear of discussing direct action. If you want to see change, DO something about it; take it upon yourself to enact said change, or as Gandhi said, be the change you wish to see in the world.

reply to post by tothetenthpower

Perhaps it's high time a discussion about whistle blower rights be had at the national level.

So get to work on drafting some kind of Whistleblower Protection Act, and seek the help and endorsement of organizations with legal resources to help with such an endeavor. You might look into making connections with the EFF, or the ACLU, and seeing who might be willing to help get such a project off the ground.

reply to post by SilentKoala


We already have something like that in Canada, and not being American, well what am I to do?

Source

It's far from perfect and there are some things I'd want to see changed, but I've written my letters regarding that already .

~Tenth

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by SilentKoala

 

We already have something like that in Canada, and not being American, well what am I to do?

Source

That's awesome! Man, the more and more I learn about some of the laws in other Westernized countries, the more and more I realize that America is not the "land of the free" it claims to be.

We need something like that here, badly.

reply to post by SilentKoala


You know what the difference is?

Attitude.

Lately here in my country we've had an incident where a Canadian Navy officer sell secrets to Russia for a period of time.

He got 20 years. They're still debating removing his pay, and removing him from the military. There were no calls to send him to Gitmo or take his citizenship. Nobody called him an "enemy combatant" and even Canadian Generals came to his defense when our defense minister lied about the impact of his sales on national security.

Source

~Tenth

If I'm not mistaken, Bush & Co. somehow justified waterboarding enemy combatants overseas and it never really was illegal (at least in their minds). Had it been illegal at the time (again in their minds) I suppose people would have been prosecuted. That would be a tough case to prosecute because they use the technique for training in the US military, or at least have in years past.

If this guy revealed the identity of a CIA Operations Agent to a non-CIA, non-cleared individual then no doubt he was violating a security agreement that he would have had to sign as a CIA employee.

So, unfair as it may seem, he really never had a 'whistleblower' leg to stand on. He may have viewed the technique as being illegal, but if it didn't pass the litmus test of the court system, then he wasn't really outing any crime.

Now waterboarding people to extract information. Define torture. Define what the objective is (information). Has the US tortured people? I think so. I think it's a crime to humanity, but then again I thought torching the cabin at Big Bear was a crime (and yes it was deliberate) and a lot of people don't agree with me. If it's not law, it certainly ought to be. If we didn't have our farking noses in the business of so many other countries and if we weren't trying so hard to keep so many countries oppressed and in economic collapse in order to serve our own purposes, then we would never need to torture people in the first place.

Originally posted by lynxpilot
If I'm not mistaken, Bush & Co. somehow justified waterboarding enemy combatants overseas and it never really was illegal (at least in their minds). Had it been illegal at the time (again in their minds) I suppose people would have been prosecuted. That would be a tough case to prosecute because they use the technique for training in the US military, or at least have in years past.

If this guy revealed the identity of a CIA Operations Agent to a non-CIA, non-cleared individual then no doubt he was violating a security agreement that he would have had to sign as a CIA employee.

So, unfair as it may seem, he really never had a 'whistleblower' leg to stand on. He may have viewed the technique as being illegal, but if it didn't pass the litmus test of the court system, then he wasn't really outing any crime.

Now waterboarding people to extract information. Define torture. Define what the objective is (information). Has the US tortured people? I think so. I think it's a crime to humanity, but then again I thought torching the cabin at Big Bear was a crime (and yes it was deliberate) and a lot of people don't agree with me. If it's not law, it certainly ought to be. If we didn't have our farking noses in the business of so many other countries and if we weren't trying so hard to keep so many countries oppressed and in economic collapse in order to serve our own purposes, then we would never need to torture people in the first place.

Here ya go buddy, yer gettin it.....
Every time the goverment is threatened from without or within......they will see to punishing those who stand for the people....anywhere, anytime, everytime........

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

change.gov...

I'm surprised they didn't kill him to 'send a message".

Go against the status quo and you end in jail or dead.

reply to post by lynxpilot

If this guy revealed the identity of a CIA Operations Agent to a non-CIA, non-cleared individual then no doubt he was violating a security agreement that he would have had to sign as a CIA employee.

That's spot on, but his predicament still sucks. He's been deemed a criminal for revealing criminal acts conducted by others. This is why whistle blowers have the book thrown at them, to serve as a warning to the others who would come forward with evidence of criminality by their superiors or colleagues.

But that's the C.I.A for you, dealing with secret and lies since 1947.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I always thought it was a crime to NOT report a crime if you had extensive knowlegde of it?

How can those who come forwards to expose illegal activity, in any area of crime, be considered criminals for reporting on that crime?

Does this mean then that if you witness a bank robbery, you are under a legal obligation to keep your mouth shut and not expose what you saw and know about the robbery and robbers?

The prosecutors and judges in this case, should be carefully investigated for corruption or at least gross incompetence, they seem to think the law is arse about face.

As far as Kiriakou breaking some kind of security oath, it seems the CIA and Government consider their own oaths to be worth about as much as a couple of sheets of toilet paper, since they seem to ignore the fact that they themselves swore to obey the law and protect and defend the consitiution..neither of which they are doing.

If it's good enough for Governemnt and agencies to break their own oaths whenever it suits them, it's sure as hell good enough to break an oath to expose illigality and corruption on a massive scale.

The oath argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Good thread OP and interesting interview...poor bloke. It's going to be a nightmare for him in prison, especially with a young family to worry about.

You mess with the bull, you get the horns, is what you're seeing here.

If you want to whistleblow on these guys, you have to be like Cæsar's wife. This guy had a skeleton in the closet they were able to find and exploit.

I know there are a lot of people on ATS who are not fans of liberals, or especially MSNBC. However, they are going to have a special on at 9pm on Monday 2/18/13 that people reading this thread might be interested in. As I understand it from the clips I have seen, they are going to go back to the lead up of the Iraq war and on through, to do a timeline of everything that was done by the administration to get that war going. Sort of a hind-sight organization of the facts that have been uncovered since that time. It looked pretty interesting. I plan to watch.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


"It's a shame what whistle blowers are being put through by attempting to shed light on the wrongs our governments commit. "


thats because all these idiots want to make a big scene, why not just take the info copy it all and then just release it to all the news stations and release all the infofrom an anon internet cafe, sure people may not get arrested but what ever you are trying to blow the whistle on would be out in the open and would most likey stop or at a minimum find other people to do their jobs because the old ones are outed.

reply to post by SilentKoala


Whistleblower Protection Act- Wikipedia

Guaranteed whistleblowers are being persecuted for their voice. Better get prepared for it. Know your rights if you decide to blow the whistle.

One of the things you cannot do, even if you know it really really bad, is to reveal who is a CIA agent. You can keep the secret to yourself, you can say that Mr. So-and-so did a crime like this and that, but you can't reveal that So-and-so is in the CIA. Okay, well, you can tell the world, if you're an idiot and like lawyers and lawsuits, and big money fines that you can't pay off in a lifetime unless you are a multi-millionaire and have 20 years of spare time to spend in jail.

It's just one of those taboos that the CIA wrote into the system, where they get to be wealthy and take the perks and fame but their identity is as secret as Batman, because if it gets blown, so does their edge in the international political games that they are playing. It has something to do with their trade craft, because if you were a meanie, you could take that intelligence to another country and disclose identities, and so when Covert Agent So-and-so visits a country as a tourist, he gets killed by the natives because you told them he was a spy.

Then it gets uglier for you because there are international courts. Maybe after that, a USA attorney wants to have you arrested for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country, a violation of the FARA, or Foreign Agents Registration Act.

It's unfair. How come neighbor Jack gets to tell whoever he wants that he's in the CIA, but then you are pressured by law to not reveal things the same way Jack does? It does feel like a break of the freedom of speech.

Oh the irony, revealing identity to a freelance reporter, who kept it to himself. I imagine that the reporter, in theory, has the potential for being a CIA agent too, which may have been the reason why Kiriakou chose that reporter to talk to in the first place.

What is the big surprise? I think the CIA is the biggest national employer of sociopaths. Normal doesn't occur in a group like that.