General Discussion

snot

(10,540 posts) Thu Apr 10, 2014, 02:45 PM Apr 2014

The only person to go to prison over CIA torture is . . .

. . . the man who pulled back the curtain on it, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou; and he's been subjected to illegal retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights while in prison.

Those who have been following John's story already know the abuses he's suffered while in prison: Officials have conducted surprise searches of his cell, attempted to remove his writing desk and threatened him with 'diesel therapy' {all in an effort to stop his letters to the press concerning his conditions. "diesel therapy is the practice of continually transferring a prisoner from one facility to another, so they're always in a truck, train, or plane and unable to communicate even with family, let alone the press}.

Later this month, the Bureau of Prisons is set to formally decide on how much time he will get in a halfway house, where he can be closer to his friends and family.

But after reporting that the BOP was going back on their deal, FDL's Kevin Gosztola and Jane Hamsher visited him at Loretto and found the bureau was going even further by threatening to reduce John's halfway house time to a mere 86 days in a location far from his family.

The BOP appears to be ramping up the pressure on Kiriakou . . . .

More at http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/02/17/imprisoned-cia-whistleblower-threatened-with-diesel-therapy-suffers-shakedowns-for-press-communications/

15 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

The only person to go to prison over CIA torture is . . . (Original Post) snot Apr 2014 OP

Probably could use a kick... hootinholler Apr 2014 #1

Good question. Where are the whistle-blower haters. nm rhett o rick Apr 2014 #2

they're all in engaged in a circle jerk over in the Glenn Greenwald thread.. frylock Apr 2014 #4

Yep BlindTiresias Apr 2014 #3

good summary nt G_j Apr 2014 #8

Kiriakou isn't any sort of "whistle-blower" on torture: in his 10 December 2007 interview struggle4progress Apr 2014 #5

"Kiriakou wasn't there; " JEB Apr 2014 #6

"Torture apologist jailed for something else" is a subtle concept in some circles, I guess struggle4progress Apr 2014 #10

The only person to go to jail for Iran-Contra RainDog Apr 2014 #7

(Talk about working overtime . . . ) snot Apr 2014 #9

Only Telcom guy to go to jail wouldn't spy on America... Octafish Apr 2014 #11

Important for folks to remember these facts. K&R Jefferson23 Apr 2014 #14

''Everyone is corrupt I’ve come to learn'' Octafish Apr 2014 #12

Didn't ya hear, we're just supposed to forget all about WAR CRIMES IN OUR NAME Corruption Inc Apr 2014 #13

K&R woo me with science Apr 2014 #15

hootinholler

(26,449 posts)

1. Probably could use a kick...

Reply to snot (Original post)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 03:55 PM

Apr 2014

Where are the intelligencia apologists?

rhett o rick

(55,981 posts)

2. Good question. Where are the whistle-blower haters. nm

Reply to hootinholler (Reply #1)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 04:26 PM

Apr 2014

frylock

(34,825 posts)

4. they're all in engaged in a circle jerk over in the Glenn Greenwald thread..

Reply to rhett o rick (Reply #2)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:11 PM

Apr 2014

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014777077

BlindTiresias

(1,563 posts)

3. Yep

Reply to snot (Original post)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 04:52 PM

Apr 2014

Attempt to operate within the law and get slammed by technicalities in order imprison you which over-eager legalists will use as a ay to discredit the totality of your claims if not the intent in disclosing them. Or escape and remain free.

Anyone who says he should have tried to criticize from within the structure is ignoring SCOTUS decisions on what government employees can say to their superiors. Since Pickering a public employee can ONLY disclose matters in the public interest as a citizen, any attempts to criticize entirely from within would be met with termination of employment. In order to state a matter of public interest they must express the opinion as a citizen, however his claims are worthless unless he can give specific details. The specific details are what violated the IIPA and the Espionage Act. There is effectively no recourse left in the system but exit from the system entirely as disclosing the matters of public concern will invariably destroy your career, freedom, or both if you stay within the reach of the law.

G_j

(40,372 posts)

8. good summary nt

Reply to BlindTiresias (Reply #3)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:45 PM

Apr 2014

struggle4progress

(118,379 posts)

5. Kiriakou isn't any sort of "whistle-blower" on torture: in his 10 December 2007 interview

Reply to snot (Original post)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:15 PM

Apr 2014

with NBC's Brian Ross, Kiriakou was arguing in favor of waterboarding -- and to make this argument, Kiriakou claimed to know from personal experience that Abu Zubaydah had completely cracked after just 30 seconds of waterboarding and had then revealed everything he knew

None of this was true: Kiriakou wasn't there; Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded more than 80 times; and no important information ever came from waterboarding anyone

Despite what the crackpots at Firedoglake suggest, the bottom line is that Kiriakou was just another lying apologist for the Bush administration's torturers

Moreover (and again despite what the crackpots at Firedoglake suggest), Kiriakou was not tried or convicted for blowing the whistle on torture: he was sentenced for violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act

People can't think straight if they can't get the facts right first: IMO sites like Firedoglake work overtime to fuck-up everybody's thinking with a constant stream of bullshit

JEB

(4,748 posts)

6. "Kiriakou wasn't there; "

Reply to struggle4progress (Reply #5)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:39 PM

Apr 2014

"Kiriakou wasn't there; Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded more than 80 times; and no important information ever came from waterboarding anyone." ....and yet he is the only one associated with the torture program that is doing time. If revealing sensitive information even while in the act of exposing the illegal and very damaging program of systematic torture in Kiriakou's case, then why isn't Leon Panetta do his own share of time? Panetta let important classified material slip just to aid a propaganda film.

struggle4progress

(118,379 posts)

10. "Torture apologist jailed for something else" is a subtle concept in some circles, I guess

Reply to JEB (Reply #6)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:49 PM

Apr 2014

RainDog

(28,784 posts)

7. The only person to go to jail for Iran-Contra

Reply to snot (Original post)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:41 PM

Apr 2014

was a liberal activist/minister who lives in Indiana - and arrested for removing a "John Poindexter" street sign - as related by Zinn in his people's history.

snot

(10,540 posts)

9. (Talk about working overtime . . . )

Reply to snot (Original post)

Thu Apr 10, 2014, 05:45 PM

Apr 2014

The excerpt below is from Wikipedia, which may not be perfect, but it is at least an account that has been contested by more than one person claiming expertise on the subject:

John Kiriakou . . . is notable as the first official within the U.S. government to confirm the use of waterboarding of al-Qaeda prisoners as an interrogation technique, which he described as torture.
On October 22, 2012, Kiriakou pled guilty to disclosing classified information about a fellow CIA officer that connected the covert operative to a specific operation. Kiriakou thus became the second CIA officer convicted of violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the first for passing along classified information to a reporter, although the reporter did not publish the name of the operative. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison on January 25, 2013 . . . . Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence adviser to Barack Obama who turned down an offer to be considered for CIA director in 2009, has sent the President a letter signed by eighteen other CIA veterans urging that the sentence be commuted.
. . . In 2012, Kiriakou received the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage for standing up for constitutional rights.
* * *
On December 10, 2007, Kiriakou gave an interview to ABC News where he was described as participating in the capture and questioning of Abu Zubaydah, who is accused of having been an aide to Osama Bin Laden. Kiriakou, who did not witness the waterboarding, said he had been told by CIA associates, it had taken only a single brief instance of waterboarding to extract answers to an interrogator's questions from Abu Zubaydah.
...He was able to withstand the waterboarding for quite some time. And by that I mean probably 30, 35 seconds...and a short time afterwards, in the next day or so, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate.
Eventually it was reported that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded at least 83 times, and that little or no useful extra information may have been gained by "harsh methods". Kiriakou was under the mistaken belief from the CIA that Zubayda was waterboarded only once, and even that single instance he described as a form of torture and expressed reservations about whether the value of the information was worth the damage done to the United States' reputation.
Kiriakou's accounts of Abu Zubaydah's waterboarding, and the relatively mild nature of it, were widely repeated, and paraphrased, and he became a regular guest expert on news and public affairs shows, on the topics of interrogation, and counter-terrorism.
On July 3, 2013, Kiriakou published an open letter, on Firedoglake, warning former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to . . . anticipate FBI officials, wearing clandestine listening devices, may attempt to betray him, and to entrap him into making comments that heard out of context, would seem incriminating.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)

11. Only Telcom guy to go to jail wouldn't spy on America...

Reply to snot (Original post)

Fri Apr 11, 2014, 07:24 AM

Apr 2014

Only One Big Telecom CEO Refused To Cave To The NSA ... And He's Been In Jail For 4 Years

MICHAEL KELLEY JUN. 12, 2013, 2:44 PM
BusinessInsider.com

Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio is currently serving a six-year sentence after being convicted of insider trading in April 2007 for selling $52 million of stock in the spring of 2001 as the telecommunications carrier appeared to be deteriorating.

During the trial his defense team argued that Nacchio, 63, believed Qwest was about to win secret government contracts that would keep it in the black.

Nacchio alleged that the government stopped offering the company lucrative contracts after Qwest refused to cooperate with a National Security Agency surveillance program in February 2001.

That claim gains new relevance these days, amid leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden that allege widespread domestic surveillance by the NSA.

Back in 2006 Leslie Cauley of USA Today, citing multiple people with direct knowledge of the arrangement, reported that shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks America's three largest telecoms signed contracts to provide the NSA with detailed call records from hundreds of millions of people across the country.

CONTINUED at a buggy POS website...

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph-nacchio-and-the-nsa-2013-6

Pattern of corruption by the national security statees, let alone its apologists.

Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)

14. Important for folks to remember these facts. K&R

Reply to Octafish (Reply #11)

Fri Apr 11, 2014, 02:18 PM

Apr 2014

Octafish

(55,745 posts)

12. ''Everyone is corrupt I’ve come to learn''

Reply to snot (Original post)

Fri Apr 11, 2014, 07:37 AM

Apr 2014

It's like going to the police station to report a bank robbery and finding the sergeant at the desk was one of the robbers.

Imprisoned CIA Whistle-Blower John Kiriakou Has Advice for Edward Snowden

“Everyone is corrupt, I’ve come to learn”

by Thomas Hedges
Published on Friday, July 12, 2013 by Salon

John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who blew the whistle on Bush’s torture program and is now in prison, sent an open letter to Edward Snowden last week warning him not to trust the FBI.

“DO NOT,” Kiriakou wrote, “under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI. FBI agents will lie, trick, and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you. They will pretend to be people they are not – supporters, well-wishers, and friends – all the while wearing wires to record your out-of-context statements to use against you. The FBI is the enemy; it’s part of the problem, not the solution.”

These are the words of a registered Republican who voted for Gary Johnson, whom the Rosenberg Fund for Children denied a grant, informing him that he wasn’t “liberal enough,” Kiriakou says, for the award — and who last year received a birthday card from Jerry Falwell Jr.

Kiriakou is the first CIA veteran to be imprisoned. It was after he blew the whistle on Bush’s torture program that the CIA, FBI and Justice Department came down on him, at first charging him with aiding the enemy and later convicting him of disclosing the identities of undercover colleagues at the CIA.

SNIP...

[font color="red"]“In this weird, roundabout way,” he told me then, “the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA made me the anti-torture guy, which I never set out to be … But over the years,” despite the initial intentions, “my feelings have grown stronger and stronger” against torture, “that torture is not right under any circumstances.”[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/12-0

Hmmm. When he objected to the torture program, FBI and CIA made him out to be a guy who wouldn't go along. Wonder what the next step was?

Corruption Inc

(1,568 posts)

13. Didn't ya hear, we're just supposed to forget all about WAR CRIMES IN OUR NAME

Reply to snot (Original post)

Fri Apr 11, 2014, 02:15 PM

Apr 2014

It's just another topic that's for sale in our whore media.

woo me with science

(32,139 posts)

15. K&R

Reply to snot (Original post)

Fri Apr 11, 2014, 05:11 PM

Apr 2014

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