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John Kiriakou spent 14 years at the CIA and two years in a federal prison for blowing the whistle on the agency's use of torture. He served on John Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations Committee for two years as senior investigator into the Middle East. He writes and speaks about national security, whistleblowing, the prison-industrial complex, and foreign policy, and is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and winner of the 2015 PEN Center USA First Amendment award.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 29, 2020 JOHN KIRIAKOU: "Tough Luck" for US Prisoners During COVID-19
Prison wardens and the federal Bureau of Prisons almost never use their compassionate release authorities, even though Congress recently made it easier for them to do so.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 31, 2016 The Case Against Whistleblower Thomas Tamm, Ethics or Retribution?
The DC bar should be demanding that the Justice Department protect national security whistleblowers, not harass, indict, and prosecute them. It should then work to protect those whistleblowers. If the Justice Department took whistleblower disclosures seriously and investigated accusations of official waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality, there wouldn't need to be leaks to the press.
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, February 10, 2017 Is a Military Coup OK if the President Is Abusive?
The only way forward is to resist. We have to stay in the streets. We have to keep up the momentum in the movement that seems to be coming out of the demonstrations we've seen and participated in since the inauguration. We have to focus on voter registration and turnout. We have to push our elected officials to bottle up the Trump agenda in Congress. But what we don't have to do is encourage a coup.
SHARE Thursday, December 28, 2017 Can #MeToo Reach the Hidden Victims?
The #MeToo movement is one of the most important societal watersheds in recent history. It's an example of karma, even justice; it's an example of the bad guy paying for his malfeasance. The likes of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and others will likely never be in a position to hurt anyone again. That's good for all of us.
SHARE Friday, January 13, 2017 Every Illness Is a Potential Death Sentence in a U.S. Prison
Only rarely has anybody in a position of authority been held to account for their actions. This may be changing, though, as more and more civil suits are filed against governments and prison systems and as more and more crooked cops are brought to justice. That justice usually does not include prison time. But the trend is in the right direction.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 25, 2015 Donald Trump and the Legacy of Joe McCarthy
Perhaps the most egregious and obvious reason to not support Trump is his unapologetic support of George W. Bush's torture regime. Trump said only a week ago that he would bring back waterboarding and other forms of torture employed by the Bush administration. Americans need to stop the Trump abomination now. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past. Trump has to go.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, November 13, 2020 JOHN KIRIAKOU: The Depressing State of US Politics
There's a lot wrong, including the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and the members of Biden's national security transition team. The sole hope involves the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 3, 2017 Phillip Chance Never Killed Anyone, but Jeff Sessions Did
Phillip Chance is just one man. His is just one case. But it is an example of everything that is wrong with the American judicial system. It's not a system that seeks or pursues justice. It's a system that seeks punishment. There is no rehabilitation. There is no compassion. There's just punishment. And even then, we're backsliding.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 23, 2015 A Racist Wake-Up Call
Ahmed Mohamed is the 14-year-old who was recently interrogated, arrested, and suspended from his Irving, Texas high school for bringing a clock he made as an engineering project to class. The school said it looked like a bomb. Ahmed had wanted to impress his teachers. Instead, he exposed their racism and became an instant celebrity.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 15, 2016 Exposing the Injustice of Vengeance Against the Convicted
We live in a system that seeks vengeance against those convicted of crimes, wants them to continue to suffer, both during and after release.
That's why there's no public outcry against the human and civil rights violations that current and former prisoners face every day. That's why there's no public outcry when prisoners die unnecessarily in prison because of substandard medical care.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 19, 2018 How the FBI Silences Whistleblowers
Most whistleblowers either suffer in anonymity or are personally, professionally, socially and financially ruined for speaking truth to power. Darin Jones is one of those people. He's one of the people silenced in Barack Obama's war on whistleblowers. And he continues to suffer under Donald Trump.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 9, 2018 Gina Haspel Debate Spotlights America's Soul Sickness
The Trump administration wants you to forget the CIA's sordid history of torture. It wants you to believe that the torture program was legal, that it was patriotic, that it was necessary to protect Americans -- lies that were dispensed with before the Bush people even left office. The Trump administration wants you to believe that Haspel is the only perfect candidate for the job.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 16, 2020 Was the Decision to Let Manafort Go Home Political?
The entire system is broken. The misguided "get tough on crime" attitude in Washington has made us a prison state unlike any other in the world. As Americans, we like to think that we're (usually) led by the best and brightest. Certainly the best and brightest can come up with a justice system where there's some actual "justice."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 8, 2018 Giving Trump Carte Blanche for War
A little-noticed Senate bill would give Donald Trump blanket permission to launch wars in violation of the Constitution, says John Kiriakou.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, June 18, 2018 The IG Report Says the FBI Is Deeply Flawed. I Know.
The FBI is corrupt. The entire system is corrupt. There's one version of the law for you and me and another version for the FBI. The Inspector General laid it all bare. Now let's see if anybody does anything about it. Don't hold your breath.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 20, 2017 Stelios Kouloglou: Why Travel Bans Don't Work
Are we Americans such hothouse flowers that any criticism of our government or its policies brands a person an Enemy of the State? What happened to freedom of speech? What happened to the free exchange of ideas? Since when did it become dangerous to say that the U.S. invasion of another country, done in contravention of international law and the United Nations charter, was illegal? It was illegal!
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, February 27, 2017 CPB Demands ID to Get Off Domestic Flight -- Not Legal
Most Americans simply don't know what their rights are, either on domestic flights or at the border. the ACLU says you can be searched at the border. The Fourth Amendment notwithstanding, CBP does not need probable cause or reasonable suspicion to search you. Again, though, you can request to speak to your attorney if you're an American citizen.