Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who is serving a thirty-month sentence in prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, has written another letter. It expresses support for former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has exposed secret US government surveillance programs and policies, and provided a glimpse of the ever-expanding massive surveillance apparatus the government has built.
Kiriakou was the first member of the CIA to publicly acknowledge that torture was official US policy under the administration of President George W. Bush. He was convicted in October of last year of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) when he provided the name of an officer involved in the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program to a reporter and sentenced in January of this year. He reported to prison on February 28 (which was also the day that Pfc. Bradley Manning pled guilty to some offenses and read a statement in military court at Fort Meade).
This is the second letter to be published by Firedoglake since Kiriakou went to prison. He sent it to his attorney, Jesselyn Radack, of the Government Accountability Project.
In the letter, Kiriakou offers advice to Snowden from his experience, suggesting that he “find the best national security attorneys money can buy.” He suggests establishing a website for supporters to follow his case, get his side of the story and make donations to support his defense.
Also, he declares, “You’re going to need the support of prominent Americans and groups who can explain to the public why what you did is so important.” He recommends reaching out to the American Civil Liberties Union, Government Accountability Project and other organizations like them who value individual freedoms and can advise him.
His “most important advice,” as he writes, is to “not, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI.”
Based off experience, he adds, “FBI agents will lie, trick and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you.”
Kiriakou had spent his adult life working with the CIA. They asked him to come in for questioning in January 2012. He was willing to do anything to help. An hour into the interview, he realized he was the one under investigation. In fact, a search warrant was being executed on his house and, from that point forward right up until sentencing, the FBI followed him wherever he went tracking his every move, even when he was with his family.
According to Kiriakou, the FBI also tried to set him up. As he told Firedoglake before he was sentenced to prison:
In the summer of 2010, a foreign intelligence officer offered me cash in exchange for classified information. I turned down the pitch and I immediately reported it to the FBI. So, the FBI asked me to take the guy out to lunch and to ask him what information he wanted and how much information he was willing to give me for it. They were going to put two agents at a nearby table. They ended up canceling the two agents but they asked me to go ahead with the lunch so I did.
After the lunch, I wrote a long memo to the FBI — and I did this four or five times.It turns out – and we only learned this three or four weeks ago – there never was a foreign intelligence officer. It was an FBI agent pretending to be an intelligence officer and they were trying to set me up on an Espionage Act charge but I repeatedly reported the contact so I foiled them in their effort to set me up.
Snowden has mentioned Kiriakou. He considers him an example of “how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures.” He was aware of his case before he blew the whistle and it was a preview of what he needed to prepare for after his act of conscience.
In a previous letter, Kiriakou detailed his life in prison, including an incident in which prison officials attempted setup a confrontation between Kiriakou and a Muslim prisoner, telling Kiriakou he was the uncle of the Times Square bomber, when in reality the imam was in prison for refusing to testify in the Lackawanna Six case. Prison officials also lied to the Muslim prisoner, telling him that Kiriakou had called Washington after they met and had been ordered to kill him.
Firedoglake supports the right of prisoners like Kiriakou to exercise their First Amendment rights from within the walls of prison. It is unknown what retaliation, if any, Kiriakou has experienced as a result of his decision to begin writing “Letters from Loretto.” But, as an organization, we stand ready to support him if the Bureau of Prisons is subjecting him to mistreatment because he has chosen to be public about what he is experiencing in prison.
Below is the second “Letter from Loretto” from Kiriakou:
Transcript:
“Letter From Loretto”
An Open Letter to Edward Snowden
Dear Ed:
Thank you for your revelations of government wrong-doing over the past week. You have done the country a great public service. I know that it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders right now, but as Americans begin to realize that we are devolving into a police state, with the loss of civil liberties that entails, they will see your actions for what they are: heroic. Remember the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” That is what’s happening to our country now. Your whistleblowing will help to save us.
I wanted to offer you the benefit of my own whistleblowing experience and aftermath so that you don’t make the same mistakes that I made.
First, find the best national security attorneys money can buy. I was blessed to be represented by legal titans and, although I was forced to take a plea in the end, the shortness of my sentence is a testament to their expertise.
Second, establish a website so that your supporters can follow your case, get your side of the story, and most importantly, make donations to support your defense.
Third, you’re going to need the support of prominent Americans and groups who can explain to the public why what you did is so important. Although most members of Congress are mindless lemmings following our national security leadership over a cliff, there are several clear thinkers on The Hill who could be important sources of support. Cultivate them. Reach out to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Government Accountability Project and others like them who value our individual freedoms and who can advise you.
Finally, and this is the most important advice that I can offer, DO NOT, 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 a part of the problem, not the solution.
I wish you the very best of luck. I hope you can get to Iceland quickly and safely. There you will find a people and a government who care about the freedoms that we hold dear and for which our forefathers and veterans fought and died.
Sincerely,
John Kiriakou
–
John loves receiving your letters and responds to each one he gets. You may write to him at:
John Kiriakou, 79637-083
PO Box 1000
FCI Loretto
Loretto, PA
15940



44 Comments


Whatever you do, don’t trust the FBI. Says a lot about what FBI has become–the secret police.
Well, in my recollection, they’ve always been that way. See: Hoover, J. Edgar. See also: COINTELPRO.
Citizens who say “What? Me, Worry? Why? I have nothing to hide.” Perhaps you truly do not. That doesn’t mean that something cannot or will not be *made up* and used against you.
Think it never happens and/or never will happen?
Think about that again… really think about that.
Then ask people about that who used to live in the former East Germany.
Scumbags… Plenty of examples to prove it.
Thank you for publishing John Kiraikou’s letter. It is important. I hope that Edward Snowden can follow his advice… to the letter.
FWIW, I agree with what Kiriakou writes in his letter, even though I am lucky enough not to have endured what he has.
Seriously. Their evil entrapment tricks didn’t work on Kiriakou, but they have worked on younger, more naive and impressionable people. Shame on those instigating assholes.
Does this mean I can’t believe Without a Trace? Or NUMB3RS? Devastation. Television police fantasties contribute heavily to the public’s opinions about policing as benign and patriotic. And to the religious devotion to police lab “science” as incontrovertible evidence.
Hence the necessity of a data collection, storage and retrieval system so anything you say, do, or “think,” can be used against you when the winds of politics change, memories fade and the same historical piles of camel’s dung get stepped in again.
A couple nights before Kiriakou went to prison he was at my house for dinner. After he left he said there was an FBI car sitting outside tailing him. Apparently they don’t trust him either.
That is one brave man. Is there such a thing as a Sakharov award fr this kind of bravery?
See you on the other side, my friend.
Jane, now that you’re on-line, let me thank you once again for the work you did in getting Bradley Manning’s torture publicized. That rooster has come home in Snowden’s defence of his refusal to turn himself in and in the international community’s (though not their government’s) support of that decision. What goes around…
>
horrifying example – supreme court jurists seem to get their info on torture from TV not from science, the law and/or history..
“a Canadian judge remarked, “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?’ ”
Justice Scalia responded with a defense of Agent Bauer, arguing that law enforcement officials deserve latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles . . . . He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia reportedly said. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” He then posed a series of questions to his fellow judges: “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer?” ”
source : wsj law blog via globe and mail (2007)
Thanks for publishing this.
COINTELPRO was before my time, so up till now I was happy to believe that the FBI stopped spying on people. Even a cynic like me wants to believe in liberty and freedom and all that. I should have known better, but I wanted to believe.
An exceptional clown performance, that.
Ya’ know. Lots of people got confused when they had their own TV show back in the sixties. ‘Cuz of Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. and his partner, Stephen something or other I think. No doubt they do good things for us citizens. Just, not much lately.
Indeed, Kevin, fine job. Really fine job.
Is it just me or do the rest of you feel like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are fading away like the photo in “Back to the Future“???
As an aside, since FDL has been such a terrific source for supporting whistleblowers, I’d love to see a post about Russ Tice talking about NSA wiretapping Senators, Supreme Court Justices, Obama and others.
I’m not real sure that our actions are not more KGB than Jack Bauer.
Pretty soon, they’re gonna need a bigger prison.
Soon after Glenn Greenwald wrote his first NSA/Snowden story I pulled a thank you card from my file and addressed it to John Kiriakou. Bless his heart, he wrote back thanking me, noting that the support from the public helps him get through the day. Having never written to an inmate in federal prison I’m curious what else I’d be able to send him. Does anyone know what is allowed and what is forbidden?
I thought that’s what the FEMA camps were for.
That’s when they’re going to build fences around our borders.
>
in regards the controllers and the controlled :
‘the bigger the bullshit feeded (sic), the bigger the brother needed’
g.singlaub
Yes, I know that you did, and therein lies the problem. MOST USians want to *believe* that, as well.
Simply: Not True.
COINTELPRO may have ended some time ago, but the Fibbies never stopped their entrapment techniques and projects. In fact, they just became more intent on it. Same with many PDs. My advice re any PD: stay away from them if you can. Police have a very difficult job, but never think that they won’t go after you, if they think they can.
It’s just gotten much worse in my lifetime. MUCH worse.
Again: think someone won’t make something up and pin it on you?? Guess again.
Exactly.
And quite honestly, USians most definitely DO confuse TV shows (and movies and books) with reality. Not trying to be mean, but that’s a fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
America has a lot of practice and a long history of backing repressive regimes, for oil.
Iran’s Savak was brutal and CIA trained. No “whistle blowers” back then, and in many other counties. Libya, Iraq, Egypt.
Now our government with corporations have taken it to the next level and use the most advanced technologies developed to gather intelligence and store it? For what purpose? Look how they treated Kiriakou, for exposing torture, a war crimes. This should give anybody pause given the “actions” taken to protect vested interests viewed in a much larger time frame than the post 911 mindset. My instinct don’t like where this is going at all….
Don’t forget NCIS (Amerika’s Number One-Rated Show!!!) Yes, massive 3-D computer screens everywhere, with one touch of button, they can bring up any information needed. Then the pretty government spy people turn to the computer screens, pout, and bam! off to get the bad guys.
Yes, TV is so real.
It’s not just that. More likely it will be some incompetent government fool who doesn’t even know you but whose actions will affect you.
Brazil – Tuttle -fly- Buttle. It’s that easy.
I’ve been salivating for that story? Who authorized the tap and why? Most likely a textbook example of: “abuse of power.” Just normal procedure for US Senators? Or is Tice, like Da Vinci? Under extreme scrutiny, lets say!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Tice
That was in 2005. How “Prophetic.”
Kevin and FDL, thank you for publishing this letter.
The FBI was that from its beginning.
Write and ask him.
Can you share his address in prison? I’d also like to write.
It was included in his letter in March:
John Kiriakou, 79637-083, PO Box 1000, FCI Loretto, Loretto PA 15940
I’ve been meaning to write him myself.
-John Kiriakou
79637-083
Federal Correctional Institution Loretto
POBox 1000
Loretto, PA 15940
Our government is sick and twisted, and it’s getting worse.
Hope and Change, my ass.
~
I haven’t followed Kiriakou, but… King O tried to set him up? Unreal. The extent to which Team O will go to prove their righteousness and value in protecting
their portion of federal wastethe American people.Loretto has its own prison handbook.
http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/lor/LOR_aohandbook.pdf
INCOMING PUBLICATIONS: FCI Loretto permits inmates to subscribe to and receive publications without prior approval. The term “publication” means a book, single issue of a magazine or newspaper, or materials addressed to a specific inmate, such as advertising brochures, flyers, and catalogs. An inmate may receive soft-cover publications (paperback books, etc.) from any source. An inmate may receive hardcover publications and publications from a publisher or bookstore only.
Hmm, this is interesting…
Every inmate will have an established trust fund account out of which they can withdraw funds to make purchases or to satisfy family and/or legal obligations.
Any outside source(s) who wish to send an inmate money can do so via a U.S. Postal Money Order to the National Lockbox (refer back to page 32 for the address). The inmate’s name and registration number must be shown on the money order. Failure to do this will result in the money order being returned to the sender… All monies or negotiable instruments must be sent to the National Lockbox Location at the following address:
Federal Bureau of Prisons
John Kiriakou
79637-083
Post Office Box 474701
Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001
—————-
The FBI has not become the secret police. That’s what the FBI has been from its inception.
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/fbi_hist.htm
Of course, the write up implies that was then and the agency has undergone a series of “professionalizations,” including one by *snort* J. Edgar Hoover.
How many agencies spy, I wonder? The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, Homeland Security and the Secret Service are on the tip of my tongue, but there are probably more. And that’s only on the federal level, and that we know about.
Even local law enforcement is purchasing surveillance drones, the cameras placed all over our street apparently not being quite satisfying enough.
This is why comparisons to Nazi Germany and Russia in the 1960s just don’t cut it. Their surveillance was oh, so primitive, and could not hold a candle to ours.
Creepier and creepier.
Tried?
thank you, beowulf.
I have a feeling some direct contributions, even small ones, would speak a hell of a lot louder than adding one’s name to an internet petition, which, IMO, only draw laughter or yawns from D.C.
haha… yeah… but to the extent that Kiriakou rejected the cash, they only “tried.”
I’ve been a member of my Town Council in the past, including at a time when we had two separate “active shooter” situations. I strongly believe that law enforcement should have quick, easy access to drones in such situations. With a video camera, they could be incredibly helpful by approaching windows, going over fences, etc.
They’d also need to some pretty strict governance / use rules. But on balance, it’s a risk I’d take.